(2 of 2)
Pacific distances made a greater problem. Not long after Pearl Harbor, submarines occasionally saved Army and Navy flyers. Guadalcanal-based PBYs began picking up pilots from the waters around enemy-held islands in the Solomons. By late 1943 every downed U.S. carrier pilot, no matter how deep in enemy waters, began to count on an increasing chance of rescue. Pilots who were unable to return to their bases always knew where a crash landing or a parachute jump could be made with some hope. Float planes were used where submarines could not go—as in the Truk lagoon early last year, when seven pilots were taxied out by one plane. In Ormoc Bay last year five PBY Dumbos saved 142 men from a torpedoed destroyer, 56 of them in one plane. It took a three-mile run before getting off.
How It Developed. When the carriers and B-29s started striking at Japan, air-sea rescue became even more hazardous— and more necessary. In the early days of flying from the Marianas to Japan, many B-29 crews were lost which might otherwise have been saved: the PBYs lacked the range, the B-29s could not remain in the danger area long enough.
The capture of Iwo Jima last March provided an ideal Dumbo base. Nowadays the rescue planes leave for their assigned areas as regularly as the bombers and fighters take off. The first boat, containing a "Gibson Girl" hand-cranked radio, was dropped May 30 to the crew of a plane shot up over Yokohama. Four crewmen drowned but seven were saved. With Okinawa also in U.S. hands a downed airman has an excellent chance of survival, even on the shores of Japan—unless Jap soldiers or fanatical civilians catch him first.
*Named for Walt Disney's big-eared flying elephant.