On Saturday morning, January, 13, John Kennedy, another AT found me and after a few words said, “Don, your crew is gone”. I replied that I knew it, that they had gone to Iceland last week. He then said, “I mean they're really gone, they didn't return from a patrol”.

He then told me all he knew which wasn't much. The whole VP-5 Rota detachment was in shock and of course praying that they would be found alive. The next morning, Sunday the 14th, there was a special prayer service held at the base chapel.

The following day, January 15, I along with Jerry Calabough, AT2 and CDR Thomas H. Casey, who had just been relieved as CO of VP-5 caught a MATS flight back to Norfolk, VA. After arriving in Norfolk, CDR Casey informed Jerry and me that a buddy of his in VP-18 was going to give him a lift back to Jacksonville and that Jerry and I were welcome to come along. We took him up on it. During the flight from Norfolk to Jacksonville, CDR Casey spoke with me and said that he thought it would be a good idea to call on CDR Kozak's wife, who was living in base housing in Jacksonville. Although I had been on the crew for about six months I hadn't met Mrs. Kozak. I had been in the hospital having minor eye surgery when the squadron had a big party. I don't believe that CDR Kozak.s crew, (crew three at that time), had a party prior to deployment. If they did, I missed that also.

I had been close to several crew members and had been the only crew member to attend Bob Hurst's wedding reception about July of '61. After the reception, a bunch of us went over to the apartment that Bob and Phyllis would be staying. After short sheeting the bed and a few other “surprises” we sat in the dark and waited for Bob and Phyllis to arrive. As soon as they came in the door, we all yelled surprise and told them the party wasn't over yet. After a couple more rounds of drinks we finally left them alone.

Also I had met and visited with Bob Anderson's wife, Elizabeth prior to deployment. She also lived in base housing.

I had double dated with Norman Russell and his fiancée, Bonnie Williamson so I knew her quite well. I believe we had used Norman's car, a 50's something red Chevy convertible, which he was quite proud of.

I called Mrs. Kozak up and made arrangements to call on her, not knowing what I could tell her. While visiting her, she seemed mainly concerned about his state of mind—if he was still worried about an incident that the crew had the first part of December. All crews have some close calls and this incident happened on a flight from Athens back to Rota. I hadn't been on the flight, having given up my seat to someone who wanted to go to Athens.They made a normal takeoff from Athens and then about 15 minutes into the flight, a fire warning light on the starboard engine came on. They feathered that engine, cranked up the jets and decided to return to Athens. Because of the wind direction they were directed to land on the shorter runway. It was also wet and raining. They discussed plans for landing on the short runway and decided that after touchdown, they would reverse the port engine and use the brakes on the starboard side. Reversing the port engine worked well but the brakes on the starboard side had little or no effect and the plane flipped sideways. They brought the port engine out of reverse and flipped the other way. They flipped several times before they got the plane going straight, meanwhile they were eating up runway which they didn't have too much of. They finally got stepped about 100 feet from the end of the runway and everyone climbed out of the aircraft.

The whole crew along with their passengers were pretty well shook up. Opening up the cowling on the starboard engine, they found the cause of the fire warning light. One of the mechanics had left a wooden handled screw driver inside and the wooden handle had caught on fire. There was nothing wrong with the engine. They took off again and made a routine flight back to Rota. CDR Kozak had written his wife and told her of the incident and she was worried that it was still on his mind and maybe making him concerned about flying. I reassured her that as far as I could tell on the flights that I was on after that that it wasn't bothering anyone, that they were mostly joking about it.

I also went to visit Elizabeth Anderson in base housing. She was in much worse shape than Mrs. Kozak. As near as I can remember she had two very small children to take care of and Bob Anderson was only sending the minimum allotment back to her. He could send cash back home but as long as he was missing she would only receive the minimum. I may have left a small amount of extra money that I had with her. I think I told her it was for a tape recorder I owed Bob some money on. If not, I should have. I felt guilty over a tape recorder that I had sold him before the crew left for Iceland.

I visited with Bonnie Williamson, Norman Russell's fiancée. And she seemed to be taking it pretty well, only breaking up once when I couldn't play some game that Norman was good at. Norman had taken Bonnie back to Louisiana to meet his parents and a tentative wedding date had been set.

I tried to contact Bob Hurst's wife, Phyllis, but a friend of hers said that Phyllis was in Dallas, with her family. I don't think Phyllis ever met any of Bob's family and that she had remarried by 1966 when the crash scene was discovered.

I didn't have addresses for any of the other crew member's families. After packing up my car, I headed west for San Diego. I didn't have any further contact with the crew member's survivors. Over the next three years I would run into guys that had been in VP-5 but of course no one knew anything.

I was in West Africa from '65 to '68 and I didn't hear the news of the crash scene being located on a glacier in Greenland. Evidently it didn't make Time or Newsweek.

In the early 70's Ray Chute, another VP-5 AT, was visiting San Diego and told me of the crash scene find and of the recovery of the crew members remains. He, along with everyone else thought every crew member had been recovered. It wasn't until May of 2001 that Bob Pettway, looking for information on the VP-5 lost crew, discovered that everyone had not been recovered, that some were still visible in the summer months in the ice. We've been trying to correct that wrong.