Nice work! Thanks for giving the VLR pilots some love!
A quick little side note to his mission if anyone is interested, this is a transcribed letter from Seale to his wife, explaining his ordeal.
Letter # 85 July 13, 1945
Dot darling – Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and it turned out to be quite an eventful day for me. It finished with another ripcord to add to my collection.
Now before I go any further, I am alright, and none the worse for wear, excluding a slightly sunburned nose. Only a few days ago you wrote me of reading about a pilot from here being picked up at sea and you added that was the sort of stunt you expected from me. Well, darling, I fulfilled your expectations – what more could you ask from your devoted husband?
A public relations writer took quite a lot of details of my little adventure, so you may ready about this in the news before you get this letter. I hope you won’t jump to any hasty conclusion, dear - - I am definitely OK.
Now perhaps you’d like to get the story firsthand. I was returning from a raid on Chichi Jima when my engine got rough and began to deteriorating, and my coolant boiled out. You know these engines won’t run without coolant and I became painfully aware of it, so I went over the side. Nice trip down – nice dip, and nice boat ride back!
I was in my little dingy almost three hours, and planes were circling over me all the time until I was picked up. I vomited up the excess sea water in my stomach, and laid back in my cradle to await the rescue. After about two hours of waiting, I pulled the cover over me to keep out the sun and spray – and dozed off! Some time later, I was awakened by a light impact on my back. The rescue vessel had sneaked u, thrown me a rope, and scored a direct hit. I had drifted to within five miles of a small island that still had some Japs on it. On board the ship, I got a shower, some dry clothes, and some sunburn salve. Soon, I was in another sack, in the Captain’s bunk to be exact, and dozed until supper time. So my usual daily quota of “sack time” was not seriously interrupted.
Now, just a bit of the rather unpleasant details of the reason for bail out. On the target, we were making diving, rocket-firing passes, more of less in a string. The plane in from of me blew up on the diving run, and I flew through some of the debris before I could avoid it. Some of the flying metal must have been picked up by my coolant scoop, causing a puncture of a coolant line. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until 20-25 minutes later, when my coolant began boiling over. It was too late then to take corrective measures, so I went over the side.
I understand I am entitled to a membership in the “Sea Squatters” Club, and I am sending my application tonight.
….
I love you, Frank
