RESCUES AT SEA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 59, 10 March 1944, Page 4

RESCUES AT SEA

N.Z. CATALINAS AGAIN

MISSING U.S. FLYER SAVED

(R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service)

WELLINGTON, this day.

Listed as missing for nine days, an American Corsair pilot has been returned to his unit by a New Zealand Catalina flying-boat. He was saved from hostile seas and probable death.

The flyer was shot down over Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain, while covering a raid on the Vunakanau airfield, near Rabaul. He carried his life raft through the jungle, floated down a river, and finally emerged at night into St. George's Channel, where, injured and suffering from exposure, he was picked up by a R.N.Z.A.F. Catalina.

This was one of a number of rescues carried out in recent weeks by R.N.Z.A.F. flying-boats operating from the Solomons. Notable in these "Dumlx)" missions has been the fact that at times three types of New Zealand aircraft have co-operated in the rescuing of Allied airmen from the sea. Ventura bombers have sighted, reported and circled marooned aviators, Warhawks have given them fighter protection, and Catalinas have swept in to the final rescue.

On the same day as the Corsair pilot was rescued, another New Zealand Catalina brought to safety two injured survivors of an American Mitchell bomber, which was hit on a strafing mission and crashed into the sea northward of Buka. Marooned N,Z. Pilot On another recent morning, with an escort of Corsairs and Airacobras, a New Zealand Catalina received a message to proceed to a point off Cape Henpan, Buka Island, to search for a moroorred New Zealand fighter pilot. At. the cape the flying-boat was met by three R.N.Z.A.F. Warhawks, who guided the searchers to a point where the New Zealander was in the water, being circled by other Warhawks. Making an open water landing, the Catalina Ricked up the survivor, who had been forced down an hour earlier, when his Warhawk's petrol pump had failed.

"Dumbo" missions may take rescuers over hundreds of miles of ocean in one flight, as was the case on a recent afternoon, when a Catalina picked up two Corsair pilots, one forced down off Empress Augusta Bay by engine trouble, and the other eight miles off Cape St. George, New Ireland, where a pilot was forced to "water land" earlier in the day.