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Settle's Friends Anxious As Collision Is Examined
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Naval Inquiry Board Named To Investigate Crash of Destroyers
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[[image: LIEUT COMM. T. G. W. SETTLE]]

ANXIETY over the result of the collision between the two United States destroyers, "Whipple" and "Smith Thompson," in oriental waters as it effects a former Akronite, Lieut. Com. T. G. W. Settle, was expressed in Akron this morning.
Commander Settle for over a year has been in charge of the Whipple, one of the two ships damaged in the crash.
He left Akron, where he had been in charge of the navy department at the Goodyear Zeppelin all during the construction of the naval airships, to go to China to take over command of a gunboat on the Yangtze river. Later he became commander of the U.S.S. Whipple. Previously he had become famous here as pilot of the record-breaking balloon flight into the stratosphere.

Board is Named

A board of inquiry into the cause of the collision between the two great ships was named today by Admiral Orin G. Murfin, commander-in-chief of the United States Asiatic fleet, which had been on maneuvers at the time of the crash.
The board will meet Monday at the Olongapo navy yard.
The destroyers collided 45 miles northwest of the tip of Luzon island. No one was injured, it was reported, but the "Smith Thompson," its engine room flooded, had to be towed to port, while the Whipple, Commander Settle's ship, proceeded to harbor under its own power.
A man high in navy circles stated here Thursday that naval regulations make it impossible for a commander whose ship has figured in a crash, regardless of the cause, to ever attain the rank of admiral.

Admit Situation Difficult

At the navy department at Goodyear Zeppelin this morning, a navy man qualified this statement by saying, "If the collision happens at night, as this one apparently did-it is not quite as difficult for the commander as if it happened in the daytime.
"It's plenty bad, however, anyway you look at it," he added.
R.F. Kitchingman, a friend of Settle's, had a letter from the popular young officer not more than a month ago, in which he spoke eagerly of his plans for the fleet maneuvers which would take him to Shanghai and Tientsin, and in which he also stated that he had asked for an extension of his service in the Orient.
Settle took his wife and young son, Tommy, who had lived in Akron, to China with him.

Transcription Notes:
Not sure what to do about the paper overlap on the bottom of the clipping. Have transcribed as it looks now.