Don't Land

Said the wing commander: "It was a brave and gallant and heartbreaking thing."

Two Catalina patrol bombers had been circling for hours over a pair of bright yellow rafts in the freezing, gale-whipped sea 90 miles off Attu. On the rafts were six young naval airmen who had crashed. It was dusk and still no surface craft had answered radio calls for help. Now the fuel was beginning to run low in the Catalina's tanks.

The pilot, Lieut. Commander Frank R. More of Sunbury, Pa., made up his mind. He lowered his floats, eased down through tatters of fog toward the rafts. It was certain disaster to land in the thundering sea, but the white faces of the men below had made him decide to try.

On one of the rafts Lieut. Newel Putnam Wyman of Canandaigua, N.Y., weak with cold and exhaustion, saw what was coming. He made up his mind too. As the Catalina, with sparks winnowing from her pipes, drew near, he gave the signal all Navy pilots know: the wave of the arms that means "Don't land."

Frank More accepted the decision. With one last circle over the rafts he and his fellow pilot thundered off to their home base.

For three days the storm raged. Then planes found the rafts, and a ship picked up the men. They were all dead.

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