Evening Capital And Maryland Gazette

BODIES MERE SKELETONS.
Only One of Victims of Submarine F-4 Disaster is Identified.

Naval officers in charge of the wrecked United States submarine F-4 indicated yesterday there was scant hope of establishing the identities of the twenty-one bodies still held in the aft compartment of the vessel. The bodies, of which little is left except bare skeletons, were located Tuesday, mixed with the debris of the sea. Of the crew of twenty-two men, who went to their death when the F-4 dived during maneuvers in Honolulu harbor on March 25, only one body has positively been identified, that of George T. Ashcroft, of Los Angeles, Cal. It was estimated yesterday that at least three days would be required to clear the interior of bodies and debris. Two more bodies were found late yesterday by the men engaged in clearing the hull of the submarine, and one of them was believed by Lieut. Kirby B. Crittenden, member of the naval board of inquiry, to be the remains of Alfred Ede or of Ensign Timothy A. Parker. An officer's cap found near one of the bodies in the afterpart of the battery compartment led to the belief that the body was that of an officer. The insignia on the cap was gone and the bodies were so decomposed that identification was impossible. A small note book, with much of its contents illegible, was found, but there was nothing in it that would clear the mystery of the vessel's sinking. It contained records of the submarine's battery, according to Lieutenant Crittenden. Fresh air has been forced into the forward compartment of the submarine to facilitate work there, but this compartment has not yet been entered in the search for bodies of the twenty-two men who went down with the vessel in Honolulu Bay.