No. 7 AMERICAN AIRLINES, INC.
A greatly added burden was also placed upon Vic D'Aloia and his
maintence men since they went on longer hours as a regular thing be-
sides being continually caught With a "little more work" to be done
each time quitting time arrived. Also many engine changes became due
and had to be handled in the field. I wish I could properly express my appreciation of their splendid
work, but since my words are inadequate, I will borrow the Air Corps
slogan "They do the difficult jobs at once - The impossible takes a
little longer." If ever a group of men earned such praise it was Project
7-A maintenance force. As mentioned earlier steps were taken to obtain priorities for the
homeward travel of our personnel. These were received, but at about
the same it was decided that our personnel would return six of
the projects C-87's to the States which solved all transportation
problems. This news was all that was needed to put everyone in high spirits
and make them determined to fly enough schedules to leave a record of
work done that would be a credit to the group. All was going well along these lines when, on the morning of
November 19, we received a radiogram which stated "Captain Hunt and
crew jumped out at 21:50 z position unknown". This bad news was
corrected later by another radiogram saying all were safe, then later
again another message confirmed the first radiogram. The following cay
we ascertained that four crew members were located but Captain
Hunt and the plane were still missing. After 48 hours of suspense,
Chinese people brought word out of the mountains that the plane was
found with one body in crash. The body was "Toby Hunt's"- one of the
most respected and loved members of the group. We were allowed to
transport the body from China to India and on November 23, twenty-five
of our boys flew to Chabua and burried "Toby" beside Charleton's crew. At this stage we had lost six men, which is a fairly high price
for a small force to pay during 3 1/2 months of operation. Others will feel the urge and should write a complete story of
Project 7-A. They will bring but the human angles, how men re-act when
the going is hard - how a letter from home, or the lack of it can make
or break a man under such conditions. How the leadership of a few can
pull a group through stages that might otherwise endanger a whole
project - How a spontaneous laugh and a sense of humor can be worth
more than anything money can buy and how some simple addition of
food to a menu can be a subject of enthusiastic discussion by men who
would raise hell if the steak were not cooked to a turn in N. Y. The writers will also want to record how Captain Hunt, flying on
instruments 20,000 feet over the "hump" found that he could not hold
altitude because of ice. How it became necessary for the crew members
to go back into the cabin - without oxygen at 20,000 feet, and first
get the cargo door loose and let it fall away and then wrestle full drums
of gas from the cabin to the door and throw them out. They will add
No. 8 ( next )