29 NOVEMBER 1946, Page 5

The rescue of the Dakota passengers from the Wetterhorn glacier

recalls a remark Dr. Stresemann once made a•t Geneva, that adven- tures and achievements in peace could be as inspiring as any in war. It is hard to imagine anything more dramatic than the crash of the aircraft on some mountain somewhere, the complete failure to locate the wreck, the gradual fading of radio communication, the simultaneous fading of hope, the ultimate discovery, the dropping of supplies, the heroism of the rescuers on their night climb, and of the two Swiss pilots who transported the survivors, sick and sound alike, to the hospital train waiting to carry them to Vienna. Rarely, more- over, has there been a better example of international co-operation, Italians and French, British and Americans and Swiss, striving tire- lessly on the ground and in the air to save from what seemed certain death the eleven who turned out in the end to be twelve. The whole thing was essentially an epic in little—and not so con- spicuously little.