The flight out was rough. Sunset was nearing, and in the storm area night falls rapidly. For almost two hours they beat their way through one hundred mile-per-hour winds toward the edge of the storm and in the general direction of Corpus Christi, their destination. The turbulence and rain on the way out were so severe that they were unable to send out messages and position reports, so someone in the crew, catching a glimpse of the waves beneath, came through with the scintillating remark that “We’re still lost, but we are making excellent time.” About nine hours after they had left Miami, they landed at the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, Texas. An hour later they were out of their dripping flight suits and “testing the quality of Texas draught beer.” At dawn the next morning, another crew and another plane from the squadron was into the hurricane, only a few hours before it struck Tampico and then swirled inland, to dissipate itself on the mountain range to the west of that coastal city. Shortly before the middle of September, 1948, the Weather Bureau in Washington had a long-distance call from the Baltimore _Sun_. A staff correspondent, Geoffrey W. Fielding, wanted to fly into a hurricane. The Weather Bureau arranged it through General Don Yates, in charge of the Air Weather Service, and on September 20, Fielding was authorized and invited to proceed to Bermuda at such time as necessary between that date and November 30, to go with one of the crews on a reconnaissance mission. The Air Force offered transportation to Bermuda and return at the proper time. On the day of Fielding’s call, a vicious hurricane was threatening Bermuda and the B-29’s were exploring it, but it was too late to arrange a trip. On the thirteenth it passed a short distance east of the islands, with winds of 140 miles an hour. The next tropical disturbance was found in the Caribbean west of Jamaica and became a fully developed storm on September 19. As it raked its way across the western end of Cuba on the twentieth, and southern Florida on the twenty-first and twenty-second, Fielding flew to Bermuda. By the time they were ready to take off, the storm was picking up force after crossing Florida and was headed in his direction. Not the worrying type, Fielding made notes of everything: the ditching tactics, the lifesavers and parachutes, sandwiches for lunch, the weather instruments, and the exact time of take-off, 12:03 P.M., Bermuda time. Already, high, thin cirrus clouds were seen, spreading ahead of the storm. Southward, the clouds lowered and thickened. And then the aircraft commander, Captain Frank Thompson, saw a tanker wallowing in the heavy swells a quarter of a mile below, and everybody had a look. Big seas swept over the bows of the ship and crashed on deck. The crew of the B-29 felt sorry for the men on the tanker.