Catalina to the Rescue

The life raft bumping the waves of the Windward Passage near Haiti looked no bigger than a cork when the Catalina patrol plane first sighted it; but when Ensign Francis E. Pinter eased his ship down to 200 ft., he could make out 17 people crowded upon it. To attempt a landing in such a choppy sea was a risky business for a plane that was toting a pair of depth charges, beaching gear, and a crew of eight, but Ensign Pinter figured that the plane had burned 300 gallons of gas since it left San Juan, Puerto Rico, was therefore 1,800 Ib. lighter. He decided to try a landing anyhow, and he got away with it.

In the rough sea it was impossible to taxi alongside, so he moved up windward, drifted down on the raft. The 16 men and a woman on the raft were weak after 60 hours at sea without food or water. Distributing them aboard a Catalina built to accommodate only its crew took a lot of doing. Some were stowed in the bombing compartment, one on the deck between the pilots' seats; the woman was put in a bunk.

Hoping to sight a sub (and sink same) in the Windward Passage, Ensign Pinter did not want to jettison his bombs. But on the take-off he was sorely tempted to let them go. Said his report last week:

"On the first attempt the diagonally crossing swells hit the plane, bouncing us 90DEG out of our original course. I immediately cut the guns, shifted more weight forward, and tried again.

"On this attempt I managed to get the step and start the run. The plane bounced high into the air without speed, and on each bounce Aviation Machinist's Mate

Lewis M. Thompson (the copilot) gave it more power as I nosed it down at the peak of each bounce and pulled back as we hit the swells and waves, easing the blow and still increasing air speed.

"Finally on one of the bounces I gave it maximum power available and it stayed in the air. It took us approximately 20 minutes to climb to 500 ft."

Seen by Lightning

Frank Knox had said that the U.S. campaign against U-boats off the Atlantic Coast by aircraft and sea patrol seemed to be getting somewhere, but warned that it was going to take a lot of doing to put the German completely out of business. The German underlined the warning last week. The U.S. public got no total of his sinkings, but his attacks, by day & night, vignetted scenes of death and loss like glimpses of a vast battle seen in the lightning's flash:

> The U.S. freighter was so close inshore that the torpedo's explosion could be seen quite clearly from the beach, and crowds streamed out to watch as she heeled over under a rain of shells. In the glow of the town's lights, which were not blacked out for 40 minutes, amateur lifesavers put out in rowboats to help the Navy patrols save 29 of the 48 sailors aboard. Not since the U-156 appeared off the coast of Cape Cod in World War I and smacked a few shells at Orleans had U.S. citizens seen a pigboat in action at such close range.

> Two ships were sunk off the coast of the Carolinas with eleven lives lost. One of them listened helplessly for half an hour to the engines of the approaching submarine, watched it fire two torpedoes in full view of the crew. A rescued seaman from the second ship had to swim two and a half miles, diving under patches of flaming oil, before he was picked up. >Sailors rowing away from a doomed ship saw a Swedish freighter loom up in the night, get caught in a cross-fire of shells from two subs and catch fire. As she tried to flee, the Swede almost ran the lifeboat down.

>On another sinking ship the gun crew kept blazing away at the sub, shattered the U-boat's periscope before a second torpedo finished off the U.S. vessel. > Somewhere along the Brazilian bulge, a heavily armed Norwegian ship tangled with a U-boat, blew it to bits. > The Hartford Courant reported that marine claims filed against insurance companies for U.S. ships lost since Jan. i were $48,000,000; lost cargo claims were $25,000,000; total $73,000,000. This was $17,000,000 more than the premiums paid, almost completely wiped out all marine-insurance profits of the past 22 years.

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