SURVIVAL

The crew checked each other on injuries and wounds. Only Peter Whipland has a big gash in his right leg and Thomas Wright a smaller wound. Harold Tantaquidgeon (The Chief) and Ira Barnett had no injuries.

In the swamp, Harold Tantaquidgeon took the lead for the survival of the four men. Whilst in the air, Barnett had been in command and the leader, but now Tantaquidgeons qualities as an outdoor man came into play.

Harold was the son of the Chief of the Native American tribe of the Mohegan in Connecticut. He was both at home in the outdoors as well as teached bush and survival skills to boy scouts in his region.

He organised the available food and water supplies and set about creating cooking utensils from pieces of equipment from the plane and the survival equipment on board. From a life vest and some sheet metal, he fabricated  a stove and another piece of metal was shaped as a pan.

Together with Tom Wright, he hunted for frogs, cut their legs of and cooked them on the stove.

A little later, a B-25 of their squadron flew over the wreck site, dropping a note telling them help was on their way and that a combat photographer was on board to take pictures of the wreck site to help the rescue team to find them in the jungle.

The next couple of weeks, almost every day either a B-25 of the 418th or a Catalina of the 2ERS dropped supplies to the crew.

That first drop was the most difficult as the package fell some 300 metres from the wreck in the swamp and it took two men almost three (!!) hours to find and retrieve the supplies.

After the essentials (food, water, matches, medical supplies etc) had been provided for, a number of books and magazines were dropped to pass the time. Also, in a later drop, a walkie-talkie was dropped to be able to talk to the rescue team once it came near their location.