We (P-3) had mechanical difficulties of some kind and did not get to the rendezvous point in time to leave with our squadron. The 61st Squadron was just leaving so we joined up them. I looked out to our right at the plane that was flying beside us and saw that it was P26 which was the plane that two good friends of mine were in. F/O David Donahoo was the navigator and Cpl. Conrad Vogt was the radio operator. We had known David and his wife when we were in Radar School in Boca Raton, FL. My wife and David and his wife would go for long walks along the beach in the afternoons late. Conrad Vogt was from my home town, Victoria, Tx. and we went to high school together. He was a year behind me, but his sister Dorothy was in my class. So we went over the target with the 61st Squadron. We had received only moderate flak and after we dropped our bombs we noticed a lone Jap fighter plane at 9:00 level who was out of range of our guns. He was in contact with their ground based anti aircraft batteries and was giving them our altitude, speed and heading. After a few minutes he speeded up and got out in front of our formation. Then he turned sharply and headed right for our formation. Up to this point we had not heard of the Kamakazies who would dive their planes into one of our planes our one of our ships and commit suicide by bringing us down by ramming us. As soon as he got within range all of the gunners in the flight opened up on him. What was alarming to us was the fact that it looked as though we were the one he had chosen to ram. As he got closer he must have gotten hit and killed because he kinda rolled a little to the left and we could see that he would miss us. But, this threw him right into P26 who was right next to us and he hit them. He took about six feet of their right wing off and then he spun on down into the sea.

Although P26 was in bad trouble the pilot did have some control of the plane. Rather than bail out evidently they chose to ditch. Or, they might not have had time to bail out because they were going down pretty fast. The pilot did a super job of ditching. With part of his right wing gone he did get down without crashing.. The plane did break in half as it hit the water and the front end went under the water, but it popped back up right away. The rear half did not go under.

We went down right after them to kick out our emergency gear. I called the nearest sub, but there was not one within about 50-75 miles. We flew low and kicked out our stuff and we could see the guys climbing out of the pilots window. I had a K-6 camera on board because your Dad and I were trying to help make a Radar map of the coastline of Japan. He would get a good picture and I would take a picture of my repeater scope. I got this camera and took some pictures of the guys that were in the front end of the airplane standing on the wing of the floating aircraft trying to get into the big dinghy that they had popped out of its storage place on the left side of the fuselage. We kept circling them and I took some more pictures of them after they all got into the dinghy. There was no activity at all from the rear section of the plane. I guess they must have all been killed or knocked out, but we never did see any of them try to get out.

We circled them for quite a while and there still had not been a sub show up. We were beginning to get a little low on gas and we still had about eight hours of flying time left to get back to Guam. We hated like the devil to go off and leave them, but we had no other choice. So, we waggled our wings at them and departed for home.

When we got back to Guam I went over Group Hqs. to see if they had any word on these guys. They did not. I went back every day for a week and they never did get any information on them. I am sure that Japs came out after the raid and strafed these guys and killed them. They usually would do this. After every raid they would send out planes to look for downed airmen and shoot them up.

This was quite a blow to loose two good friends at one time. I went over to the Photo Section and they gave me prints of the pictures that I took and after the war was over and I got back home I went over to Mrs. Vogt's house and gave her and Dorothy a picture of Conrad along with the other guys in the dinghy. I explained everything that had happened which they were appreciated because they had no knowledge at all of what had happened to Conrad. They had just received the telegram saying that he was missing in action.

In Feb. of 1946 after I returned to Texas A & M to finsh my education, David Donahoo's wife came by College Station to see my wife and I and I gave her a picture and the story of what had happened top David. This was tough to do.