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Show Island Just Big Enough For' a Forced Landing WASHINGTON. Two army sergeants ser-geants described today how the crew of a two-engine bomber landed it on an Alaskan island which was just a little wider than the plane Itself. Master Sergeant Barron C. Powers Pow-ers and Technical Sergeant Ralph S. Davis from Maxwell field, Ala., members of the crew, described their experience In the Army Air Corps News Letter. After leaving Juneau and traveling travel-ing at 8,300 feet "the right motor said 'woof and quit," they wrote. "We sat quiet, buckling on safety belts. We were headed down. Some jagged mountain peaks were coming com-ing up. We were losing altitude fast" The pilot skimmed the mountains and headed for a tiny strip of land dead ahead. The ship bounced fifty feet high off the north tip of the island is-land over heaps of driftwood and was braked to a stop just two feet short of the south tip and deep water. wa-ter. Sergeant Powers stepped off the distance, exactly 165 paces. ' The crew salvaged the rations and radio just before the tide began to rise and waited on a tiny strip of land not engulfed by the ocean. Seven Sev-en hours later members of the Royal Canadian air force base at Prince Rupert took them off in a large boat. |