Lost Navy Pilot Found in Gulf

Article taken from Fort Pierce News Tribune, Fort Pierce, FL, June 11, 1952


KEY WEST

A Navy pilot whose plane vanished Sunday night on a flight over the Gulf of Mexico was found by an oil tanker today on a life raft 80 miles west of St. Petersburg.

The Navy said the tanker H. C. Sinclair picked up the pilot, Ens. Charles G. Lewis, 22. Seymour, Ind., at 4:05 a.m. and was proceeding to Houston TX. Lewis and another pilot, Ens. Thomas Y. Bowen, 20, Sciotoville. O., left Robins Air Force base at Macon, Ga., Sunday on a routine flght to Key West.

Bowen was picked up from a life raft early Monday 175 miles west-northwest of Key West by the Spanish freighter Aldecoa en route to New Orleans. The Navy said there had been no information on why both pilots ditched their planes and parachuted into the Gulf about midnight Sunday, but it was assumed they were lost and out of fuel. First reports indicated Lewis was in good condition when picked up.

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Fifty-One Hours Adrift in the Gulf


HOUSTON, TEXAS

June 13- A 22 year old naval flyer who bailed out of his stricken plane over the Gulf of Mexico and spent 51 hours in shark filled waters on a man-sized raft was delivered safely to Houston early today by the tanker which rescued him.

Ensign Charles Gene Lewis, his face raw and peeling from blistering sun, said he now knew the power of prayer.

"I never gave up hope," said the Seymore. Ind. Navy flyer in the matter-of-fact voice with which he described his experience at the ocean's mercy.  "I figured that something would come along, and if it didn't . . . well, there was nothing I could do about it at the time."

But, "I prayed quite a bit while I was out there," he said.

The handsome pilot was one of two navy flyers who bailed out when their planes ran out of fuel on a flight from Warren-Robbins air field in Georgia to Boca Chica uaval air station at Kew West, Fla.

The other pilot, Ensign Thomas Y. Bowen, 20, of Sciotoville, Ohio, was picked up almost immediately by the Spanish ship "Aldecoa"

But for Lewis, it was 51 hours without food and with the everpresent fear of running out of water.

"I had enough capsuls to make five pints of drinking water, so I did not drink any until I just absolutely had to,"  he said. "I used two pints while I was out."

When hunger began to draw his stomach, he said, he pressed a bag with a distilling plant closer to his body to releave the gnawing. 

"I made a couple of grabs for small fish, but I missed both times he said.

"I never did notice the hunger so much-it was the thirst and beat from the sun."

His face splotched brown and a raw pink where the skin had peeled, testified to the heat and salt spray which tortured him.  Lewis a husky, 190-pounder who is six feet, one inch tall, said he bailed out of his F-6-F fighter at 1:38 a.m. Monday from about 7,000 feet.  His Mae West life jacket held him up until he shed his parachute and inflated the raft.

"Then I just sat there - wasn't anything I could do.  There wasn't enough room to move, so I just thought about almost everything to keep occupied, and I prayed some."

But Lewis said his hopes never faded, not even on two occasions when distant ships passed him by without sighting him, nor when two planes overhead disappeared without seeing him.

He used a morror in the daytime and a flashlight, some flares and a whistle at night.  It was the whistle, barely audible from nearly a mile away, which attracted the attention of a lookout aboard the Siuclair HC about 4 a.m. Wednesday.  "I thought this ship was going to pass me by, too."  Lewis said.  "When i saw it was stopping and coming back . . . well, if I ever had a happier moment in my life, I certainly don't remember it."

Lewis said his worst moment of the entire experience came when a shark sway under his raft, close enough that it made the raft lurch.

"They say sharks dont bother you, but I wasn't sure the shark had been told about it." Lewis said.  "If he had of got the idea to snap at that raft, well pfft! That would of been all."