Dale Kingsbury

It was 1954, the second year of work on the North Atlantic Tie. I had been assigned to the crew of Arthur "Oley" Olofson late in 1953. The rest of the crew included Sam Sifers as Co-Pilot, E.B. "Van" Vandiver, Navigator, Wes "The Chief" Witten, Hiran Operator, T.L. Johnson, Flight Engineer, George Horn, Weather, Roy Southworth, Radio and Joe Martin and John Benna, First and Second Photo. During our training flights I was the Gain Rider but by the time we left for England, The Chief had me operating the Hiran and Van had trained me on a couple of missions as Hiran Navigator.

After our move to Florida, we were given a week or so to get the families settled and we were flown back to Forbes to get our planes and head for England. In all, there were three crews, that of Charlie Moore's and John L. Sullivan's besides ours.

After we got settled at Lakenheath, some of the Navigators and Hiran Operators were lost for some reason or another so my training came in handy and I flew with all the crews in the various positions. This portion of the North Atlantic Tie was to link Scotland, The Shetland Islands through the Faeroes to Iceland. There was one line that had been a problem because of its length. On this day we set out with the purpose of getting that one line. I was with my crew then, but for some reason, Van was not with us so I was Hiran Navigator. I don't recall who was Gain Rider, but it may have been one of the NCO's in the aft compartment. On the way to the mission area, as we passed 10,000 feet, the cabin heaters shut down. We continued on and near 40,000 feet had signals for the mission. We had a day when atmospheric conditions and the plane itself, except for heat, were operating well. After completing the first set of line crossings, Oley somehow nursed the RB-50 up another thousand feet.

I had heard the term, "Hanging on the props" and now knew what it meant. Our turns seemed to take forever as any banking meant losing altitude. This was the RB-50 before the gun turrets were removed also causing extra drag. Everything seemed to take forever probably because we were so cold. I had my heavy flying boots on and my feet on my chest pack parachute to keep them off the floor and my hands were so cold I could hardly write to keep the forms. Still I had to feel for the Hiran Operator and Gain Rider with their feet down in a well under the equipment. Somewhere in there, T.L. announced that he had computed the outside air temperature to by a minus 63 degrees. A voice came from the rear compartment saying, "I wish I could get out there to warm up."