in Palatka, Florida, and then we started back to the base. We were at 1000 feet
going towards the Naval air station over the St. Johns River. So I said to Mr.
Worley, "Mr. Worley, why don't we let the skipper fly co-pilot on the way in? It
would be a nice courtesy." He said, "Now that is a good idea." And I said, "I could
sit back here on the radioman's table and observe."

So I got up and ushered this little redheaded man from Tennessee up to the co-pilot
seat and I sat down on the radioman's table. We were seven miles from the naval
air station and I could see it very plainly. All of a sudden, I felt a kind of concussion.
I turned my head and looked, and this big cloud of smoke was floating up from the
belly of the plane. So I ran back into the aft compartment of the plane, and we were
on fire. [It was] a big fire. So I ran back up front and I jerked Worley around in the
seat and I said, "We have a serious fire back aft. Get on the ground--quick." I
meant for him to ditch in the river if he had to, because I knew we were going to
explode if this continued. But anyway, there was a little airfield over there, and all
he had to do was just turn and land. So I planked myself down on the radioman's
table and leaned against the bulkhead and we got down, and I could see trees going
past the side of the plane. I said, "Oh, boy, we are going to make it." And all of a
sudden, he added power. I thought, "What in the world is going on?" I jumped up
and looked, and he was going to drag the runway. In other words, look the runway
over, and then come back around and land. I jumped up to grab the throttle; I was
going to jerk the throttles off, but there were trees right in front of us by this time.
He was still about ten feet off the ground, so there was no way we were getting on
the ground. So I just said, "Oh, Lord." He applied power and started climbing out.
He got up to about 500 feet and had just started a left turn, when the plane exploded
and flipped over on its back. He put on full emergency power which pulled the nose
down towards the ground and we went into the ground at 250 miles an hour at a 45
degree angle in a forest. I knew I was dead, so I just sat there and read the
instruments. My next thought was, "What's going on?" Then I said, "Oh, my God.
We have crashed, and I have lived through it."

I could taste blood and I could taste mud. Of course, I was in deep shock because
I was severely injured. I opened my eyes and looked around. I tried to get up and
I could not. I did not realize that both of my arms were broken in several places and
that I had two skull fractures, that my jaw was broken, [along with] seven ribs and
my right leg. In addition, I had a punctured left lung, a smashed left kidney and a
ruptured bladder. It was getting awfully hot. I tried to get up again and I could not.
I could see these little spots of light and I said, "What in the world is that?" All of
a sudden I realized this was grass burning about six inches in front of my face. Of
course, I was just cooking from the heat of the wreckage of the plane, where all of
this aviation fuel was spilled. We had spilled a couple of thousand gallons of
gasoline and it had caught on fire. It burned twenty acres of pine forest off.


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