THE
OLDEST NEWSPAPER IN ALASKA—MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS _
62nd Year No. 53 NOME. ALASKA, FRIDAY, MAY 5, 1961_Per Copy 15^
Nenana Ice Goes
Out at 11:31 a.in.
FAIRBANKS </P> — The Nenana
ice went out at 11:31 a. m. today.
It was a $76,000 pool which is to
be divided among a dozen ticket
holders. Each will receive $6,333.33
(before taxes).
Ticket holders were Jay Eye i
Co., Dizzy Dollar Pool, Grandma’s
Lucky Pool. BLM Load Pool, Elsie
Mason Co,, Rexall Denali Pool,
ACS Co-Op Co., Mrs. Betty H.
Williams, Chuc k’s Upholstery
Pool, Dan Egan Co., Don John
son Co., and Lahja Luutstinen Co.
There was no spectacular break
up this year. The ice was rotted
until the pressure of an ice jam
nudged the tripod downstream
far enough to trip the guarded
clock and decide the lucky win
ners.
The payoff continues to >be less
each year. Last year $80,000 was
paid out. The 1959 winners had
$93,000 to be divided and in 1958
there was $104,500 in the pool.
Duck Hunters
Stage “Shootout”
With F&WL Agents
JUNEAU UP> — Seven Eskimos
who were duck hunting illegally
near Bethel have been jailed after
they conducted a “wild west”
style gun battle with U. S. Fish
and Wildlife agents.
According to Fish and Wildlife
regional headquarters here, the
Eskimos were spotted shooting
birds in a nesting area. The agents
who spotted them, Jim Branson
and Neil Argy, were flying in a
Cessna light plane which they
landed on the ice near the hunt
ers. The hunters then opened fire
on the agents with shotguns and
rifles.
The agents leaped back into
their plane and made a radio call
for assistance to another Fish and
Wildlife plane that was flying
nearby.
Agents Ray Tremblay and Milt
Zahn answered the call for help,
and attempted to land their Super
cub on the ice alongside the Ces
sna.
As the Cub came down, the
hunters opened fire on the air
craft, striking the plane in the
air but missing the two men in
it.
After the plane completed its
landing in a hail of bullets and
shotgun lead, the agents opened
fire on the Eskimo hunters, but
shot over their heads. As the agents
approached, shooting, the hunters
fled across the tundra. One of
them was captured by the agents.
Later the FBI was called in,
and investigators of this agency
rounded up the remainder of the
hunters.
One hunter was a 15-year-old
Eskimo youth who attempted to
hit an FBI man over the head
with a chair while he was being
questioned.
The men are being held in jail
in Anchorage an assualt charges.
11 Soviet Journalists to Visit U.S.
LONDON UP) — A party of 11
Soviet journalists led by Victor
Mayevsky, foreign editor of Prav
da, the Communist party paper,
left for New York today to be
guests for three weeks of the
American Society of Newspaper
Editors.
Among the cities they will visit
are Chicago, Los Angeles, San
Francisco and Washington.
High-Altitude
Balloonist Drowns
On Ocean Landing
By Stan Atkins
ABOARD ANTIETAM, Gulf of
Mexico (j'P' — A Navy medical of
ficer soared from the deck of the
aircraft carrier Antietam to the
greatest height ever reached by
man in a balloon, then drowned
after a 25-foot fall from a rescue
helicopter’s harness.
The officer, Lt. Cmdr. Victor A.
Prather of Bethesda, Md., helped
set the altitude record yesterday j
as scientific observer and com
panion to Cmdr. Malcolm Ross,
the Navy’s veteran balloonist.
Ross was saved without diffi
culty after their troubled descent
from 113,500 feet. He was a help
less witness as Prather lost his
life.
It was only the third ascent for
Prather and he made it plain in
a radio message from the great
height of 21Vfe miles that he was
enjoying the dramatic experience.
Asked how things were going,
Prather, 34, father of two chil
dren, came back with this:
“Things are great. Come on up.”
Trouble arose on the way down.
The rate of descent became too
fast — as much as 1,000 feet a
minute, and the balloonists had
to jettison everything they could.
Officers described their land
ing on the water as near perfect,
and Ross was quickly lifted from
the floating gondola by one of
the three rescue helicopters.
Tragedy struck as Prather fell
backward out of the rescue har
ness and quickly sank under the
weight of his pressure suit.
It would be normal procedure
for the balloonist to open the face
plates as they came back into the
heavier atmosphere and went off
the oxygen they had been breath
ing.
54-Year-Old Jockey to
Make Second Win Bid
For Kentucky Derby
By Orlo Robertson
LOUISVILLE, Ky. UP) — Johnny
Longden, who has been in the
winner’s circle more times than
any other jockey, is leaving noth
ing to chance in a bid for his
second Kentucky Derby victory.
At 54, an age when others would
gladly retire to the rocking chair
or shift to a less hazardous oc
supation, Johnny is as active as
his youthful rivals who’ll join
him in piloting 15 finely-tuned
3-year-old horses over 1V4 miles
at Churchill Downs Saturday in
quest of fame and fortune.
Longden, winner of 5,509 races
in his 34-year career, will be
astride the well regarded Four
and-Twenty when the field breaks
from the barrier at 4:30 p. m. EST
Saturday. Four-and-Twenty is
trained by Johnny’s son, Vance,
31.
If all 15 parade to the post the
race will gross $163,000 with $120,
500 going to the winner.
COSTLY PARKING . . .
NEW YORK UP) — Eugene Dorit
Heil, 40, pleaded guilty in traffic
court to ignoring 196 tickets —
120 for parking in restricted areas,
74 for overtime parking, and one
each for passing a red light and
parking too close to a fire hy
drant.
Heil racked up his record the
past four years. He was held in
$5,000 bail pending sentencing ]
next week. I
U.S. ASTRONAUT ALAN SHEPARD
SAFE AFTER SUB-SPACE FLIGHT
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. tJV
Alan B. Shepard Jr., the first
American to ride a rocket into
space today, exclaimed “what a
beautiful view” as he looked down
on the earth, and then dropped
to a safe landing in the Atlantic.
To the wiry, 37-year-old Navy
commander, the historic adventure
obviously was no more frighten
ing than many earlier flights he
had made in hot experimental air
craft.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he told
Marines on the helicopter that
plucked his space capsule out of
the water after a soaring flight
115 miles above the earth and
302 miles southeast from the Cape
Canaveral launching pad.
His nonchalance gave way to
excitement as he declared “Boy,
what a ride!”
Only 19 minutes after the Red
stone rocket booster blasted off at
9:34 a. m., Shepard climbed out
the escape hatch of the space
craft and was picked up, to be
transferred to the deck of the
aircraft carrier Lake Champlain.
“I don’t think there’s much
i you’ll have to do to me, doc,”
America’s first spaceman remark
ed to examining doctors who
sought to determine if Shepard
suffered physical or pyschological
harm in his flight out of the at
mosphere.
Shepard had radioed from the
weightless void of space that he
could see, through his periscope.
The entire East Coast of the Unit
ed States.
President Kennedy telephoned ;
his congratulations to Shepard on
the carrier and said he was look- |
ing forward to the spaceman’s '
arrival in Washington, when he
will receive a hero’s welcome.
Only the Beginning
Shepard’s blazing, 5,000-mile
an-hour flight was only the be
ginning of American exploration
of space, said Hugh Dryden, de
puty administrator of the National j
Aeronautics and Space Adminis
tration.
Soon, Dryden said, an astronaut
will orbit the earth and later
travel to the Moon and back.
The successful shot puts the j
United States back into the space
race with Russia.
Soviet scientists copped the
first big prize 23 days ago when
they boosted the world’s first
space traveler, Yuri Gagarin, in
to a 188-mile high orbit and re
turned him to earth 108 minutes
later.
Today’s suborital shot does not
Gary Cooper Says He
Is Not Afraid of Future
HOLLYWOOD (fl — Gary
Cooper, cheered by the many mes- !
sages well-wishers have sent him
since the full extent of his illness
became known, says: “I am not
afraid of the future.”
The famed actor, under seda
tion for cancer which has spread
throughout his body, also said in
a memo to newsmen yesterday:
“I know what is happening is
God’s will.”
Cooper, 59, is confined to his j
home and has received messages !
of sympathy from all over the
world.
Dr. Rexford Kennamer, the ac
tor’s physician, said there has
been no siginficant change in
Cooper’s condition during the past
week.
match the Russian achievement
but is a major step toward orbiting 11
an American which the National
Space Agency plans to do later
this year.
The purpose of today’s flight
was to determine if man can per
form useful chores in space.
Shepard proved conclusively it
could be done.
Reported Constantly
He reported constantly through
out the flight that he was able to
do certain tasks, such as pushing
levers and buttons and operating
manual controls.
All the way through he told the
control center at Cape Canaveral |
by radio that everything was
okay.
During the flight, Mercury offi
cials said that Shepard was re
porting facts and figures just like
a test pilot would.
The slender Redstone rocket,
I stretching 83 feet tall with the
capsule and 15V^-foot escape tower
on top, flew a true course as it
knifed into a clear sky under the
anxious eyes of thousands who
crammed into missUeland to watch
as America for the first time com
mitted a man into space.
Millions Watch on TV
Millions of Shepard's country
men watched on live television.
| As the missile accelerated, forces
six times the pull of gravity
j pushed the astronaut against his
; couch.
At 141 seconds after launch, the
capsule separated and the escape j
tower — designed to jerk the
capsule free and parachute it 1
safely to earth in case of trouble I
—was jettisoned.
Automatic controls then flipped
the nine-foot tall capsule over |
180 degrees so the blunt heat
shield base led the way, with the
pilot riding backward.
About four minutes, after
launch, Shepard tumbled, as if
over a precipice, into a weird and
weightless world — an exhilarat
ing experience that lasted about !
five minutes.
As swiftly as it came, the
weightless feeling left and Shepard
once again was gripped by forces
— twice the tenacity as on ac
celeration — as the capsule
plunged back toward earth.
Subjected to 11 G's
The pilot reported he was sub
jected to 11 G’s during the re
entry period.
Two minutes after launch, at
40,000 feet, a small parachute
opened to stabilize the space craft. ;
-- |
TOO MUCH CROAKING . . .
ST. ALBANS. England OP*—City
workmen grimly loaded 300 un
welcomed “residents” of St. Al
bans into a truck, drove out into
the country and threw them all
into a pond yesterday.
The “residents” were frogs.
They were removed from a pond
inside the city limits because their
croaking kept people awake.
Hippo Kills 5,000-lb. Male . . .
LONDON 0P» — Fifi, the Whip
snade Zoo female hippopotamus,
killed her 5,000-pound mate Ne
ville and then gave birth to an
85-pound bull calf.
Fifi, who weighs 4,500 pounds
herself, apparently was made ir
ritable by the approaching birth.
She broke Neville’s back.
At 10,000 fcer, a 63-foot main
chute unfurled to lower the cap
sule into the water, presumably
with no more force than if it had
'alien off a 14-foot wall.
Recovery ships in the area re
sorted they sighted the large red
ind white parachute as it lowered
the capsule toward the sea.
Two helicopter from the Lake
Champlain rushed immediately to
the scene. One lowered a hook to
raise the capsule upright. It was
sn its side in the water.
When this was done, Shepard
climbed out an escape hatch and
was pulled into the other heli
copter.
A few minutes later he was on
the deck of the carrier.
Officials on board reported that
he walked from the helicopter
under his own power and imme
diately went to a medical facility
below deck.
Here, doctors began a quick ex
amination of the pilot. After this
initial check, Shepard will be
taken by helicopter to a hospital
on Grand Bahama Island, about
75 miles southwest of the recovery
site.
He is expected to remain there
! at least 24 hours for extensive ex
amination and psychological tests.
Then he will be flown to Wash
ington, probably Sunday or Mon
day, for a hero’s welcome at the
White House from President. Ken
nedy.
Kennedy Pledges
Linger Effort in
Space Race Field
WASHINGTON UP! — President
Kennedy hailed this nation’s first
manned shot into space today and
pledged “a substantially larger
effort” in that field.
Kennedy said his administration
would seek additional funds from
Congress to carry out its space
program.
“We are going to require a
larger effort in space,” the Presi
dent told a news conference.
“We have a long way to go in
the field of space. We are behind
— but we are working hard and
we are going to increase our ef
fort.”
Kennedy, in the midst of na
tional jubilation over astronaut
<\lan B. Shepard’s flight into
space, said the United States plans
to make information it gathers
available to scientists of other na
tions “who share our view that
orobes into space should be peace
ful.”
Kennedy also said he knew of
no information that Russia had
yet given out on Yuri Gagarin’s
orbital space flight last month.
Kennedy acknowledged that the
country would have been “hu
miliated here and around the
world” if the shot this morning
had failed.
He said this was especially true
in view of the detailed press
coverage of the build-up to the
flight — but he added that in a
free country any type of enter
prize must be exposed to the pub
lic.
This was Kennedy’s 11th news
conference, and as with others in
the recent past it was not open
to live television or radio cover
age. It was attended by 389 news
men.