Two hours later, rescue planes began to circle over the raft—Hornets, a Sunderland, Valetta, York and a French B-24, but none could land on the water. A pair of U.S. Air Force SA-16 Grumman Albatrosses were dispatched from Sangley Point in the Philippines. One of the big amphibians landed in sheltered water on the lee side of Tinhosa Island and taxied out to the raft in a perilously rough sea. The rescuers were guided to the spot by smoke flares dropped by the French B-24. Dozens of Chinese junks wallowed and rocked on the waves at some distance from the raft, making no attempt to interfere as American fighter planes flew cover over the raft. The survivors had been on the raft for seven hours before being rescued. Besides the three fatalities among the crew—Stewardess Rose Chen, Steve Wong and Flight Engineer G. W. Cattanach—there were seven passenger deaths, including a tea merchant, a Hong Kong University student, an American exporter and his two sons, and the owner of a Hong Kong curio shop. Captain Blown, who continued as a Cathay Pacific Airways pilot for many years, received a Queen’s Commendation for his cool-headed efforts to save the Skymaster and the lives of those aboard. Humphrey Trevelyan, British Chargé d’Affaires at Peking, delivered his government’s strongly worded protest, and the Red Chinese ultimately paid $1,027,600 indemnity for the loss of the plane. No explanation of the shooting was given, except for undocumented guesses that the Communists may have been trying to kill or kidnap some person on the plane or to scare off all ships approaching her territorial limits. The shooting prompted John Foster Dulles, American Secretary of State, to issue a hot denunciation of the “further barbarity” of the Chinese Reds. The U.S. Navy Department dispatched two aircraft carriers, the _Hornet_ and the _Philippine Sea_, to join in the rescue. Their planes raced to the rescue scene, ready to start shooting if there were any Red Chinese interference. It was one of the angriest moments between the U.S. and Red China since the Korean war. It passed without further raising of American tempers, but reinforced the already intense American antipathy for Mao’s Communist state. Less than one year later, the destruction of a second airliner in the South China Sea thrust Hong Kong into the Communist-Nationalist crossfire. A Lockheed Constellation of Air-India International took off from Kai Tak Airport, bound for the first Afro-Asian Conference at Bandoeng carrying eight Red Chinese delegates. The conference was intended to assure the uncommitted nations that Communist China had put aside its warlike ways to become an exemplar of peaceful coexistence.