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Watching from trail bird as lead bird fell from sky into the "Gulf of Siam" (lost engine) shortly after we was all airborne,..it was a good idea for pilots to quickly be able to shuck chicken plate, cause even with auto-rotate the bird dropped like a rock into drink...door gunners popped outa bird pretty fast, co-pilot after a short time...we waited for what seemed to long before pilot finally broke surface,..came out thru the top he later explained...watching all this unfold and not able to help from our position was a crap-butt feeling for myself....water rescue was not easy...what a "pucker factor" that whole scene was...Thank's for Mae-West..co-pilot had two on himself,...i bet he popped three feet above water level when he shot up from depths,..thank god everyone made it out to fly again...three times i watched Hal-3 birds fall from sky into drink...we could have used pontoons, i think.....from T lift-off until over land us gunner sat on c/plate...and as said, pilot, co-pilot sliding c/p plate under belt straps....."Take'n fire"
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