About a month later, a tropical storm formed in the western Gulf of Mexico, not far from Vera Cruz. Shortly afterward, it moved toward the Texas coast, increasing rapidly in force, and there was general alarm. People began to abandon the beaches and protect their property in the coastal towns. At this time there was a young officer, Lieutenant Paul Ekern, at Tinker Air Field near Oklahoma City, who was anxious to see the inside of one of these big storms. This one looked like his last chance for 1943 and he began talking it up. He found Sergeant Jack Huennekens who was ready to go and they looked for a plane and pilot. Time went by, but the hurricane center slowed down to a crawl and described a loop off the coast, taking three days to turn around. Excited conversations about the storm created interest, and about the time that Ekern and Huennekens found an Air Force pilot, Captain Griffin, anxious to go, a Navy man came over from Norman, Oklahoma, and said he had some instruments he would like to carry into the hurricane and get records of conditions encountered. He was told that anybody crazy enough to go was welcome. He introduced himself as a Navy Aerologist, Gerald Finger, and they all shook hands and got their things ready. On the afternoon of the eighteenth, with the hurricane still hanging ominously off the coast but with some loss of violence, the crew took off for south Texas, carrying the Navy man and his instruments. They came into the storm area at about thirty thousand feet and proceeded cautiously toward the center. At this level there was very little turbulence, but the view was magnificent. There were mountainous thunderclouds, some extending fifteen thousand feet above the plane. Carefully they explored the region and finally came into a place where they could see the surface of the Gulf white with foam and piled-up clouds ringing a space where the sky was partly clear. This, they decided, must be the center. Cautiously they went down to twelve thousand feet, circling around as they descended, and keeping records of temperature, humidity, and pressure. At times they flew through clouds on instruments in the rain, and now and then there was light icing. After about three hours, they began to run low on gas, so they flew through the western part of the storm and back to Oklahoma.