B29 in Distress, On Fire

Bates recounts at great length two incidents in which 'the crews of Catalinas at Eastern Air Command search[d] the Bay of Bengal, the coast of the Arakan and even the tropical islands about Malaya... for flying crews that are shot down into the sea'.

The first rescue, in late February 1945, of nine out of twelve airmen downed in a Japanese attack, involved multiple Catalina missions as well as the help of a submarine. The second, just days later, saved ten airmen.

An independent telling of the first incident appeared in Air Force Magazine in 1996.

One of a number of unpublished typescripts found in a private collection, probably written while posted to Burma in 1945, (the others being Angel of Mercy; Burma Air, Dusty Answer; and It isn't in the Book)