June 25th
June 25th
Daily Flight Information:
Departed: Rangoon, Burma
Arrived: Akyab, Burma
Miles Flown: 480
Flight Time: 5 hrs. 38 mins.
(8:48 a.m. to 2:24 p.m.)
Total Miles Flown: 10,740
Total Flight Time: 149 hrs. 0 min.
World Flight Stops in Akyab, Burma
Daily Report
by Lt. L. P. Arnold, "Chicago", Mechanic
As luck would have it, there wasn't a breath of wind & the river was like glass -- so that we all had trouble getting off. The others got off first in our "wash" & it wasn't until Wade [Pilot of "Boston"] came down and dragged his pontoons in the water were we able to get off.
Rather than go around the point, we saved some miles by following the rivers & canal inland, ending by making a twenty mile hop over a range of mountains to the Bay of Bengal. Some rain was encountered & again we were treated to a "close up" view of the jungles. From the coast up to Akyab was an easy trip and we landed at 2:20, hastily took aboard some fuel, expecting to continue on to Chittagong. We learned the moorings there were unsatisfactory & so decided to remain overnight.
We camped aboard the destroyer -- in the evening going ashore for dinner at an English club.
Daily Report
by Lt. L. H. Smith, Commanding
This morning at 8:48, the flight finally got into the air after experiencing difficulty in taking off. The "Chicago" having more difficulty than the other two was forced to go clear to the mouth of the river in order to get into the air. There being a great many inland rivers and canals on the Pegu Peninsula, the flight took an overland course, over Bassein to the western coast, then along the coast to Ramri Island, following the inside channel across Combermere Bay directly to Akyab, where they did not use the moorings established by the Advance Officer but those placed the the Destroyer Sicard. The reason for the exchange in moorings was to get the planes in a position where the destroyer's searchlights could play on them at night. During the trip, a great deal of bad weather was encountered in the nature of typhoons, flying through them being very difficult because of the limited visibility. The planes landed in Akyab at 2:26. It was while on this flight that the planes passed over the British Flier Maclaren who had landed in one of the many protected harbors along the coast because of the typhoons.