Lost at Sea
A look into the air war and saving pilots!
As November 1944 began, the 345th Bomb Group was flying to the staging base of Morotai, where they would then take part in missions that targeted islands in the Philippines. Morotai was three hours away from their base at Biak Island. While this hop could be considered routine, weather once again thwarted plans of landing at Morotai on November 6th. As the B-25 pilots attempted to fly through the stormy weather, Morotai went on red alert and the control tower went off the air. It became extremely difficult for the crews to find their way to Morotai without a radio signal, not to mention a way out of the storm. Several pilots turned around. One, Lt. Edward Reel, remained in the area, hoping to catch a station. Aboard his B-25 were six crewmen as well as two passengers.
Hours passed. Reel had descended to find the bottom of the clouds…
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Posted on April 15, 2017, in Uncategorized, WWII and tagged Air War, Airborne, aviation, History, Military History, Philippines, rescue, USA, WW2, WWII. Bookmark the permalink. 21 Comments.
Pacific Paratrooper 
Thanks for another reblog! 😀
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You know it is my pleasure. Your research helps to balance out my own. [plus – it’s better!]
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Haha! Given the nature of things, we probably have a few advantages over you when it comes to the type and amount of information that we have access to. It has certainly accumulated over the years!
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Fantastic story, the circumstances must have been horrendous, I need to research who did not make it out of the plane, considering there were six crewman and two passengers, wonder who and why the passengers were on board.
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Happy Easter
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I hope you had a wonderful day as well.
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Definitely following them as well :))
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Glad to hear that!!
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Thank you!
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You’re welcome! 🙂
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It’s amazing to see what human beings can withstand…thank you for posting!
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My pleasure, they are an outstanding research team at the IHRA.
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Merry Easter 😀
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Grazie, lo stesso con voi e la vostra.
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Thanks for sharing this! I will bop on over to the original post.
Happy Easter Whee-kend you and your family, GP!
HUGS!!! 🙂
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Thank you! and Happy Easter to you and yours as well!!
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This title alone is frightening. I can’t imagine how much courage it would take to not give up when lost at sea.
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I can not imagine what goes through your mind in that instance – and then when it lasts for days……
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Re-looking at that title, it does give me the same feeling as I had when I purchased the story of the USS Bullhead by Martin Sheridan, “Overdue and Presumed Lost”.
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That must have been awful, drifting about in those life-rafts, hoping for rescue. I can’t even imagine that kind of desperation.
Best wishes, Pete.
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You’re quite right, Pete. The Pacific is so huge, it must be difficult to stay hopeful about a rescue.
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