The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1954-11-19
DEATH CLAIMS THREE OF
SEVEN FLIERS CRASHING In
PAMLICO SOUND SUN. NIGHT
Mishap Occurs 40 Miles West of Cape Hatteras
at Bluff ShOal; Coast Guardsmen From
Elizabeth City Rescue Four Found on Life
Raft Monday Morning While Bound On
Another Mission.


of North Carolina Sunday night.
The four airmen were found
Monday morning in Pamlico Sound,
inside the outer banks. They were
crew members of Navy PV-2
Harpoon patrol bomber that was
ditched in the sound about $50
Sunday night. The fifth member of
the crew did not escape, and was
never seen after the ditching.
Several hours after a distress
message from the PV-2 was re-
ceived by Task Force %, Marine
Corps jet fighter with two aboard
was diverted from a routine flight
to join the search. 1t radioed at 9
pm. that it had sighted two flares
while flying at 300 feet and was
descending to 200 feet to get a
better look. That was the last
word from the plane, which was
presumed to have crashed during
its low-level flight. No trace of
the occupants or their plane was
found in a daylong search Monday
by Is aircraft and 40 ships.
Missing from the PV-2 bomber
was Richard Zigmund Garlenski,
seaman apprentice, USN, who was
in the big two-engine planes rear
radar seat at the time it hit the
sea. The plane broke in two and
sank quickly, and only the four in
the forward section were saved.
Names of the two Marine air
men aboard the missingf F3D jet
fighter were listed by a Marine
Corps spokesman as Second 1t.
Roy 0. Wilkins, %, of Indio, Calf,
the pilot and Master Sgt. Gerald
A. Moreau, of Havelock, N. c., the
radar operator.
Messages from the Inflated Har-
pooh bomber before its final re-
port unfolded story of increasing
troubles. First one motor and then
the other sputtered and died.
The four survivors of the Har-
pooh were picked up by a Coast
Guard amphibian plane and flown
to Elizabeth City. They We're
found about 7 am. 10 miles from
the North Carolina mainland in
Pamlico Sound between Ocracoke
Island and Bluffs Point.
The four survivors said their
life raft had been thrown clear of
the plane, and automatically in
fated in the water before they
reached it. They climbed aboard
and made for a red channel marker
about a mile and a half away, Sc
curing the raft to the triangular
metal structure. They remained
there shooting orange flares found
in the RATS compartment, and dy-
ing the water with green dye.
Shortly before 7 am. 1t. R. 7.
Penn, Jr., pilot of the Coast Guard
plane, flew low and dipped his
wings at the men, three of whom
were standing on a platform of
the navigation light with the
fourth lying in the raft. This was
1t. Comdr. George Sanford Smith,
of Fairfax, Va, who had a broken
leg.
The initiation of a life raft as
their plane hit the water was cred
tied by four survivors of a plane
crash Sunday night with saving
their lives. A fifth crewman ap-
parently went down with the craft
when it sank after ditching in
Pamlico Sound. The plane, a PV-2,
attached to Naval Reserve unit
at the Anacostia, D. c., Naval Air
Station, lost power as it was re-
turning from a weekend cross
country navigational flight to Mi
ami, Fla.
According to the survivors, all
reservists on weekend training
duty, the raft which kept them
afoat during the night before their
rescue was thrown loose from its
place in the plane when the ship
broke in two after the crash. 1t
inflated automatically.
The planes pilot, 1t. Robert L.
Mallonee of Towson, Md, esti-
mated that the plane sank in about
Is seconds after it hit.
"My head was under water as
came out of the cockpit" NAL
lonee said. "Smitty (Lt. Comdr
George S. Smitty of Fairfax, had
his hands on my feet as l came
out"
The remaining two survivors,
1t. Albert w. Funkhouser, a Coast
Guard Reserve, of Edgewater, Md.
and D. c. Sotiropoulis, an airman
apprentice, of Washington, D. c..
were in the main cabin of the
plane.
r. z. Garlinski, airman appren-
tice, also of Washington, who is
still missing, was in the radai
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