The Admiral’s car took us to Pearl Harbor, where a seaplane was ready and Mr. Thurston was waiting to see me off, accompanied by a motion picture cameraman. Then pilot Chourré took me into the sky over Diamond Head on my first flight. A companion plane was piloted by Lieutenant Sinton, who had radio communication with Pearl Harbor. Crossing high above the Molokai Channel, I looked down at the beautiful pattern of trade-wind formed whitecaps, and was surprised after a half hour to observe that the wave crests were farther apart. I was even more surprised to see Sinton’s plane far above us. The mechanic in the forward cockpit had been putting up his fingers repeatedly during our flight, to indicate, I later learned, how many cylinders were missing in the Liberty engine supported above us. Our plane was getting closer and closer to the waves and flying fish raced beside us. Finally we felt the bump of wave after wave on the bottoms of the pontoons, and the pilot brought the seaplane to a squelching stop, close to the surf of the Molokai reef. We found ourselves in fifteen feet of water, the coral reef visible below. I was deputed to throw out an anchor and make the line fast to a cleat, while pilot and mechanic climbed up to the engine, which had been losing compression and could not keep up the requisite speed. Lieutenant Sinton’s pilot plane came down and circled above us until he saw we were safe, then went on to Maui. Meanwhile, I watched the water with great interest, for sharks. When our boys got the engine going with a roar, I pulled up the anchor and we took off against wind and wave, with the pontoons going bang, bang, bang, against the tops of the waves. But finally we were airborne and out above the blue water. Then the engine gave out again and we came down. This time the men rigged a sea anchor made of buckets with a line attached to the bow, to hold the ship’s nose up to the wind, and battened the hatches with canvas covers. We clambered up on top of the upper wing to wait for rescue. The wind was blowing a gale, the whitecaps hissed by us, and we lay on our bellies. The aviators told me that this was the first forced landing they had had. The word landing seemed to me inapplicable. We drifted for five hours, moving slowly down the wind, before a white motor boat appeared, coming from Molokai. At the same time smoke showed from two rescue vessels in the Pearl Harbor and Maui directions respectively. Sinton, who had radioed for help, flew back and circled above us, reminding me of the goonies soaring over a wounded bird on a fish line which I had seen in Alaskan waters. The Molokai boat reached us first, picked up our sea anchor and towed us into Kaunakakai. We pitched so and took such a pounding from the gigantic trade-wind waves that it didn’t seem possible that the mahogany hull and the two lateral pontoons could hold together. However, we made the harbor and tied up to the buoy.