Part 42. Posted early for Christmas.

October, 1940

RESCUE IN THE ATLANTIC BY A SUNDERLAND FLYING-BOAT

BY A FLIGHT LIEUTENANT

MY Sunderland was the flying-boat which found a lifeboat in the Atlantic recently and brought its twenty-one occupants back to this country. It belongs to one of the Royal Australian Air Force Squadrons and the entire crew is Australian.

The men in the lifeboat were survivors of a torpedoed ship and they had been adrift for three and a half days when we picked them up. We had sighted the same lifeboat two days before, and had dropped a container with food and cigarettes to the men. But the condition of the sea then made it impossible to alight. The second time we saw them they had rowed and sailed a little nearer to this country, but they were still about 150 miles from the nearest land.

It was still dark when one of my gunners reported a red light on the sea some miles away. We flew in that direction, and soon we could see the outline of a boat below us.

We flew round for about a quarter of an hour waiting for the daylight to improve. I thought the condition of the sea might permit a landing, and made several dummy approaches on the water. This meant coming down very low—a few feet above the surface—to see whether it was possible to get down without damaging the flying-boat.

I discussed it with my co-pilots. We decided that it could be done, and I came down on what seemed to be the flattest area of sea in the vicinity. This, however, wasn't as calm as it seemed. There was quite a lumpy swell and the aircraft lurched rather heavily once or twice before coming to rest.

We kept two of our four engines running, but they gave too much headway to the aircraft and the men in the lifeboat, about a quarter of a mile away and rowing hard, could not catch us up. We turned back towards them and stopped all our engines.

I directed them towards the bow of the Sunderland and asked them to lower their mast, which might have holed the wing. They brought the boat round and several of the men fended it off while the others piled in through the front gun turret. It wasn't an easy transfer because their boat was rising and falling in front of the nose of the Sunderland.

Although several of the men were suffering from exposure and later were taken to hospital, they clambered aboard with very little loss of time. Some of them were throwing kit from their boat into the aircraft, but I objected on the grounds of weight. The skipper had a big cardboard box under his arm. He said: "What about this? Here are my ship's papers." Of course, I couldn't refuse those.

I was anxious to get off again as soon as possible and we distributed the passengers in the aircraft so that their weight would not upset its trim. We had been on the water nearly half an hour.

It was a tricky take-off because of the confused swell and the additional weight. We struck rather a bumpy patch in the course of our run which sent several cups scuttling in the galley and we nipped the tops of two swells before we were properly airborne.

On the way back to base, the rigger, who is our cook, gave the survivors as good a breakfast as he could on the food available—which, unfortunately, was not much for so many. But it was at least hot—cooked on the galley stove.

I didn't see much of our passengers on the way back as we were confronted with foggy conditions and my co-pilots and I were fully occupied in managing the aircraft. However, we got back safely and handed our survivors over to the care of the medical officer, who was waiting for them as a result of a wireless message we had sent.


On patrol. The midship gunners of the Sunderland are alert at their stations. Below, in the crew’s quarters, the ‘watch off’ takes it easy.


Torpedoed.

Last edited by RedToo; 12/24/09 07:56 PM.

My 'Waiting for Clod' thread: http://tinyurl.com/bqxc9ee

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Elie Wiesel. Romanian born Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, Holocaust survivor. 1928 - 2016.

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