stefansson-wrangel-09-32-051v

306 THE ADVENTURE OF WRANGEL ISLAND

RUSSIAN EXPEDITION TO TAKE WRANGEL ISLAND

Ordered to Make All Inhabitants Prisoners

Seattle, Aug. 29.—A vessel named Red October, flying the
Russian flag, armed with a six pound cannon, and carrying a com-
pany of infantry, is bound through the ice from Petropavlovsk,
Kamchatka Peninsula, for Wrangel Island, . . . with orders to take
all inhabitants prisoners, seize all shipping and establish Russian
ownership of the island in the name of the Soviet government,
Lieut.-Col. L. E. Broome, flight advancement officer for the aban-
doned British world encircling expedition, declared here to-day.

He gave this information to United States naval officers in
command of the battle fleet here.

. . . Col. Broome also said that the American schooner, Herman,
of San Francisco, with Captain Louis Lane and a crew of American
sailors going to the rescue of Wells, may be taken prisoners by the
Soviet forces on their arrival.

(Winnipeg, Manitoba, Free Press Bulletin, August 30, 1924.)
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SOVIETS PLANT THEIR ENSIGN ON WRANGEL ISLAND

Complications Seen if Residents of Island Are Taken
Prisoners by Russians

Moscow, Sept. 18.—The Russian ship Red October arrived at
Wrangel Island August 26, and planted the flag of Soviet Russia
on the island, according to a message from Vladivostok.

The Russian party discovered one American and eleven Eskimos
in Somniteno Bay. The Russians will leave the island Sep-
tember 23.

Wrangel Island, best known to Canadians as the scene of the
death of Lieut. Allan Crawford, youthful Toronto explorer, may
again become a storm centre of international complications, if the
Russian mission carries out its threat of taking prisoner the inhabit-
ants of the island. The situation may be further involved if the
American schooner Herman, now on its way to Wrangel for the
purpose of rescuing Charles Wells, the American sailor referred to
in the foregoing despatch, arrives at the island while the Russians