the natives sold some quite good hand made boots. Most of us took a pair with us even though they were not regulation.

Day Four: The next day was December 24, 1944. After the usual briefing and waiting for the faster planes to leave, we flew on down the Atlantic coastline of Brazil to Natal. Natal is on the point of Brazil that extends the farthest Eastward into the Atlantic Ocean. We found that there were also Natal boots available from the natives.

Day Five: On Christmas Day, after the usual briefing, we departed for Ascension Island. We were barely off the coast when one of the crew chiefs reported some abnormality on his airplane. I think the enlisted men had cooked this up so we wouldn't have to fly on Christmas Day. We returned to Natal and landed under full load. We were carrying over 33,000 pounds gross and were supposed to not land at over 29,000 gross, having burned off 4,000 pounds of fuel. We had plenty of runway and a good head wind so we set them down very gently with no problems. By contrast, the DC-3s in civilian service were limited to 29,000 pounds on take off and 26,000 pounds on landing. Then, we went to the beach. There were signs all along the beach in Portuguese and in English warning of the intensity of the tropic sun and advising that anyone stay out in the sun for only twenty minutes. We interpreted this to mean twenty minutes on each side which we adhered to very carefully. Too Bad! That evening we were sunburned from head to foot.

Day Six: The following day was our sixth day enroute. As soon as we were airborne, and out of traffic, each of us stripped down to our under shorts. We spent the day sitting carefully in our respective crew positions touching nothing but with the soles of our feet, palms of our hands, and seat of our pants while carrying out our respective crew assignments. Harold and I played chess with the chess board lying across our two armrests most of the journey. Jack O'Donald had the worst job. He was busy the whole flight, taking sun shots, calculating dead reckoning, and using what other navigational skills he had. Ascension Island is a rock sticking up out of the South Atlantic Some 1,200 miles east of Natal and about 1,400 Miles Southwest of Dakar. O'Donald was frantically working navigation problems the first seven hours. We had picked up the radio signal from Ascension when we were no more than halfway out but we didn't tell him, we just kept following his directions. Finally when we were less than a hundred miles from our destination he came up and asked "Can't you get it on the radio yet?" We turned on the ADF and the needle swung to straight ahead. He was greatly relieved. We kept using his headings until we looked down and spotted the rock just below and slightly to the right.