World: The Last Holiday

It had been a proud year for the boys of Lanfranc. a 700-student vocational high school in the sprawling London suburb of Croydon. Led by agile Wicket-keeper Trevor Cowdell, 15, and Captain-elect John Wells, 14. Lanfranc’s cricket team was unbeatable, the best in all Surrey. Sixteen-year-old Reggie Chappie won a Surrey schoolboy boxing Championship. Fourteen-year-old Quentin Green made a memorably squeaky-voiced page in Lanfranc’s production of Romeo and Juliet. But for 34 Lanfrancians, the best was yet to be: a school-sponsored camping trip in the rugged highlands of Norway.

The classroom of Geography Master John Beacham. 32. who was to lead the trip, had been decorated for months with Norwegian flags, travel posters and fjord-toothed maps of Norway. The library copy of The Young Traveler in Norway was dirty and dog-eared from long use. For months, the boys had been working hard at odd jobs to save $76 apiece, the price of the trip. Last month, Dennis Field, son of one of the school’s cleaning women, reluctantly gave up his place because he could not afford it. Quentin Green and another boy promptly applied for the empty seat on the tour plane. They flipped a coin, Quentin called “heads” and won.

Plans called for a charter flight from London to Sola airport on the mountainous southern tip of Norway, then two nights in the town of Stavanger. For many of the boys it was to be their first plane trip. Quiet Alan Lee. 13. who delivered newspapers to earn his fare, made his postman father take him to the airport four days in advance of departure to see what flying was like.

Last week the 34 boys gathered at London airport in striped school ties and dark blue blazers. They were temporarily disappointed when the twin-engined Vickers Viking charter plane, christened “Papa Mike.” taxied out for takeoff, then had to return for new spark plugs in one engine. Finally, after a five-hour delay, the plane got away.

As it neared Sola, the weather worsened. Fog shrouded the fjords and the airfield; a 70-m.p.h. wind and rain buffeted the plane, lashed the ocean below into scudding foam. The pilot. Captain Philip Watts, radioed Sola, reported. “I can’t see a thing.” and said that he would make an instrument letdown. He made one futile pass, headed back out to sea to start another approach. “Cleared to descend to 1,400 feet.” advised the Sola tower. There was no reply. Next morning, after an all-night sea and air search, the fire-gutted wreckage of “Papa Mike” was found by a farmer on the peak of 1,730-ft. Holte Heia mountain. Strewn across the mountain in their blazers were the charred bodies of Trevor Cowdell, John Wells. Reggie Chappie. Quentin Green. Alan Lee and all their schoolmates.