When Bill Bruce felt the pull of the sinking airplane on his leggin,
he knew that he had to do some fast moving and some faster thinking to
escape being dragged to the bottom of the ocean. He was submerged
before he knew it. His only salvation lay in his ability to release
himself from the leggin or in the cloth band breaking. In the meantime
he was going farther and farther beneath the water’s surface.
It suddenly occurred to him that he might be able to unwrap the leggin
by rotating his foot about the taut part extending upward from the
plane. This procedure proved to be a success and in a few seconds he
emerged. When his head came above the water he coughed and spit until
he got rid of most of the salt water which he had swallowed. He had
not been under the water long, but it seemed much, yes, very much
longer than it actually was. He had been through a terrible ordeal and
his escape had been a narrow one.
When Bill had brushed the salt water from his eyes, he looked around
and saw the tug with its small boat standing near by. He swam to the
small boat and was taken aboard. In a few minutes they were back on
the tug and headed for the target.
“I want to pick up that target again,” said Lieutenant Small, the
Artillery officer in charge of the tug. “If you are all in, however, I
will head into the harbor and dock. If you can wait for a while, I
will pick up the target and cable and then we will steam back to the
dock.”
“I can wait for a while,” said Bill. “I am all right. I swallowed a
lot of salt water, but that won’t hurt me any. How did you get to the
plane so soon?”
“As soon as we saw your plane going down, I knew that something was
wrong,” said Small. “Ordinarily you fellows don’t get down that low
while you are out here. Then when you kept on going down, I told the
crew to cut the target cable. They hacked it off with an axe and we
went full steam ahead for the spot where you hit the water.”
“It’s lucky that you did, too,” replied Bill. “I was under the
impression that a land plane would stay afloat for about four hours,
but I know now that it won’t when it is damaged when it hits the
water. That old bus did not float more than thirty minutes, if that
long.”
“We timed it,” said Small. “It was just twenty minutes after you hit
that we launched the small boat. Eight minutes later the plane was out
of sight. I figure out that twenty-eight minutes covers the entire
time that it was afloat.”
“The plane must have been more badly damaged than I thought,”
commented Bill. “The landing gear must have torn off some of the
fusilage when it hit. In any event, I am glad that you arrived when
you did.”
The tug had almost reached the target by this time. The crew
maneuvered until they came along side the target and then caught the
loose end of the cable. It was a long, tedious job to pull the end of
the cable from the bottom of the ocean, but was finally accomplished.
Once more the target was being drawn through the water at the end of
the cable and the tug headed back toward the bay.
“What did you do with my plane?” asked Batten when Bill arrived at the
aviation field.
“Don’t you know?” asked Bill.
“We received a radio message from Breene telling us that you were
going to land, but why pick out the ocean?” responded Batten.
“You talk as if I had landed in the water eight miles from shore
through choice,” said Bill, somewhat peeved.
Bill was wet and most uncomfortable. He had been through a trying,
nerve-racking experience and could not see that Batten was joking with
him.
“It was a good plane, anyhow,” replied Batten. “Now I will have to
break in another one. You had a mighty lucky escape and showed good
headwork in getting away with nothing more than a wetting. I would
hate to have to swim around in that cold water and wait for a slow old
tug to come up and pick me up.”
The days followed along with regular squadron work. More artillery
observation, aerial gunnery and bombing and the maintenance of the
equipment. Then one morning Captain Smith told the officers that they
would have searchlight practice with the anti-aircraft artillery that
night.
Night flying was not a new thing to any of the officers of the
squadron, but none of them had ever before gone up with the one
purpose of dodging the searchlights. The drill was to give the
searchlight men practice in locating airplanes and holding the beam on
them at night.
Early in the evening the planes were all out on the line but Bill’s.
The mechanics had not quite finished the work incidental with the
installation of the equipment. Bill had just received a new airplane
prior to his return from Oregon. The old engine had been replaced with
a new one and then the radio, machine guns and bomb racks were put in
place. Bill hoped that his plane would be ready for the night’s
flying. Sergeant Breene was sure that it would.
The searchlight truck was placed at one end of the field and the flood
lights on the hangar were tested out. When it became dark, the lights
were turned on and the airdrome was as light as day. Beyond the ridge,
at the end of the flying field, the anti-aircraft searchlights were
throwing their beams into the sky. It made a beautiful sight.
Occasionally the beams from two lights would cross in the sky. The
operators would throw the beams from one side to the other, sweeping
the sky from the horizon in the north to the horizon in the south.
Smith took the first mission and his plane disappeared in the
darkness. It was not until he turned on his navigating lights that the
men at the flying field could locate him. He climbed his plane to an
altitude of over five thousand feet and then turned off the red and
green wingtip lights. As soon as he turned them off, the game of
hide-and-seek commenced. The searchlight beams were thrown around in
an endeavor to locate the plane.
Once in a while the plane would be caught in a beam and Smith would
dive, slip or make a quick turn. This made it necessary for the
searchlights to locate him again. It seemed as if they could not hold
the plane, for it was very seldom that they kept it in the glaring
light. When he flew with his navigating lights turned on, the
operators had no difficulty in keeping the plane in the beams, but as
soon as he turned them off, things were different.
Each one of the pilots took his turn after Smith had completed his
flight. Some of them were not as adept in handling their planes as
Smith had been and the beams played on their planes longer. After
talking with the other pilots as they came down, Bill was convinced
that this aerial hide-and-seek at night must be wonderful sport. He
was eager to get his turn.
“How about it, Breene, will we be able to get up tonight?” he asked.
“Everything will be ready in about fifteen minutes,” replied Breene.
“I have very little more to do. I had to connect up the bomb racks so
that we could take up some parachute flares.”
“That is not entirely necessary,” said Bill. “The lights here on the
airdrome will be sufficient to land by. However, I guess that we
better have them. In case of a forced landing we might need the
flares.”
“You are scheduled to go up next,” said Captain Smith to Bill. “Will
your plane be ready?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Bill.
“All right then, you will have the last flight, for it will be too
late for any more when you get down.”
Bill secured his flying equipment from the office and returned to his
plane. Breene had finished his part of the work and the other
mechanics had completed theirs. One of the men was climbing out of the
pilot’s cockpit when Bill started to get in.
The engine was warmed up and the lights tested. Everything was working
in A-1 condition. Breene climbed in the observer’s cockpit and the
plane was ready to start. Bill taxied down to the far end of the field
and turned the plane around. The beam from the field lighting set
illuminated the ridge beyond the buildings so that the minutest
details could be seen. Bill opened his throttle and took off.
The plane rolled a few yards and then was in the air. It climbed
steadily and crossed the ridge with lots of room to spare. Bill turned
back over the bay to get more altitude. The view which he saw was like
a touch of fairyland. Directly beneath him lay San Francisco. The
streets were outlined with their lights and could almost be recognized
by name. The trolleys could be seen traveling through the city.
Here and there ferryboats threw their lights across the waters of the
bay. The lighthouse on Alcatraz Island sent out its rotating beam,
which illuminated the shore line all around that portion of the bay.
The outline of the water was marked by the lights of the various
cities and small villages located along its shore.
On the far side of the bay Bill could see several railroad trains
coming into or leaving the station at Oakland. Beyond the Berkeley
Hills the lights of the cities in the Sacramento Valley broke the
darkness like stars in the sky. It was a beautiful sight, but Bill had
other things to do. He headed his plane back toward the ocean front.
His course was farther south than he wished and he tried to change it
by putting on right rudder. He soon realized that something had
happened to the plane—something was wrong with the rudder controls.
Bill was in a quandary as to what he should do. He kicked hard with
his right foot but could not get any response from the rudder bar. It
was solid in its position. He was now afraid to use his left rudder
for fear that it also would get caught. If he kept flying on his
present course, he would travel out over the ocean. That was not to be
thought of. On the other hand, suppose that when he used his left
rudder, the controls would lock in that position and he would have to
keep turning to the left. The situation was critical.
Bill pressed slightly with his left foot and the plane responded.
Furthermore, the rudder bar returned to a neutral position. He tried
to get some right rudder, but it was just as solid as formerly. By
this time the lights of the city were well behind him. He judged that
he was about five or six miles out over the ocean.
The one thought that entered Bill’s mind was that his controls might
lock in place. If that happened, he would have to follow the course
which the airplane took. Once more Bill shoved slightly with his left
foot and the plane responded. He held the foot in place with a view of
making a wide circle to get back to the landing field. He realized
that the circle with such a small amount of rudder would be a very
large one, but he could not take any chances of having the controls
lock and the movement of the plane thus be limited to a small circle.
Landing fields were scarce in the bay region. The city of San
Francisco was on a peninsula with the ocean on one side and the bay on
the other. The land between was thickly settled and built up. It would
be difficult to pick out a landing field in the day time and almost
impossible at night. Bill’s one chance lay in his being able to jockey
his plane, crippled as it was, back to the airdrome.