"Oh, Forget It"

Hot afternoons have been at old Fort Slocum near New Rochelle, N. Y., and another occurred last week. Private James Stanley and others stripped off their regimentals and jumped into Long Island Sound from the Fort coal dock. Half way over to Glen Island, Stanley's stomach was griped. He floundered. Ashore some sharp-eyes saw him, telephoned the Quartermaster for a launch, seized a towel, waved at a hovering seaplane.

One of Stanley's comrades reached him in the water, but soon both were sinking. Toward them came then a droning roar, a splash, a gliding swish, and strong hands reaching down to hold their heads above water until a third rescuer, the Quartermaster's launch, sputtered up to take the two gulping, gasping privates aboard.

"Pretty slick work," hailed one of the launch crew. "Better let us have your name. . . ."

"Oh, forget it," laughed the sea-planist, speeding the gently flapping propeller of his plane, the Turtle II, taxiing off, taking the air, heading across the Sound toward Long Island. More than 24 hours elapsed before newsgatherers ascertained that "the first flying lifesaver" was undemonstrative Earl Dodge Osborne of College Point, L. I., one of the publishers of Aviation (weekly).