Show MYSTERY OF LOST FLYERS planes have vanished without leaving a trace while the list of flyers naho have loft left behind them only threadbare clues as to the cause of their disappearance grows steadily longer often the evidence is so circumstantial circum st anti a it fails ails to provide a satisfactory conclusion cl according to postmaster reay such a mystery lias has confronted the 11 arine corps since october 8 1927 when 2nd and earl A thomas and his observer mgt frank 11 dowdell disappeared while on a patrol flight in ni caragna cafagna ca ragna the wreckage of their plane was located but the flyers bodies were never found another marine pilot saw the flyers ern crash li into a mountain and scramble out of their wrecked plane as it burst into flames the pilot then flew to the he nearest outpost for aid returning to drop a message to the marooned aviators that help was on oil the way it was the last time that they were mceu by any of their comrades two clarine corps patrols tried to locate the lost men the first ans trapped by a large group of bandits and barely escaped while four of the native guardsman guardsmen guards men ell who accompanied the group were killed A second party found nothing but the wrecked plane friendly natives reported that the two iwo flyers had removed a machine ma clillie gun glin from their plane and lad had coin compelled two hostile natives to let act ns as guides one of the guides treacherously u ly turned on one of the marines cut off his arm with a stroke of a machette ma cliette the attacker was avas killed but his coin panion escaped to rally a force of forty or fifty bandits who surrounded the maimed aviator and his ob ner where they had barricaded barricades barrica ded them les alves in in a cave their lives were snuffed out when d a dynamite charge blasted the barricade and two bombs were thrown into their shelter efforts to locate the cave or to verify the native accounts with wilh further evi evidence ence fai tailed cd an official inquiry was vas held A year later the names of the hie heroic flyers were stricken from froyln the marine corps rolls |