Houston We Have a Problem

“Houston We Have a Problem”!

Captain Bill Hart and Lieutenant Paul Madden were seated in the Cockpit of a P50 transport on a routine training mission above the Atlantic waters as the darkness of night enveloped the fuselage. Elsie was a last minuet passenger to jump onboard. Bill turned toward Paul and spoke the unexpected crushing words that shook him to his core. “Paul we have a problem.” These words conveyed a sense of gloom on January 31,1944. Ironically some twenty-six years later, similar words were heard around the world on April 13, 1970. 

The desperate words were spoken from Apollo 13, "Houston, we've had a problem”. Apollo 13 had just experienced an explosion and astronaut Jim Lovell called mission control in Houston to report the problem.

Almost instantly, water jetted in through the P50 nose panel and was pommeling the knees of the Captain and Co-Pilot. Bill Hart was already out of his safety belt, yelling “Let’s get out of here!” By the time Paul unfastened his own safety belt, Bill was through the emergency exit above the cockpit and on the roof of the plane. Just prior to their forced landing they told Elsie, a private first class, in the air corps - to gather into one of the parachute bags, all emergency equipment, first-aid kits, signal flares, tools and anything else that might add to their comfort and safety. 

Elsie had inflated the rubber raft and pushed it through the side door. He was holding it with a rope. Even without the crew in it, the raft looked crowded! The crew of three in their leather and sheepskin flight jackets worked their way to the back of the plane. All the while the raft was bouncing wildly as the currents tossed them around. Gradually they made their way into the raft as nausea rolled up from the pits of their stomachs and they dropped an oar to retch. The raft was taking in dangerous amounts of water, forcing them to bail water constantly via a collapsible bucket. They tried to congratulate Bill upon his swell landing job and were grateful they had no broken legs or cuts to make matters worse. The plane had gone down into the blackness of cold ocean water, on a winter night at 10:30 pm. The tail lights provided barely 20 minutes of visibility. Once they were gone, it left the crew shaken and Paul felt more loss than he had ever imagined.

During their struggle to exit the plane quickly, they lost one of the oars and Paul

First Days…

Madden an ardent Catholic, got out a rosary his sister had sent him; throughout the ordeal he would pray regularly, and he urged the others to do the same. Darkness came gradually and the crew faced the fact that they’d have to face another night on the raft, while one man kept watch. They were continually damp and sticky. There wasn’t a single moment whereby every movement pressed their damp bodies against one another. Following the third night, the sun was out and it warmed them, as they spread their leather jackets out to dry. Their spirits rose, they ate two tins of rations and divided a fruit bar. The men talked about their families and did impersonations of Katherine Hepburn and Mohandas Gandhi. From the beginning, Bill was bothered by thirst more than Elsie or Paul, it was as if his system needed more moisture than the others.

The violence of the ocean increased as they headed into their third night. Angry-looking swells lashed at them wickedly and there was more stinging salt spray than they had felt before. The waves seemed to take hold of the raft and give it a shove, as if a hand was pushing it.

Elsie was “on watch” when the raft capsized for the first time. Hart and Madden found themselves swimming as they shivered to a forced wake-up. The three men fought to turn the raft over; finally it seemed to come alive and flip over by itself. Hart let out a fearful scream and Madden swam over to him and pushed him up until he could flop into the raft.

They lay on the floor of the raft like dogs after a hard run on a July day. Then it occurred to check if they had lost anything. The vacuum bottle was missing. Bill had taken a drink out of it before they capsized, and he hadn’t had a chance to put it back. Then their hearts were sent downwards when they discovered that all of the rubber compartments, other than one, had torn loose, and that the fishing tackle, large + small sails including their food were gone. Only the emergence water cans were left under the seat!

The men were shaken by their losses and weak from their first capsizing, yet after that, when they saw a rough wave coming, they threw their weight to that side to keep themselves from going over. They capsized once more that night and Bill swallowed so much water that he was too knocked out to help himself, whereby Paul and Elsie had to pull hard to lift him into the raft, as the ocean waters yanked hungrily at his body.

In the morning Madden dug out the half tin of cheese and meat, salt water had gotten into it, and only one other can of food remained. The ordeal was beginning to take a toll. By the forth night, they whiled away the hours fantasying about what they would do when they were rescued. 

Hart promised to take them to a Turkish bath and buy them “a steam bath and a massage with all the trimmings.” In addition, he would send them a round of creamy milkshakes so thick they would have to be eaten with spoons! Then each of them recollected favorite settings and scenes from recent Hollywood movies. 

The castaways fired several flares on the afternoon of the fifth day when a plane flew directly overhead; they waved their Mae Wests like windmills and shouted desperately. But the aircraft sped on. Hart cursed wildly, alarming Madden who tried to calm him by suggesting that the pilot was on a mission that would bring him back over the same course again. Surely the next time they would be spotted!

 Captain Hart’s slow deterioration of his physical and mental health was evident again at twilight, as the crew recanted admissions that offered little relief as they dwelled on their past mistakes and misdeeds….They made a ritual of their last drink of water…Madden was painfully aware of just how small a container it was. He knew that there was only enough for him to take only a sip…but that drink tasted better to him than any other drink he’d ever had in his life. Perhaps the knowing that he wouldn’t have any more for a long time, maybe never, made him feel sick about it. Elsie took his share and looked away from Paul and Bill. Bill took the can and drained it!

Paul marked the days off on the rubber fabric of the raft with the stub of a pencil: four down strokes, then one stroke crossing them out for the fifth. The sea made the raft buck like a bronco and kept them all awake…sliding from one side of the raft to the other to keep it from going over, and they were forced to bail continuously. A skimpy tantalizing shower of rain that night was barely enough to wet their mouths. Madden used his knife to cut open two of the other empty cans, carefully turning the edges down with pliers. If there was a hard rain, the tins could be used to catch water, and anyway, it gave him something to do. 

The next morning the aluminum cans served as a mirror in which they could see the deterioration in their faces and bodies. Paul was most disturbed by Harts decline. The lack of food drained their fat away and they had begun to look dehydrated and hollow-eyed. Their beards had begun to sprout and they were wild-looking.

On the morning of the sixth day a wave flipped the raft, scattering the men across the water. They struggled the heavy swells to return to it, then wrestled to right it, When at last, this was done, Hart’s strength was gone. He was unable to help the others climb in. Madden and Elsie managed to pull themselves in and fell to the bottom, weak and dizzy. They had to rest for a few moments before they gathered their strength to haul Hart’s dead weight in, after themselves. Madden felt the weakness in his bones, and his muscles twitched and jumped!

He was dazed and semiconscious, as was Elsie. 

Hart, who had swallowed great quantities of salt water was in the worst shape. Before long he was delirious. He turned furious and belligerent…and his eyes were not focusing properly..then he announced that he was going to walk across the water….all the while trying to peel pieces of rubber from the raft seat, wanting to eat them as food. 

Madden and Elsie were both experiencing breathing problems by the seventh day; it was as if great weights were hanging over their breastbones when the raft flipped over again, as the two of them managed to right it once more; but by that time Hart had drifted over ten yards away. Elsie swam to him and held him up while Madden pushed the raft over to them. Hart kept going under at intervals and he couldn’t hold his head up. Elsie lifted him to the surface, yet this time he came up with his eyes open with sea water streaming from his open mouth! 

It was almost impossible to get Hart into the raft, but at last Paul and Elsie got him into the raft and they took their jackets off and spread them over Hart.

Together they said the rosary for their captain. 

His pulse was very faint and his skin cold. Paul asked Hart if he had ever been baptized, but he could not reply. Clearly their Captain was near death. Not knowing if he had been baptized, Paul sprinkled sea water over Hart’s head intoning words of Baptism while the Captains skin turned ”icy-cold.”

Sitting alongside Hart, Paul felt as if he were drowning into a black depression as memories and unbearable sadness washed over him. 

Paul and Elsie wondered how long it would be before they died, too.

Paul and Elsie could not bring themselves to drop his body over the side, and resolved to keep it with them as long as they could, yet it was difficult to move around the raft. They said the rosary again and prayed that what they were doing was “the decent and honorable thing by Bill.” They saw no sharks and “somehow that made them feel ever so slightly better.”

On the eighth and ninth days the ocean became calm again, and the men wanted to take their clothes off to dry. The flesh sores looked terrible and they took turns applying mosquito oil to their wounds - it was the only salve they had. That night they were awakened by a shark “playing tag” with them, swimming around and against the bottom of the raft. 

A series of storms broken by occasional calms were the standard weather scenario. They chewed on seaweed, yet it only made them feel worse. As the night passed they hoped it would be calmer. Occasionally the towering waves seemed like houses surrounding them, obscuring the sky, coming from every direction,,,their amazement almost overcame their fear.

Toward the end of the tenth night, the raft capsized three times, fortunately each time Paul and Elsie came close to their raft. Even with the chopping waters, they managed to get back into the raft. Yet each time, they were rapidly loosing strength. The waves reminded Paul of the mountains he had flown over and seen from the sky. Paul began to harbor thoughts such as” I’m never going to get back.” Panic grew inside him, and he told himself, “This is it.” Yet gradually he worked his way back to the raft and hung on until he regained his breath.

The ocean was choppy on the morning of the eleventh day. Whitecaps surrounded them, and the wind flung salt spray into their faces. The raft went over again, and the two men fought to right it. When at last they succeeded, they were exhausted and trembling. Madden tried to pull himself back in, but he could not. He worked his way around to the far side of the raft, where Elsie was clinging. Madden managed to get his body over the rim, and then a wave turned the raft over, dumping him back into the ocean. 

It took Paul and Elsie a long time to right the raft again. The two men looked at each other and Madden was struck with how deeply Elsies eyes had sunken into his head. Paul was trying to shift his balance to work more efficiently when he heard Elsie say, “I’m going, Paul. It’s no use.” A wave splashed into Pauls eyes, blinding him as the salt made his eyes burn intolerably. In only seconds, Elsie was five or six yards away. He went down under water as quickly as if a weight had been attached to him. 

Paul lay there, half in the raft, half in the water. One part of his mind told him to go down after Elsie, but another part seemed to keep Paul from what would have been a suicidal effort, knowing that he would never be able to get back into the raft again, if it went over. 

Paul just lay in the bottom of the raft, with water sloshing over him, not even bothering to bail and replaying all of the prayers he knew.

All alone, Lieutenant Madden began slipping in and out of a dreamlike state. He told himself that it was a nightmare, though its vividness continued to disturb him. Then he saw a basket of oranges float up to the boat, whereby he hauled the basket in as he and Elsie began devouring the oranges, skin and all. 

So vivid was this dream that Paul awoke with the taste of oranges in his mouth. 

Not only was he hallucinating, but he was experiencing blackouts as well.

He looked over and saw Elsie’s ‘Mae West’ life jacket and thought to use the last package of ”sea trace”. He opened the package. Dropping its contents into the ocean with a dull fascination as the chemical spread.

He took a Novena leaflet from his wallet and prayed. The prayer was to be said for nine days. The prayer had been sent to Paul by his sister from the convent, and he had been praying for eight days in a row. He was clumsy and weak, and it took only a moment before a slight breeze blew the prayer card from his fingers. He was just feeling for the card under the water when he looked up and saw a tanker - 150 yards away. 

It was a mirage, he told himself, no more than the basket of oranges that floated past the raft earlier…was Elsie really alive and with him? …Yet Paul was drifting in the raft alone, in despair, almost ready to sink like a stone….

Yet when Madden looked up and saw the ship again, he spotted an American flag and he heard alarm bells ringing. He watched the tanker sail past, thinking the crew had not seen him or was it his mind, playing another cruel joke on him? Fortunately, the reality was a vessel and she was drifting backwards in his direction. He saw a small dingy being lowered into the water and choked on the thought,“If only they had come an hour and a half sooner, they could have saved Elsie”. While Paul waited for rescue, he tried to figure out why he had been spared and not Elsie or Hart, but he could make no sense of it.  

Paul hadn’t planned to tell his story. He always wanted to be a pilot and was fortunate to live nearby and hang around the old Central Airport in Camden. The War seemed like a good opportunity for him to train and he had been a hot-shot pilot, buzzing under bridges, which almost resulted in a termination to his dreams. The ocean beat all that out of him! He was going to work on upgrades for life rafts, to save as many lives as possible. “His ambition was to go into business for himself and settle down and raise a football team.”

This author was born second in line, of ten siblings and savors recalling snowy Sunday afternoons when her father, Paul would share not only his adventures, but also the heartbreaking tale of the P-50. A crackling fire in the stone fireplace scented the oak paneled library with the fragrances from nearby pine and walnut logs. Frozen ice on the window panes painted a classic Norman Rockwell scene. Our father would hug us tightly as we shed silent tears as he told the tale of his ‘Tragic Voyage’. 

We believed that these moments would last forever. Sadly nothing could stop fate from knocking at our door on a September afternoon, Thursday, the 28 day of 1966. An 18 wheeler on a country road approached a narrow bend, when too much speed prevented the driver from keeping his tractor trailer in its own lane. Our youngest brother of only five years, was the only witness at home that afternoon when fate came via a telephone call and our Mother collapsed to the floor, as fate sealed the journey of our beloved father of 10. 

…Even Houston could not change his trajectory!