Part 5

Franklin Atkins was a Cape Codder who had a rare experience while whaling in West Indies waters. Leviathan’s flukes struck the small boat he was in and sent the boat kiting from the sea. In his descent Mr. Atkins fell directly into the whale’s gaping mouth. He was gashed and bruised, but managed to free himself. A boat crew picked him up and he lay in a critical condition for four weeks. In later years Mr. Atkins would boast, “Jonah and me were the only two persons that have been in a whale’s mouth and come out alive.”

Ambergris, a secretion found in the intestines of an occasional sperm whale, and worth more than its weight in gold, was a prize the old whalemen always were on the alert for. The story is told of how a Cape Cod crew, jittery with excitement over an ambergris find in a whale they were spading alongside the vessel, lost it. In their eagerness of hauling up the treasure they fumbled. The ambergris chunk slipped from the slings. The crew stared with blank dismay as they watched the prize worth $25,000 slowly vanish in 60 fathoms of water.

It’s small boat, inshore fishing in these modern times. Yet there is a constant yield of millions of pounds of fish taken by net or hook. There are whiting, mackerel, cod, haddock, herring, butterfish, bluefish, squid, sea bass, pollock and many other species.

ON CAPE COD----

_Is the Second Most Powerful Beacon on the Atlantic Coast_

The second most powerful beacon on the Atlantic coast is located on the far end of Cape Cod. Highland Light is situated near the edge of a high bluff on the ocean side of North Truro. Its nightly beam, revolving and flashing to all points of the compass, has guided mariners for almost 150 years.

The champ of all beacons on this coast is Neversink Light, at Sandy Hook.

Countless summer visitors would look over Highland Light in peacetime, but now, of course, visitors are barred. They came from every state in the union and from foreign places, for this faithful landmark has always been a standard attraction for the Cape Cod sightseer. Chief Boatswain’s Mate William Joseph, who has been in charge of the light for a long while, recalls they asked some odd questions. For example:

“Is the light lit in the wintertime?”

“Do you stay here year ’round?”

“Does the fog start up the foghorn?”

“Why do you keep ‘blankets’ on the lenses in the daytime?”

“Does the tide ever come over the banking (the edge of the banking is a mere 140 feet above the shoreline)?”

“Did you ever help catch rum-runners with the light?”

“How do you keep awake all night long?”

COVER LENSES TO PREVENT FIRES

But, the lightkeeper, his assistants and their womenfolk take it all in stride with cheerful patience.

The mighty lenses are covered up in daytime, but not with “blankets”. The lightkeeper gives the reason for this: “Every morning we put a linen covering over the lenses and over that a covering of starched linen. There is no covering on the north side of the light because the sun doesn’t hit there.

“The coverings are necessary to protect surrounding property. The lighthouse lenses, if they were left uncovered, would set afire a building 25 feet away, or anything else that would burn.”

There have been numerous other lamps before the present electrically operated one, with its $30,000 French glassworks and four revolving bullseyes. The original light, established in 1797, was stationary and burned whale oil in wick lamps, much like the old-fashioned sitting room lamp. The light has always stood on the present site.

Ashore the great beacon is always referred to as Highland Light. “But,” remarks the keeper, “if you were lost out there and tried to locate Highland Light on the chart, you’d be plum out o’ luck. The official name is Cape Cod Light and that’s the name all the mariners go by.”

Highland Light has cast its flash over many a dramatic event in its long lifetime. Almost within its shadow, the first piece of wreckage that revealed the fate of the Steamer Portland--New England’s most appalling sea tragedy to this day--was washed ashore in the terrible gale of November, 1898. Countless rescues by the breeches buoy, and the foundering of old-time sailing ships were witnessed there. Mighty gales, 75 to 80 miles an hour, have belabored the lighthouse, but it has breasted them all.

A MARKER FOR ZEPPELIN

The German Zeppelin, burned at Lakehurst, N. J., made a practice of pointing its course directly over Highland Light on its return trips to Germany.

The light has one implacable enemy--fog. When the heavy vapor banks roll in, the beam is practically invisible. In a real thick fog not even the glow of the lamp can be seen by one standing at the base of the tower.

Many visitors, noting the close proximity of the lighthouse to the edge of the shore embankment, have inquired whether there is danger the sea will some day undermine Highland Light. Keeper Joseph has never worried about this. When, in 1796, the Government purchased the tract of land for the erection of the lighthouse, the reservation comprised ten acres. Storms and pounding surf have swept six acres of the original site into the sea.

FIRST REAL GLIDER FLIGHT IN U. S.----

_Witnessed Over Cape Cod Waters_

The invasion of Sicily was begun with glider transports. And, the beginning of glider-flying in the United States was witnessed on Cape Cod. Sixteen years ago the first extended glider flight in America was demonstrated by a German expert.

On July 29, 1928, at Corn Hill, Truro, near the outer end of this historic peninsula, Peter Hesselbach of Darmstadt, Germany, was catapulted over the brink of a 100-foot bluff in a Darmstadt-made glider. He remained aloft for four hours and five minutes. A few days before this, Hesselbach smashed Orville Wright’s record of soaring nine minutes and forty-five seconds. A group of helpful American citizens, hauling on a rope, snapped him into the ether on the ocean side of Truro. He maintained a motorless flight for 55 minutes.

Glider flying has progressed a great deal since those pioneering flights. Soon after a school was established at South Wellfleet, but it didn’t last long. Much activity developed in California and in the East. Elmira, N. Y., became the headquarters of motorless flying enthusiasts. Before our entry into the war, Parker Leonard of Osterville, Cape Cod, was the chief glider experimenter in this area. Now he is serving his country as a glider specialist.

STUDIED THE GULLS

Peter Hesselbach and his German comrades who accompanied him to this country were a companionable lot and popular with the Summer folk that Summer of 1928. Corn Hill is situated in a primitive setting, with unbounded spaces of hills, marsh land, and beach, and faces the great sweep of Cape Cod Bay. It is a lofty hill and on its top is a bronze tablet attesting that here the reconnoitering Pilgrims found the Indians’ cache of corn which enabled them to survive the first hard year in Plymouth. And, looking out over the waters one discerns the outline of Provincetown Harbor where the Mayflower was anchored and where the Pilgrim fathers signed their Compact, the genesis of our American form of free Government. A group of rude cottages are perched atop Corn Hill. Two of them were occupied by the German glider experts. A haus frau, brought in from somewhere, served up hearty German dishes and all in all it was a very pleasant Summer. For recreation, the visitors whizzed into Provincetown for ice cream cones and gingerale--“gingeraley” they called it. Often they would sit for long periods at the end of a Provincetown wharf, studying the soaring, wheeling, dipping flight of the gulls.

Sometimes their American neighbors would pull on a rope and lift the glider into the air on the numerous practice flights. Setting off on his four hours and five minutes-flight, Peter Hesselbach was propelled over the edge of Corn Hill by a rubber slingshot and a tail-tripper arrangement that was clamped to a planking and worked by a lever. Several hundred Summerers and natives from surrounding towns witnessed that epochal event. A good representation of Boston newspaper cameramen took pictures of the 55-minute flight. Newsreel men also made a recording.

It was a beautiful, bright day when Hesselbach got off on his long flight at 9:55 A. M. He was hoping to be able to beat the world record for a soaring flight at that time--14 hours, 23 minutes. A series of bonfires stretching for two miles along the beach would have guided him on the nocturnal part of his adventure. For sustenance he took with him a few sandwiches and some coffee.

TRAVELLED 120 MILES

Spectators exclaimed at the graceful serenity of the fine glider craft, wafting silently with the air currents over their heads against a blue and cloud-flecked sky. The Darmstadt wafted northward and southward on a one to two miles’ course, going back and forth over the white-capped bay or surrounding hills and banking gracefully over Corn Hill on each return trip.

Once, as Peter Hesselbach circled Corn Hill, Captain Paul Roehre, a gliding comrade, roared up to him:

“Are you hungry?”

With a wave of his hand, Hesselbach responded, “What’s the use?”

Finally he landed at Wellfleet, an adjoining town. The writer picked him up at a crossroads and brought him back to Corn Hill. These were his first words:

“I came down because I could not fly for the hills and gain altitude after the wind changed more to the north. I went off my course purposely. I wanted to study air conditions. This territory is ideal for soaring. It has much better possibilities than Rossiten, which is one of the best soaring places in Germany.”

“My altimeter shows I reached a maximum altitude of 350 feet. The wind velocity was about 30 miles an hour. I soared a total of 120 miles.”

It’s a far cry from Cape Cod to Sicily. But that’s how glider flying actually got its springboard start in America.

[Illustration]

Transcriber’s Notes

Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Colloquial spelling in dialog has been retained as in the original.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation and compound words have not been standardized.