Ghost Ship

Like the terrible secret of the U. S. Navy collier Cyclops (TIME, July 14), the exact fate of France's dirigible Dixmude has remained a mystery since 1923. Last week it was reported that the French Government might send an expedition into the Sahara to trace stories of desert tribesmen that the ship's wreckage lay about 300 mi. south of In Salah. No European, it was said, had ever penetrated there.

In December 1923, with a crew of 50, the Dixmude left her base at Cuers-Pierrefou for a 72-hour flight over North Africa. On the third day, near Biskra, a storm struck her, disabled her wireless and motors, blew her across Tunis toward Sicily. Thence the Dixmude's trail sprawled octopus-like with conflicting "eyewitness" reports. First authentic trace occurred nine days later when Sicilian fishermen pulled in with their nets the body of du Plessis de Grenedan, the Dixmude's commander. No other body has been found. But tribesmen have insisted that on the sixth day after the storm they saw the Dixmude, obviously out of control, drifting south over the centre of the Sahara.

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