Eight Minutes to Search

Eastbound from Okinawa, the big Air Force C-54 droned steadily into the night. At .glowing instrument board and hood-lighted desk the six men of its crew worked. In the cabin the passengers, 31 Spokane-bound soldiers of the 98th Bomber Group, shifted uncomfortably in their bucket seats and tried to sleep.

In the darkness before dawn things began to go wrong. On the flight engineer's board, instrument needles flickered away from their reassuring positions. An outboard engine began to lose oil; it flowed back over the wing like blood in the moonlight. The plane began to shudder; the far starboard engine died. Its feathered prop stood stark and motionless. The plane rumbled on uneasily, unevenly. The other starboard engine sputtered and died, and the craft began to lose altitude. Up forward, the radio operator methodically clicked out an SOS, giving his position. The white-faced passengers cinched themselves into life jackets, tightened their-safety belts, and waited.

Water Landing. The C-54's pilot, war-toughened, black-haired Lieut. Colonel William R. Calhoun Jr. of Birmingham, Ala., ditched the plane beautifully. But the C-54 hit the rough Pacific sea with a bone-jarring crash. Its lights went out. Debris flew through the cabin. The tail snapped off and so did the left wing.

In the darkness men scrambled through an escape hatch or pushed up through the astrodome. They jumped, found themselves swimming and choking in gasoline-coated seas. Only two rafts were launched successfully and tied together. When the plane went down, 35 men were clustered on the rafts or hung in the water beside them. Two passengers had vanished.

The sun popped up above the tropical horizon, glared, and began to blaze. Sharks cruised patiently beyond range of the shark repellent on rafts and life belts. Some of the men on the rafts vomited as they rose and fell on the sea. There was constant turmoil as men resting on the rafts traded places with men clinging to their sides.

The Night, the Sun Again. Darkness brought hope. The men on the rafts heard the engines of a bomber--a B-iy from Hickam Field, Hawaii. They fired flares, saw marker flares dropped in reply. The B-17 turned away and their hopes fell. During the night, one of the men died. As the sun grew hot again, the sky was empty and silent. Pilot Calhoun, a commander still, allowed each man one sip of water in the first 24 hours. It only seemed to make their thirst keener.

As the second day wore on, one man jumped into the water, was washed away and disappeared. But finally, in mid-afternoon--35 hours and three sips of water after they had boarded the rafts--they saw salvation: a fat-bellied Navy Privateer patrol bomber roared overhead and began to circle.

Three hours later they were rescued by the aircraft carrier Rendova and heard a frightening tale.

The air search had been thrown off because the rafts had drifted so rapidly southwest after being spotted by the B17. The Privateer's pilot, about 1,200 miles southwest of Honolulu, was all ready to turn back; he had gone on only because the navigator had asked for eight more minutes of flight on the same heading to save altering his flight plan.

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