The Rescue on Station Charlie

1

OCEAN Station Charlie is a place of big waves. The incidence of waves 30 to 40 feet high depends on how often gale winds blow, how far the “fetch” of the wind is, and how long it blows from the same quarter. Here the pilot chart shows that the prevailing or everyday breeze averages 21 to 27 knots. Winds of that force tend to push you off your feet, but in the fall gales are the rule — one after another. The westerly gales of winter have a fetch of 800 miles, average 50 to 60 knots, and blow for days on end. Then the waves lengthen out as they gain height until the crests are 400 to 500 feet apart.

The Coast Guard weather ship’s main hull structure is virtually submerged; the waves tumble in from the sides and over the stern onto the weather deck, even though the ship is hove to, with the wind ahead. The real beating comes with a one-two punch and a kick in the belly when the ship is lifted up by the first of “Three Sisters” for half her length and, as the wave crest passes aft, she falls like a 2200-ton teeter-totter and is jarred as though hurled on a reef. The next wave catches her defenseless, with her bow slanted down the trough, piles on board, and crashes against the bridge structure with a sledging impact that stops the ship dead.

The hundreds of tons of water have to go somewhere and they do — straight up. They come on the bridge and top of the wheelhouse like a great waterfall and then — wham! she gets it again. It is like a boxer delivering an uppercut, followed by a looping right hook, which flattens his opponent; whereupon he jumps upon him and kicks him.

“Three Sisters” are a series of three big waves that appear every so often when the long rollers get in phase with the short, steep, local waves. It is one of these that you hear about as the freak wave that boards a big ocean liner and smashes things up.

On October 10, 1947, at the Poole, Dorset, airport the flying boat Bermuda Sky Queen waited for her sixty-two fares to come by train from Victoria terminal, London. This was quite the largest group of passengers ever booked for a transatlantic flight. It included thirty men, twenty women, and twelve children. Nine of the children were under eight years old.

The shortage of air transportation from Europe and the United Kingdom to America had been desperate. Many passengers had waited for months, and spirits were high at the prospect of the air voyage across the Atlantic on board the giant American “luxury plane.”

On Sunday, October 12, the plane look off from Poole and set down the same day at noon at the airport at Foynes, Eire. Though it was scheduled to leave that evening, its departure was postponed because of reports of bad weather over the Atlantic. Fuel tanks were topped off and the plane was serviced. A few persons found their way to convivial evening gatherings on shore. At 3.40 on Monday afternoon, October 13, the plane took to the air with its sixty-two passengers and crew of seven, and the flight toward Gander, Newfoundland, began. It was destined never to reach Gander.

As the plane flew westward, skies were clear, and about 5.40 Greenwich time the sun went down. The plane flew on into the afterglow and the navigator scanned the eastern skies for the first stars. Celestial navigation was possible until 9.30; then overcast was encountered, which prevailed throughout the night.

At 1.55 A.M., October 14, in the vicinity of Ocean Station Charlie, about 100 miles west of mid-Atlantic, the Queen went on the air: “Nan Mike Mike Charlie. This is King Fox George, this is Nan Charlie Six One Two. Come in, please.”

There was some delay in answering by NMMC (Ocean Weather Station Charlie) because the Queen was not alone in the starless and windy neighborhood of clouds. Aircraft NC 288 and Speed Bird Gahen were passing near-by, calling for information on winds aloft and for radar determination of ground speed and position. Not far distant were planes bound for Gander; Shannon, Eire; Prestwick, Scotland; and London, England. These also checked with Station Charlie; not only were they required to do so by their operators, but it was a wild night and every aid was welcome.

At 2.05 A.M. the Queen received information on winds aloft, at her level of 6000 feet and her position, which was found to be east of the ocean station vessel by 65 miles. As she flew on, bucking the storm, she requested and received data on winds at the 4000-foot level, atmospheric pressure, and cloud ceiling.

At 2.32 A.M., somewhat behind flight plan schedule, the Queen passed the station vessel. The crew of the aircraft were “well satisfied with the progress of the flight and expected no difficulty.” The chance to return to Foynes while there was still enough fuel remaining (point of no return) was lost during the period of obscured stars after leaving Station Charlie.

At 5 o’clock the overcast cleared and a celestial fix was obtained. This revealed a position considerably behind dead reckoning. The implications were serious indeed. No time was lost in getting the series of sights and time checks which revealed the awful truth — ground speed west of the station ship had been reduced by head winds of gale force to 59 knots and all chance of getting to either shore was gone.

Charles Martin, the 26-year-old cx-Navy pilot, was faced with a decision which, if wrong, would cost his life and the lives of his crew and passengers. The instinct to continue west toward the nearest land must have been strong. The decision to turn back seaward must have been a hard one to make. It was lucky for all those on the plane that Martin had the nerve to make that decision. The Bermuda Sky Queen would put about, home in on Station Charlie’s beacon, and set down alongside the Coast Guard cutter on the sea. If the U.S. Coast Guard could not save them, no one could. At 0758 Greenwich time, corresponding to 5.58 in the morning, local sun time, the huge plane banked and turned and, with the westerly gale helping her along, made for Ocean Station Charlie, 310 miles back the way she had come.

On Station Charlie the U.S. Coast Guard cutter George M. Bibb was keeping her vigil. The Bibb, like a number of other seagoing Coast Guard cutters, periodically performs duty as an ocean station vessel at Ocean Station A or Ocean Station C. Station A is located in Denmark Strait, midway between Iceland and Greenland; Station C is about midway between Labrador and Ireland. Both locations are on main air routes.

The purpose of the ocean station vessel is to augment the safety of air travel. It has a radio beacon by which planes check their progress and mid-ocean position. It tracks a plane by radar and supplies it with a double check on its speed and position. It keeps a record of passing planes for subsequent use should the plane develop engine trouble or ice up. It gives passing planes data on weather at different levels, so that they can fly at the most advantageous altitude. It supplies meteorological data to the weather forecasters on shore, which enables the routing of flights around, or clear of, areas where head winds or icing conditions would be encountered.

Should a plane have to land in the ocean, the ocean station vessel can coach the pilot on landing, give him a description of the wave systems and surface winds, and then, by high-speed circling and oil slicks, modify the sea surface for the landing. Survivors can be taken from the sea by the vessel itself when the waters are too rough for small boats or rafts to live. Even though a plane lands remote from a station, there is still hope that the fastcruising vessels will find survivors.

2

CONSIDERING that the place was Station Charlie in mid-October, the Bibb was not having too bad a time of it. She had shrugged off three migratory storms during the preceding week. None of these had taken more than thirty-six hours to pass — not enough time to build up punishing seas. It started off like a pretty good patrol.

By the morning of October 14, a moderate to fresh gale had been blowing for fifty-six hours. Coming for twenty-four hours from the west, it built up a fast-running sea 100 feet long, then shifted to west-southwest and built up a cross sea about 200 feet long. These short, steep seas, converging at a 30-degree angle, set up the most dangerous possible conditions for a plane landing. Such was the general situation on the Bibb when the Queen, 310 miles to the west, turned back.

She called Gander — no answer. A passing freight plane intercepted the startling message, broadcast it, then went along with her. A passenger plane 300 miles to eastward put about, roared west, joined the Queen and the freighter, and homed them on the Bibb’s beacon. Frantic radio traffic broke loose. From Halifax the alert went out to Coast Guard radio stations at New York and Boston; to air rescue bases at Harmon Field, Newfoundland; Goose Bay, Labrador; Mingan, Province of Quebec; and St. John’s, Newfoundland; and to ocean weather stations and shipping.

At 6.47 A.M. the Bibb received a call from British Overseas Airways plane KCC: “Station Charlie from KCC. Aircraft call KFG going to make emergency landing at sea at Station Charlie at approximately 0800 (8 A.M.).” A message of this nature must be reported to the old man at once.

Because of a series of emergencies I had not, except for a catnap or two, slept for seventy-two hours prior to climbing into my hammock at 5 A.M. Now, less than two hours later, my sleep was interrupted by a quartermaster shaking me. “Sir, an airplane is going to land near us.”

“Say that again.”

I must have appeared very unhappy and sounded grumpy, because there was amused pity in the quartermaster’s voice when he repeated, “A plane is going to land near the ship but it won’t be until 0800. Shall I call you at 0730?”

“Aye, aye; do that. Tell the OD to have the rescue gear broken out, and tell my steward to make some coffee.”

I turned over with a sigh and then he was back. “Sir, it is 0730 and we have the plane on the radiophone.”

“All right! All right! Man the rescue stations.”

“Valencia radio says there are sixty-nine persons on the plane.”

I found myself standing in the cabin, numb with shock. Where, in the name of Peace, had a plane with sixty-nine passengers come from? Transatlantic planes carried twenty-one passengers — the big ones forty-two. But who ever heard of a plane moseying around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with sixty-nine persons in it? I could not understand it. I went on deck.

All the Bibb’s crew not on watch were on the topside—more than a hundred of them. All eyes turned westward, searching. Scramble nets were over the sides. Boat crews stood by their craft. Swimmers in rubber suits with webbed fingers and toes were ready to go overboard.

And then the 42-ton plane hove in sight. How big she was! Two planes, small by comparison, were with her. As she circled again and again over the ship they hovered above her, circling with her as though they were trying to ease her forlorn descent.

The sun was out. The sea was sparkling and angry, closely streaked with the white laccwork that is the mark of the fresh gale. As the steep waves raced and tumbled, the wind batted off their crests and blew them away as iridescent spume. Fascinating, terrible.

I gulped down a tumbler of water and still my mouth was full of the dust of horror. In my mind’s eye I saw that flying eggshell collapse as it struck the sea; saw the great tail loop up and over as the plane smashed against the 30-foot waves; saw the wings wrenched off; heard the screams of the passengers within as the sea poured in upon them. “Oh, God, grant that I do not have to stand here helpless and see that plane open up and sink. Guide them down safely. Help me to save them.” Most of us prayed in any way we knew. Someone near me was vomiting with nervousness.

I stepped from the bridge wing into the plotting room, called Pilot Martin on the phone, and gave him the direction of the swells and the length of the waves. It would have been better if the seas had been longer, so that there would be room on their slopes for his big plane to land. There was no chance in these steep, confused seas to skim over the surface lightly; Martin would create a mess of twisted metal if he tried it.

I spoke up cheerfully, not feeling at all cheerful. “How about if the ship makes a few circles at the best speed possible? I believe it will knock down the sea a bit and you can land in the center of our circle.”

Martin’s voice was very soft, calm, and resigned as he said, “No, I think I’ll just pick out a spot and set her down.”

As Pilot Martin circled, surveying the threestory-high waves, he was heard to announce, “I am coming down now.”Everyone held his breath and watched with horrified fascination as the Queen slanted toward the sea. Just as it was about to touch, it zoomed and banked into another circle. Young Martin was being careful.

For the watchers on the ship it was almost too much to bear. Not only was it seeing in your mind the crushed plane awash, but everyone knew that it was too rough for lifeboats. How, with the ship rolling 40 degrees, could you take the ship alongside the plane without beating it to death?

And then Martin was down! With his circle only half completed he saw what he wanted. There are spots where the different wave systems, being out of phase, oppose each other and create a comparatively smooth sea. Martin spied one. Leveling off fast, he closed his throttle, keyed off his ignition, and just beyond a high one, flying very slowly against the wind, he pulled into a full stall. As seen from the cutter, he plunked into a big wave just back of the crest. The plane and wave were dropping simultaneously and the shock was not heavy. The plane lost some of its momentum but sailed across the trough and appeared to be entirely engulfed by the next wave, which stopped the plane in its tracks, then passed on, leaving the Queen bobbing like a cork as succeeding crests and troughs swept by.

To the watchers she seemed to disappear completely in a great wash of white water; and then, miraculously, she reappeared like a huge whale and wallowed toward the rolling Bibb — a sort of splash landing.

Those on the Bibb felt relief and admiration for this incomparable landing. Then and there and for the remainder of their mortal existence, every person on that plane would owe his life to the nervy and skillful Charles Martin.

3

THE Queen thought it would be possible to tow on a line from the cutter while some method of transferring the passengers was being cooked up. The port forward lifeboat crew climbed into their boat at the davit heads; a new 6-inch Manila hemp line was frescoed with kapok life jackets; the Queen started all four engines and began working her plunging way toward our lee side. It seemed like a good scheme when you said it fast, and it was working out well until, on the top of a Three Sister wave, the plane was seen to be caught in the back eddy of the cutter’s lee and entirely out of control. Martin cut his engines but it was too late. Deprived of the braking effect of the wind, the plane sailed into the cutter’s steel side. She took the impact squarely on the nose.

It was a sickening business and looked like the end; the cutter was rolling from 35 to 45 degrees. Rising on the next swell, the plane’s number three engine struck the very top of a pulling-boat davit, 25 feet above the waterline, buckling the 4-inch screw member and driving the davit inboard. The boat crew had evacuated so quickly that no one remembered seeing them do it. The next roll of the ship found the starboard wing tips smashing the cutter’s catwalk, this structure being aft, 10 feet above the weather deck, and the next found the port wing tip, a half ship’s length further forward, crashing against the bow. The ship’s engines, meanwhile, had been going full astern, with several repeat orders to the engineers for emphasis. After an eternity the screws bit into the water and the cutter parted company with her affectionate playmate.

Riding high and lightly on her belly, with a strong wind on her wing and control surfaces, the plane was still pretty much in her natural element. The plane crew were quick to recognize this. They manned their flight stations, kept the plane headed into the wind, worked the stabilizers to ease the pitching, and used as an agent of rescue the gale that sought to destroy them. Had the plane been allowed to broach to, the seas hammering the dipping wings with hundred-ton blows would, of a surety, have impressed the plane with a capsizing force or, more probably, wrenched off a wing, with a full measure of disaster following immediately. Martin’s efforts to save his passengers did not end when the plane landed.

The cutter lowered a Monomoy ten-oared surfboat; it was wild work. In the boat were heaving lines to pass to the plane to be attached to injured persons so that they could be tossed overboard and hauled into the boat — a desperate expedient but the only one available under such conditions.

The cutter lay to windward making a lee and oil slick. This was not too effective because the cutter was drifting out of it at the rate of 3 knots and the plane was blowing downwind at 5 knots. (The plane drifted about it hundred miles during the 24-hour rescue operation.)

There were no injured to be removed, and the small boat reconnoitered about the plane for more than an hour. The boat crew saw the passengers peering through the windows and heard the ominous creaking of the sponsons. The boat dared not approach the plane from any quarter—both craft were alternately riding the crest and dropping dizzily into the trough. On the lee side, the boat was in danger of the plane’s blowing down upon it; on the weather side, there was danger that a curling sea would surfboard it under the Queen’s hull.

The wings were, for the boat, potential flails. The seas were washing over the sponsons and high up on the hull. The boat was hard put to keep up with the fast-drifting plane. There were a number of escape hatches as well as the passenger loading doors, but these were all too near the submerged sponsons or flailing wings. The only feasible exit was the door at the port side of the pilot’s compartment on the upper deck. This was alternately just above the tops of the waves or 40 feet from the troughs as they passed under and aft.

Because the seas were steep and short, the plane plunged violently many times each minute. It reminded me of a giant swing at Coney Island. I was horrified and felt sick as I realized the suffering and danger of those in the plane, tossed about like dice in a cup.

After an hour the order was passed by walkietalkie for the boat to stand by to be picked up. The crew were by now exhausted. The boat did not pull back to the ship against wind and sea; instead it lay to and the cutter drifted down upon it.

Hoisting a boat by a vessel rolling over 40 degrees offers some difficulty. The boat alongside is alternately even with the rail and the turn of the bilge. Here boat drill pays off. An untrained man cannot be one with the boat but finds himself in the air like an inexperienced equestrian as the boat follows the sea.

The boat was finally hooked on. The falls were powered by all of the ship’s company. It was faster that way than with an electric winch. With the boat on a crest all hands “ran away with it,”and with only a few hard slams against the ship’s side the boat was quickly hoisted to the davit heads.

A sea rose up, slapped the boat, unhooked the forward fall, and spilled the crew out of the boat, which hung straight up and down, with the forward end dipping in each wave. But the crew was well drilled; each man had a grip on the dangling life lines and now scrambled on board.

The coxswain, Lieutenant Hall, who had been in the stern sheets, descended into the sea-washed fore sheets, and hooked on again. When I ordered him on board, before attempting to hoist the boat again, he gave me a hurt look.

4

JUST after the collision between the plane and the cutter, Martin, probably alarmed by the damage to the plane, said perhaps he had better abandon ship in his “ten-person” life rafts, but he was told to hang on unless the plane opened up. The capacity of the life rafts was based on three persons in each raft and seven in the water hanging on to grab lines. The sea temperature was 50 degrees. A request was radioed to the U.S. Weather Bureau at Washington for a special forecast for the next twenty-four hours. While we awaited the reply, there was not much that could be done except to make oil slicks and shelter the plane from the worst of the sea. The forecast came. It promised a cold front and a new gale from the northwest for the next day. That could mean that the current gale would move away with a short lull before the next one struck.

Pilot Martin was told about the weather prospects and to sit tight. When he thought the time had come to abandon ship, his people could take to their rafts or jump into the sea, and the cutter would try to fish them out. Over the radiophone he could be heard retching but he seemed poised and calm. It was asking a good deal to tell them to stand such a beating indefinitely, waiting for the storm’s abatement that might not come or else would come too late. Yet it was a certainty that hasty action would save some but hardly all.

We suggested to the plane that it should launch a rubber raft on a line and see what happened to it. This was done and the cutter did likewise with a similar raft. The small rafts flew like kites or spun about crazily in the wind.

The cutter launched one of its recently acquired fifteen-person abandon-ship type rubber rafts, which did a little better; but even when it stayed right side up on the water, the motion was so violent that it was evident that its use would be a desperate measure.

The cutter made various practice approaches on the plane. It was absolutely necessary to learn certain things about relative motion and drift of plane and cutter if the rescue was to be successful. Maneuvering 2 or 3 miles downwind of the plane, the cutter created oil slicks in the line of the plane’s drift, and notes were made of the effect. Being much of the time beam to the seas, the cutter of course rolled deeply and quickly. One of the finer points to learn was just how close it could drift broadside to, and ahead of the plane to shelter it, without suction eddies destroying the plane’s control. It was very important that the plane not be allowed to broach to while passengers were leaving it. One slap of a 115-foot wing would destroy anything in its way.

The plan of rescue was to get all lifeboats over if possible and, as the people abandoned the sinking plane, drift the ship down on them and cast among them rubber rafts, life preservers, lines. Swimmers in rubber suits would aid the boats in saving as many as could be reached. We hardly expected to save all. However, when Martin made his incomparable landing and the flying boat miraculously held together, a faint pulse of hope began to be felt that perhaps all preconceived methods could be supplanted by something — just what, was not altogether clear — that would assure a greater measure of success. As the flying boat drifted downwind into the oil slicks and the cutter shielded her from the wind, we could see that a marked abatement of the sea took place. Martin had kept his radio quiet to save the batteries and gave no indication of conditions in the plane. It was not necessary that he should, for anyone could see that the plane was taking severe punishment and that operations might have to begin at any moment.

Sunset was due at 5.32 P.M. At 3.30 Charles Martin phoned the Bibb. They had had enough! He reported that the plane was taking water, the tail section was coming loose, and it did not seem that the sponsons would last much longer. The racked plane was not exactly breaking up but it was much the worse for wear, and so were the people in it. His final plea was; —

“Skipper, will you try to get us off from here, some way, before dark?” The chips were down.

5

I INSTRUCTED Martin to obtain volunteers from among the strongest men and get them somehow into a raft. (If the test failed, these would have a better chance of surviving in the cold water until the cutter could drift down on them and pick them up.) If the raft behaved well it was to be cast adrift; otherwise the men were to be hauled back on board. The cutter would circle the plane twice. As it hove to ahead of the plane after completion of the second circle, the raft was to be launched and manned.

At first the operation did not turn out so well. The cutter was not close enough on the second circle and had to try again. Then the raft did not seem sufficiently inflated, and when a second flask of compressed C02 gas was fed to it by Martin it burst. He inflated a second raft. The cutter, at 15 knots, rolling her rails under, spread an oil slick 3 miles wide downwind and then came in close across the plane’s bow and backed her engines full speed. At 3.40 P.M. the raft was launched, and rode like a chip on the ocean with three of the merchant seamen who were among the plane’s passengers crowded into it. Hearts leaped on the Bibb as one of them waved gaily to the plane. The raft’s men used their paddles. It was a futile gesture. The cutter drifted down upon it. The bull horn blared admonitions not to stand or reach out until each man received a bowline from the cutter and passed it around his body. At 3.57 P.M. they were hauled on board. While adrift they doubted they would make it, and no one blamed them.

Our hopes mounted as the tiny raft successfully completed its voyage, but it had demonstrated the impracticability of effecting the rescue by means of the small rafts. Pilot Martin advised that it had been touch and go with the little raft; a large one from the ship would do better. We decided to use the fifteen-person rubber rafts.

With darkness approaching, the action became fast and furious. In no time at all, one large rubber raft was leaking to the point where it was useless; a second had been inflated with air from the ship’s air lines and launched, only to be tossed by the sea into the ship’s starboard propeller, where the painter was spooled snugly around the propeller shaft; and the third and last was bobbing alongside, trying to beat itself to pieces.

It was clear that towing these rafts on shuttle trips between cutter and plane was going to be something of a chore. A huddle on the bridge produced the plan of launching the heavy self-bailing surfboat, towing the raft to the plane, and holding it there on a line as a loading platform.

The Coast Guard 26-foot self-bailing motor surfboat is the finest all-round rescue craft in existence. Girdled with flotation tanks and filled beneath the entire deck with air cells and buoyant material, it sheds water like a duck. The only thing is, it was designed primarily for use at surf stations, where it is put into the water from a special launchway.

Launching the 5800-pound boat from a rolling ship is another matter. In less than a minute the ship had swung the boat afoul of the cradle and torn off the rudder shoe. It was a race against darkness to repair the damage, with the heavy boat trying to brain the artificers. Finally the boat was launched and away from the ship, towing the big rubber raft downwind, the seas threatening to toss the rubber rig on board the surfboat.

It was not easy going. The light towline broke repeatedly, resulting in a chase each time, and a heavier line could not be used for fear of tearing the thin walls of duck and rubber. Finally the motor surfboat crew took the rubber raft alongside and made better progress, although the pneumatic craft still bucked like a bad horse at a rodeo. Meanwhile we salved the second raft. The sun was coming closer by the minute to the rim of the sea.

Martin, informed of the plan, inflated another small raft and, dropping it overside, payed out the painter. When, in response to a signal, he hauled the painter in, he found that his miniature raft had been cut adrift and replaced by a good-sized raft with a supply of the small cordage he lacked.

At 5.30 P.M., two minutes before sunset, the raft began receiving passengers from the plane.

On the plane, the precedence decided upon for leaving the ship was unusual but acceptable. The tradition of “Women and children first” was put aside in favor of “Families will not he separated.”

The first family to leave consisted of an eighteenmonth-old baby girl held in her father’s arms, a five-year-old boy clinging to his mother, and a nineyear-old boy who was put in the care of another woman. The raft was hauled as close to the bow of the plane as could be done without getting it caught underneath, First, a man made the leap successfully, landing in a heap. His assignment was to seize the women and children following and keep them from being washed away. Then the father made the jump, holding the baby. She never did get really wet. She turned her head from side to side throughout the boat operations as though she feared to miss some interesting detail of this grownup horseplay. I am sure the mother, holding her five-year-old son, will never know whether she jumped or was tossed into the raft; her only concern was for her children. As the raft rose on a crest to within a few feet of the hatch, the nine-year-old boy was urged to jump; he balked.

The exit hatch was located in the extreme bow on the upper deck. The plane in calm water was 20 feet high; when a trough of the sea passed, the raft would be 30 to 40 feet below the hatch. Sometime during this downward plunge the boy jumped. He landed in the sea. As he was hauled aboard the raft he complained, “I am ruining my good suit.” Other passengers landed squarely in the raft.

The line holding the rubber raft to the plane was slacked off and the ticklish business of the transfer to the motor surfboat followed. Because the raft was not staunch enough to be towed on shuttle trips between plane and cutter, and the surfboat could not lay alongside the plane for fear of puncturing it and for fear there would be broken limbs among those jumping into the boat, the plan of operation used was the only one that could have been successful. The same sequence was followed during each boat operation. The cutter made an oil slick in the area downwind of the plane for several miles and then lay close to it sheltering it from the wind and sea; the passengers debarked into the rubber raft landing platform; the surfboat crew pulled the passengers from the raft, took them alongside the cutter’s landing nets. They were hauled on board by lines secured under their arms.

6

ON BOARD the cutter, as the surfboat approached in the semidarkness, twenty minutes after sunset, excitement was at a high pitch. The lurching of the ship, the cold wind and spray, the shrieking of the gale, went unnoticed. The most dangerous part of the thing had gone well. We felt confident that as soon as the ship drifted down on the boat we would snatch its people from the sea even though the boat capsized.

The boat crew cautiously worked their craft parallel to the ship, abreast of the landing nets. The ship drifted down on them. And then came the big emotional jolt that clutched at our throats, filled our eyes with tears and our hearts with prayers. Somewhere, in the excitement and the preoccupation with plans for rescue, the human element had been lost in objectivity. Women and children in the boat caught us unprepared.

There was the boat crashing against the side as the wind pressed the ship down upon it, tossing wildly up to the rail into the lights, down out of sight into the darkness, washed by the sea, flayed by the wind and spray — and in the midst of it all a baby held aloft. Eager hands reached out for it. A woman in the boat, hysterically resisting attempts to place a line about her, screamed, “Save my baby! Save my baby!” Then, as the baby was snatched up by those on the nets and passed on board, “Thank God, my baby is saved!” over and over.

So anxious was everyone to get the baby quickly on board that men got in each other’s way. A burly man with a hoarse voice shouted, “Let go, you stupid bastard! Are you trying to drown that baby?” What was funny was that he was sobbing.

Now the women were calm and hauled on board, weak, limp, almost a dead weight, and as they were placed on their feet and felt the deck, sensed their safety, they collapsed and were carried to the sick bay. A pair of bearers picked up one of the women and attempted to carry her aft, only to fetch up short on the line still fastened to her.

The boat, the nets, the deck, had been a nightmare of shouting, tussling, weeping, and cursing crewmen. Curses of excitement on their lips, but prayers in their hearts.

On the bridge, directly above the scene, I found myself choked up, unable to speak. Everyone on the bridge was gulping for speech and blinking through a smarting film of tears.

Laughter followed. The ship’s doctor was mincing aft toward the sick bay holding the baby high in both hands. As the ship lurched into a 45-degree roll, he would balance himself like a ballet dancer on the slippery deck. Any experienced seaman would have had the baby tucked under one arm like a football, his free hand sliding along the grab rail. Scampering around him, expecting him to slip and fall, were several sailors, ready to catch him and the baby.

Now we had something to report to an anxious world. Our dispatch read: “Darkness approaching. Plane leaking. Passengers mostly prostrated by seasickness. Winds of gale force. Rough sea. Three persons removed unharmed with small life raft. Continuing operation with boat and rafts. Second successful boat and raft operation brings total saved thus far to five men, two women, two little boys, one baby. Baby appears to have stood ordeal better than the rest.”

At 6.10 P.M., a group of ten were hauled up the nets, and at 6.34 eleven more. The action was going great guns. During this third trip the gale reached its extreme height. Always, just before a North Atlantic storm begins to abate, there is a sort of dying flutter of squalls and mad seas. As the boat departed for the third trip, the quartermaster reported the wind at 45 knots. As we watched the plane careening dizzily in the beam of the searchlight and the boat threatening to capsize as the waves broke through the oil slick into breakers, disaster seemed to be at hand. We could only speed up the Diesel-oil pump and let the wind whip the oil toward the plane.

The passengers jumped or were pushed out of the plane into the raft and were hauled into the boat. One man had his scalp laid open when the raft slammed against the plane. They all were to find themselves black and blue with bruises, but they made it.

What was happening to the raft while it was being battered by the seas was not good. The motor surfboat was not doing so well either. As it lay alongside, the wind was shrieking like ten thousand devils, and the seas curled around the stern of the ship and raced along the lee side. The boat was repeatedly submerged. The impact of the boat slamming into the side of the ship was sickening.

We could not afford to let the surfboat run out of gas and drift away in the darkness, so it was brought alongside to be refueled. The crew had to pour fuel into the tanks and keep the boat fended off at the same time. The boat kept surging aft with the seas, and each surge would end in an abrupt jerk as the slack in the lines took up. This was varied by severe slams against the ship. The crew of five went sprawling in either event. They spent about as much time in the bottom of the boat as they did on their feet. There is a limit to what even a Coast Guard surfboat can stand. It began to show signs of premature old age.

Except for the cockpit, a self-bailing surfboat is completely decked over and divided into air tanks. A low bulwark completely around the boat gives a cargo space on the deck. It is into this space that the seas break; they never get into the sealed-off hull at all. The water runs out through freeing ports, the self-bailing feature. Even if the boat capsizes, the crew can stand on the keel, lean back on the righting lines, and bring the boat right side up again. This is often done at lifeboat stations on Sunday afternoons to regale the visitors.

The boat rode too deep in the water as it set out for the plane. We could tell that the air tanks were filling up. And there was a sort of wobbly quality to the boat’s motion. Lieutenant Hall, the coxswain, said afterward that the boat felt “limp.” I judged that this would be the last trip for this particular boat. In the meantime the plane had drifted too far away for comfort — my comfort — and the raft had broken away from the plane.

It is one thing to sec a raft from the bridge of a cutter with the searchlight rays reflecting from the wet, black rubber, but it is something else again to find a raft when you are in the trough of the sea in a small boat. The raft was what my Louisiana steward termed “a double shade of black.” It remained mostly out of sight behind the crests, playing hide-and-seek with the boat. When Hall finally did find it, it was already deflating. Of the three separate compartments in the main body of the raft, two were leaking. A separately inflated tubular gunwale had completely collapsed.

This time there were sixteen passengers in the raft — too many. Their legs and arms were so entangled that no one could be swept away by the sea. It was all-for-one and one-for-all; sink or swim together. They were all yanked into the surfboat; but what with the overload and the leaky tanks, the surfboat didn’t display much zing either. It too began to sink. However, now that the boat was there, the passengers became quite hopeful and Hall had no trouble persuading three of them to go back into the rubber outfit with three of the boat crew.

The thing to do was to secure the raft to the boat with a line, but the line was inextricably tangled up with the passengers, so the raft was held alongside by hand. The signal light was sought in order to call the ship for help. It could not be found. There was so much tangled-up humanity that nothing could be found.

I guess what happened next was that the propeller fouled some of the stray lines of the raft. The gear case flew to pieces, the engine housing was smashed by a sea, and the tail shaft and propeller disappeared. The boat broached broadside to the sea and was completely overwhelmed. Wave after wave washed over it. Boat and raft were kept right side up by delicate balancing by the crew.

With the searchlights playing on the scene, I could see through binoculars people exchanging places between raft and boat. Both craft seemed too deep in the water. If they were in trouble they should have signaled with their light. As usual, I was irritated by the hampered feeling I get from wet binoculars. I passed them to Webb, the ship’s engineering officer. He was always there when I needed him.

“He isn’t showing much freeboard, Captain. Looks as if he’s got his tanks about flooded.”

I called out to three others to use binoculars and give me their interpretations. I had to be sure. If I should drift down on them before they had completed their transfer, someone might get hurt. On the other hand, if the boat had lost too much buoyancy . . .

I eased the ship nearer and called them on the bull horn. “Are you all right? Acknowledge with your light.” There was no answering flash. They shouted something no one could understand. I worked the ship upwind and drifted down on them, aiming to bring the net just abaft the bridge to bear. It was a lucky pin-point landing!

And then the boat and raft were alongside the net. It was apparent that we were just in time. A ship rolling 45 degrees, a slashing sea alongside, a swamped, sinking boat and a submerged raft battering each other, passing each other, and alternately one on top of the other. Twenty-one half-drowned people mixed up in it. The whole works tossed up almost to the ship’s deck by one wave, then dropped down far out of reach again by the next. A swarm of rescuers on the nets reaching out, lines snaking down into the boats from the deck above. The deck and life lines jammed with those seeking to help.

The boat crew and the passengers were by turns in the boat, in the raft, and in the sea. The crew tried to get lines around the passengers and I was shouting through a megaphone for the boat crew to tie lines around themselves as well as the passengers. I do not believe anyone listened to me. Everyone was shouting to someone near-by or else totally absorbed in the action of the instant, which was mostly grabbing someone out of the water or tying a line around a fellow floater.

Scores of rescuers dropped over the side on lines all the way aft to the gangway. Some went into the water, others dangled halfway down the ship’s side. It was like a vertical bucket brigade.

My vantage point was the wing of the bridge. From there I could see the entire deck. I had at hand megaphones and a talker for the publicaddress system. The radio voice phone to the plane was but a step away. The searchlight operators were within hearing. The engine-room telegraphs were at hand. I could make brief sallies along the superstructure when occasion demanded. In general the p.-a. system gun stations or bull horn gave complete control over the personnel manning the boat lines, the oil spray, and the rest.

The raft somehow got in between the surfboat and the ship, and the submerged surfboat was being washed aft. There was a lightning glimpse in which I saw two persons washed out of the raft and whisked aft into the darkness. Someone leaned far over from the bow of the surfboat. One hand held the gunwale, the other darted down into the sea. A collar with a head sticking out appeared grasped by the outstretched hand and I heard a triumphant and gleeful “Got him!”

The people who washed out of the boats, whom I saw swept away into the darkness, seemed to me to be goners. I think the factor that saved them was the experience gained by the men from the preceding operations. They had caught the knack of life-line teamwork after the swimmers, in their heavy waterproof suits, had proved too slow for the tempo of the operation.

What we came to was to bend a line around a man’s chest and send him over the side with a line to tie around a passenger. Both lines were tended on deck by a group. With a soggy, dead-weight passenger hung up along the way, other men would descend to assist. After that first experience with a boat alongside we lost no lime in amending our plans and augmenting our gear. On every hand we provided 40-foot lines with loops rove in one end. The decks and ladders were sprinkled thoroughly with sand, and every hand that could be brought to bear stood ready at the lee rail.

Teams formed further aft on the ship, and somewhere along the line the drifters were latched on to. I could not see these retrievings from the bridge because it was dark back there in the water. It was pretty rugged for those men dangling from lines, being dunked in the cold sea as the ship rolled and the waves came up; but they were so excited that not a one I questioned had noticed the cold.

Twenty-one persons in the sea, about a hundred of the Bibb’s crew hanging over the side and manning the rail. In less time than it takes to tell it, they were all out of the sea and safe on board. Mike Hall was the last up. He tottered up to me, saluted, and said, “Sir, permission to take another boat over and get the rest of them?”

My reply was, “I think you’ve had enough. Anyhow, go below and get some dry clothes on. First go to the sick bay and get a snort.”

7

THE loss of the motor surfboat dimmed the prospects of completing the rescue. Even that boat had been having a rough time of it getting the big rubber raft to the plane. It was certain that a pulling boat could not tow the raft fast enough to catch the plane, and it wasn’t going to be any picnic putting a pulling boat in the water. There was one way it might be done. If the pulling boat and raft were to be dropped downwind of the plane in line with the plane’s drift, it might be possible to duck aside as the plane blew down, close in quick, and pass the raft’s painter to the plane. It would take some able boat work though. To begin with, the plane was now moving at 4 to 5 knots, and if the boat misjudged the plane’s direction or speed there would be no more boat.

I sent for Ensign Macdonald. He had manned the steering oar at drill many times and in rough water, too, but he had never taken a ten-oared boat out at night with the thwartmen reduced to six to make room for survivors. And then there was the raft to cope with.

“Mr. Macdonald, do you think that you can take six volunteers in a Monomoy and pass the raft painter to the plane with a shoulder gun, if we put you near the plane?”

Macdonald had seen what had happened to the strong motor surfboat; he was shivering with excitement. “I’ll do my best, sir!”

I was in the plotting room talking on the radiophone to Pilot Martin when Macdonald called over the public-address system for volunteers. “Now hear this,” Macdonald said. “Anyone desiring to volunteer to man number one boat lay up to the starboard wing of the bridge.”

Immediately there was the sound of feet from all directions, and the bridge ladders clanked and rattled as men raced for the bridge. I was reminded of scampering mice. I cannot say what number volunteered, but it seemed to be about everybody.

The first to arrive insisted on their precedence. Those who had not already manned a boat that day advanced that fact as a priority for selection. Their arguments must have prevailed, for among the six men chosen there was not a seaman rating.

They were out there from 9.39 until 10.45 P.M. in the darkness, in a gale, with only six oars. Sometimes we caught them with the searchlight on a crest, but mostly we could not see them at all. A whitecap and a white boat are hard to tell apart at half a mile; and being downwind spreading oil, that was as near as we dared to get.

They passed the raft to the plane — a wonderful bit of boat work. I would not have given a plugged nickel for their chances. I just hoped.

They shot several lines over the plane and finally felt one going out in jerks. They secured the running line to it, and the raft painter to the running line. Then they waited an hour for the raft to appear with people in it, and nothing happened. After such a long wait, with no sign of the raft, they conceded failure and gave it to me on the handy talkie radio.

We got them back on board with their boat. They were used up. But the plane did have the raft.

I called the officers about me. “How do you chaps feel about it? Shall we take a chance on the plane’s staying afloat until daylight? If it does we can most likely get every last one of them off. Or should we save all we can now?”

Various conjectures were voiced, but the expression that seemed to ring a bell of conviction to all present was: “ We have used up all our luck tonight. We came awful close to disaster that last trip and it will be harder with a pulling boat. Let’s not push our luck too far.”

If the plane should show sudden signs of sinking, the twenty-two people on board could go for the raft. It was rated as a 15-man boat or a 25-man raft. A dozen or so would be in the water hanging on to the grab lines, or maybe all of them would be in the water, but I was confident I could drift the ship down on them within a few minutes. Anyhow, Pilot Martin would have to make the decision.

The radio was dead and we had not had good results with blinker, so I took the ship close to him, making 15 knots to maintain control, “Do you think the plane will stay afloat for another seven hours?”

No answer; no acknowledgment. Too much wind and sea noise, maybe; or perhaps they were too tired and resigned to make the effort to hear. So we circled again and came by within 50 feet.

“How do you feel about spending the night on the plane?” It seems an absurd question to have asked, but the plane’s landing lights flashed a dot followed by a dash, meaning “Affirmative.” Then complete darkness again; not a light anywhere on the plane. So we settled down to watch our charge for seven anxious hours. It was no fun for us, and it was hell-on-water for them.

At 11.30 we advised our boss, Commander Eastern Area, “Operations suspended until daylight.”

With the plane spotted in the searchlight, I toured the ship. All hands had been broken out at 7 A.M. and had been strenuously engaged since. In the past forty hours the first watch (4 to 8) had about six hours sleep. The midwatch (12 to 4) had two hours sleep, and the morning watch (4 to 8) had started fresh at 4.30 A.M. without regard for regular watches. Half the crew (those with even billet numbers) were told they could hit the sack until called for. The other half remained on deck or assisted the dayworkers with the survivors and tended the engineering plant.

There was not much sleeping going on. The lads in the boat crews were too tired to sleep and the others too excited.

The survivors not in the sick bay were nicely aglow. The sugar water and whiskey poured into stomachs, which had been without food to speak of for more than a day and had been racked by the “dry heaves” for several hours, had a skyrocketing effect. They were high for a while and then came relaxation and — I was going to say sleep, but it was more a state of coma, interrupted by nightmares and seasickness.

The sick bay was a shambles. Water sloshed across the deck. Wet clothing, including fur coats and once smart millinery, was everywhere. The bunks were occupied by the worst of the shock cases.

At 6.45 A.M., the time of sunrise, the wind was no more than a fresh breeze. The barometer was up and the sea was down. As usual after a gale, a treacherous swell was running; but compared with the night before, conditions were mild. The captain’s gig was selected to transfer the remaining passengers, and was lowered at 7.03 A.M. Twenty-three minutes later the gig was back with eight survivors. Six minutes sufficed to get them on board.

The gig shoved off again and approached the raft tied to the plane, then had engine trouble and drifted away. Three minutes later a pulling boat was in the water and headed for the plane. The broken-down gig went unheeded as far as I was concerned, except for some vitriolic remarks, until the plane and raft were empty of human life.

Ensign Macdonald took six survivors into the boat. They helped row. Only four oars had been manned in this ten-oared boat, to make room for the survivors. Again the pulling boat unloaded the raft.

The gig got its motor running and made for the raft. I angrily roared orders over the bull horn for it to keep clear. We were doing all right with the pulling boat and I was not going to change a winning game. One more successful trip and total success would be ours — something I had not dared to hope for. I was taut as an E string, fearing some last-minute mishap.

I saw the raft cut adrift from the plane by the boat crew and knew this was the last load. I stood by the landing net tensely concentrating on every detail of preparations for unloading the boat. Those who attempted to talk to me were harshly repulsed; no distraction could be tolerated at this point.

And then, the pulling boat was alongside with six survivors, and the noble raft was adrift on the sea, its work finished. At 8.33 A.M. the last passenger climbed over the rail and We have done it! Yes sir, we got them. But what is this?

The gig came up and Mike Hall shouted something to young Macdonald. The pulling boat shoved away. The gig stopped alongside the net, the crew looking sheepish. Just before the gig’s motor failed, two survivors had hopped into it from the raft and now they clambered on board.

We had saved the sixty-nine passengers and crew of the wrecked plane — every last one of them.

As for Pilot Martin, his was the triumph. Triumph over the sea and the air. Triumph over himself. His nerve in turning back, his incomparable landing, and his fortitude in keeping his plane under control after landing, had made this rescue possible.

We could not start for port just yet; not with the big seaplane wallowing on the surface, clinging stubbornly to life. Word came that the operators agreed to destroying it, and I hastened to do so before they changed their minds. I did not care to risk lives in a hopeless salvage attempt. Martin related how an identical plane had landed undamaged in the Pacific and been towed across a sea of mirror smoothness for three days, after which the plane was so racked and weakened it had to be abandoned.

With prow crushed and wings askew the Queen might sink so suddenly that a salvage crew would be trapped. So we lost no time in pouring explosive and tracer bullets into her. There was not enough gas left to make a belch of flame, but the lub-oil tanks by each of the four engines burned fiercely, and by and by some gas was touched off. The giant tail dropped off, the wings drooped, and the Bermuda Sky Queen gave up the ghost. She was a staunch old girl, though. She kept alive until all her people were saved. Then, down she went in a blaze of glory.