The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-01-25

Aboard Q Navy Patrol Plane Over 0he Houth Atlantic (deiayed): Some men are more fortunate than oth-I eEa. some men are richer than many. s01ne men stay n love long CT than most -iafid most men never expeFence the wallop that goes with being at he bow-gtifl Of Q Navy patrol plane (a pBX) few feet oyer tlis submarine infested South Atlantic.
 How even a veteran bombardier can keep his eyes open or focused on q target out there in the open bow-Witht he fierce wind blinding and bayoneting him-is something I do not savvy The powerful gun kics the way Joe Louis punches and shakes you violently the way { Lew Fields shook Joe Webber :. At any rate, there you are out there under the huge prOpelelrs- several feet ahead of the pilot-alone .. Except for the hurricane-tempod wind and perhaps Na1 sub hiding below.
 I was reminded of the time Set1a- tor Holman of Oregon and Sena- tor Chandler of Kentucky flew to the Aleutians through heavy fog and storm most of the way. And picked up a soldier at some Alaskan base, who immediately took his bat- tic station and trained his gun on the skies.
 "son," said Senator Holman, "whatcha fussin' with that there weapon fer. that-a-way?' Tim being ready" replied the gunner, Sin case we meet some Jap planes" The White-as.a-slee Holman turned to the whiteh-than-that Chandler and intoned: "Ain't 1t silly what some of us Senators will do to get inot trouble-when we don't have to2"
 My good break came from missing connections with the plane that was to take me to the next port on the tour .. Had I made that plape would have missed one of the big gest thrills of them all That thrill was not my first flight in a 1. PBY--a huge and comfortable Ca- talina (one of which helped sink the Bismarck; or firing the n1bow-gua Circling low over oil specks that tained the beautiful aquamarine be- low .. {. The big wallop came several hours later when we reached the base.
 I am not permitted to divulge the excitement I witnessed at this place |, .. i. The four paragraphs about , 1t were blue-penciled even before l { had the chance to correct the spell- ing It was my first experience with an official gremlin, too [. For the first time in 22 years of f1ewspapering I realized how tame the toughest editors are.
 AM I was trying to jot down was that some fellows were luckier than other fellows .. .. That some pllotS had reasons for being happier than others and that the U. s. now has fewer enemies than 1t had.
 And so I cannot reveal at this timO what all that excitement was about <. I cannot even elaborate that the excitement was enjoyed by lot of very happy men, and that l the reason they weer so excited and q hauny was that certain other men, with diolects, were unhappy or dead. ..... The PBY on which I hitch linked ]. was manned by the mots youthful 2 fellows encountered down there. .. Most were only 2l. Some were 8 or 25, and some were @ little ' more seasoned But all featured boards that must have been months in blooming {. All the other fly- CTS met at various places were clean-shaven .. "Why the whis- kers?" asked.
 "They haven't been as lucky as other chaps" explained an officer, land so they agrede not to shave until they got sub."
 I kept wishing that on this rou- tine flight would not prove a jinx tot hem-andt hatt hey could get-a shave.
 The Atlantic seemed as tame as any Florida lake .. T was instruct