Rodgers

Over the Delaware River one afternoon last week a plane, sweeping for a landing, sideslipped, twirled awkwardly down to death. From the aerodrome on the bank a boat put out, men floundered into the water/ worked desperately to extricate the officer and mechanic in the cockpit. The latter, one Samuel Schultz, was easy to lift out, but the plunging engine had jammed the officer's leg, crushed in his chest. "Easy, boys," he said over and over in a dry, thin voice. Two hours later, in the Naval Hospital, he died--Commander John Rodgers, U.S.N.

Almost exactly a yearago (TiME, Sept. 14, 21, 1925), another plane, the PN-9, NO. 1, fell with Commander Rodgers into the Pacific Ocean. San Francisco was 1,700 miles behind; the Hawaiian Islands 400 miles ahead. He and his men had no food, no fuel. They ripped the fabric off the wings and caught a little rainwater in it. Commander Rodgers, with a "silly little still" his mother had made him take along, distilled more drink from seawater. After a week, a submarine found the plane and its scarecrow crew.

There were fireworks that night in Honolulu. And while Commander Rodgers, relieved from duty, began a 16-hour sleep in a bed with sheets and a pillow, the newspapers of the world were thundering the news of his rescue, telling of his service record, of his famous naval forebears. They told about the John Rodgers of England who commanded the vessel that rescued Alexander Selkirk (Robinson Crusoe) from the Island of Juan Fernandez. They told of the buff-and-blue John Rodgers, lieutenant on the frigate, later Commander Rodgers. They pointed out that at no time since the last British gun boomed across Lake Erie has the Navy been without a distinguished member of the Rodgerses in its service. They mentioned that since 1900 five active rear admirals have been of the Rodgers family. "None of them," said Secretary of the Navy Wilbur, "was more brilliant than Commander John Rodgers. . . ." There is no Rodgers in the service now. Navy men all, he was the last of them, killed just after he had earned retirement from active service, just as he was planning fresh feats for the Navy to perform in its new PN-10 seaplanes.