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Show COL. WILLIAM F. ROOS ovemb r 11 2004 where it was, and started heading home. And he went on grinding away, grinding away and before long it got dark. And he still couldn't find anybody. He couldn t raise anybody on the radio. And he finally just ran out of gas. And he put the airplane down in the ocean. And fortunately, it was empty. He had dropped out all his bombs, and his tanks were empty. So, the dam airplane didn't sink at all. He just landed it in the ocean. But he still got all his people out in these little dinghies and paddled away. The next morning, when the sun came up, he looked up and there was the airplane still floating. So he paddled on over. And they went in and they got out some sandwiches, and some water, and things they had. And he said, "Well, we don't have to worry, somebody will be along here." And, sure enough, a destroyer-they had destroyers going up there back and forth all the time-a destroyer came along and picked him up. And this destroyer captain came along, and he was-actually, although he was a destroyer captain he was only a lieutenant in the navy. And he had to act official. And he said, "Lieutenant, your airplane is a hazard to navigation. I intend to sink it." And, so, my pal said, "Well, unless you can put on a towrope and take it into Saipan, why go ahead and do it." He said, "Well, no, we can't do that." So he put a couple of shells in it and it went down. DAN: And that did it? BILL: Yeah, that did it. And they dumped him off at Saipan. But he had quite a scare though. All his people got out and, before long, he was flying again. DAN: That plane still sits there. It's still down there on the bottom of the Pacific somewhere. BILL: Yeah, yeah. It still is there. The other classmate, who was flying B-29's out of Saipan, 36 |
