Jimmy Angel

James Crawford Angel Marshall ( 1899, Springfield, Missouri, the United States - December 8th 1956, Panamá, Panamá ) was a pilot of bush and exploring American. Apart from the autochtones, the Indians Pemons, it was one of the first to discover with the Venezuela the highest water falls of the world, which were thus renamed Salto Angel.

The " river of or"

Jimmy (or Jimmie ) Angel allotted its obsession of the Tepuys Venezuelans to an adventure which he would have lived in the the Twenties, and whose veracity could never be attested:

In 1923, Angel, old driver of the Canadian air force during the First World War, is with Panamá, with a four-seater plane and without the penny, like often. A called J.R. McCracken, which is presented in the form of an engineer of the mines, comes to find it with its hotel and asks him to immediately take it along on a mountain to Venezuela, mission for which he promises 5000 $ to him of which he pays an installment of 2000$ at once.

Angel accepts, and thus carries out McCracken in the plane to a solid mass of 3000 meters altitude in the area of the Gran Sabana, without chart, and while following only the indications of the engineer. In spite of the forts current descendants, Angel manages to pose the apparatus on the top, close to a small river which seems to interest the engineer.

In three days, they succeed in extracting 33 kilos from them from gold, sufficient quantity with the eyes of Angel, which fears to overload its plane for the very short redécollage that it will have to carry out. He however manages to make take off the apparatus, by throwing it in a 1700 depth meters ravine.

As soon as the two returned men with Panamá, McCracken deposits gold at the bank and pay with Angel the 3000$ remainders.

A " fall of water of one mile haut"

Become obsessed by the search for this " river of or" , Angel settles in Gran Sabana as pilot of recognition for the mining company Santa Anna, based with Tulsa (Oklahoma).

The November 14th 1933, whereas it carries out a flight in solo around the Auyán Tepuy, it goes up Churún Cañon and sees on the Western frontage gigantic a falls of water. He prevents by radio operator his mechanic, the Mexican Jose Cardona, remained with ground with engineer D.H. Curry; but the latter will not be able to reach the " fall of water of a mile of haut" about which Angel speaks to them, the place being made inaccessible by ceaseless pouring rain.

Of return to Caracas, Jimmy Angel reports its discovery, speaking about the " higher water fall of the world, probablement" , but a reception rather skeptic receives. The cataract which he saw is however quite real: it is known for a long time by the Pemons natives, under the names Kerekupai-merú or Churún Merun .

In 1937, during a meeting with Caracas between Angel and two of his/her friends, American geologist I.F. Martin and the engineer Venezuelan Gustavo Heny, this last proposes to rename the fall Salto Angel (" the jump of the ange").

Forwarding on Auyán Tepuy

Jimmy Angel and the falls which bear from now on its name become however famous only after the forwarding animated of October 1937, on Auyán Tepuy.

With this forwarding, always moved by the research of the " river of or" of Angel, take part:

Jimmy Angel
Marie Angel, her wife
Gustavo Heny, the engineer and friend of Angel; who is also a mountaineer and senior explorer of the area of Tepuys
Miguel Angel Delgado, gardener and companion of adventures of Heny
Jose Cardona, the mechanic of Angel

A meticulous recognition is carried out: Angel flies over Auyán Tepuy during fifteen days, locating a site of landing favourable in the north of the plate, and parachuting vivres on the spot.

Heny and Delgado, in company of Felix Cardona Puig (regarded as the largest explorer of the solid mass of the plates of Guyana), had already, in 1931, tempted to find an access road since the base camp of Guayaraca, in the south of Auyán Tepuy, until the northern part where the site located by Angel is. They had arrived on the plate, with a few 1000 meters above the jungle, but were stopped by one second rock wall (the Second Wall ), which crosses Tepuy right through, on 20 kilometers.

In the morning of October 9th, forwarding gets under way finally. Jimmy Angel, with the orders of its plane of bush, Ryan/AMAC G-2-W Flamingo baptized El Rio Caroni , carries with him his Marie wife, like Heny and Delgado. The apparatus is charged with tents, lamps, cameras, machetes, ropes, and of enough of food to hold one month. Jose Cardona, as for him, remains on the ground to maintain the radio contact.

The atterissage does not occur as well as not envisaged: butting against the irregularities of the ground, the principal train breakage, brutally stopping the apparatus, which rock ahead and are immobilized, the nose in mud. Angel and its passengers are healthy and safe, but Flamingo is unusable. Moreover, the radio having been destroyed in the accident, it is impossible for them to require of the assistance to Cardona. After a few days, Angel and its team are considered died besides.

October 11th, after having tried in vain to find gold and to repair the plane, forwarding begins a long walk to join the village of Kamarata, below Tepuy. Guided by Heny through forests and marshes which are not reproduced then on any chart, the small group manages to descend the Second Wall ; then uses the road located in 1931 by Heny and Delgado to join the base camp of Guayaraca. They will arrive finally in Kamarata after 11 days of walk.

Dedication

Following this adventure, Jimmy Angel becomes little by little a legend vénézuélienne.

In 1949, the American photojournalist Ruth Robertson organizes the first forwarding to reach the foot of the falls of Salto Angel. A land survey then confirms what Angel had protested: the fall is well highest of the world, with 979 meters height. The article published by Ruth Robertson in the National Geographic of November 1949, " Jungle Journey to the World' S Highest Waterfall" , will help to popularize Salto Angel.

Jimmy Angel dies in 1956 with Panamá, following the wounds of an air crash.

Anecdotes

In 1964, the son of Jimmy and Marie Angel, Roland, accompanied by the writer Carl Mydans, find El Rio Caroni on the high plateaus of Auyán Tepuy. The Fuerza Aerea Venezolana (air force vénézuélienne) then decides to make a national monument of it. In 1970, an operation is assembled to recover the wreck of the plane, preserved relatively well. Helicopters UH-1 carry out many comings and goings between Canaima and Tepuy, to dismount the apparatus and to go down again it in spare parts. It is then transported in C-123 to the museum of the aviation of Maracay, where it will be restored. The apparatus is exposed today in front of the airport of Ciudad Bolívar. With the dires of Patricia Grant, aviatrice and friend of Angel, this one did not wish that its plane be one day descended from Auyán Tepuy: he preferred that El Rio Caroni remains up there, like a memory of him.
Jimmy Angel told the history of the discovered one which had made it famous in one entitled book Devil Mountain , " the mountain of Diable" in French. This nickname, always used, was inspired to him by the origin of the name Auyán Tepuy , which means " house of Diable" in Pemon language.
descriptions of Angel are varied and sometimes seldom verifiable, they give it like a breakage-neck having weak for strong alcohols and the red-headed women; sometimes like an excellent pilot, much more with his ease in the air that once feet on the ground.

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