About early February in 1950, PATRON 45 received orders to deploy to Halifax, Nova
Scotia, for training exercises in cold weather seaplane tender operations.

The word came down to check out our deicer systems. As luck would have it, our starboard deicer boot had a leak and some cracks that were possible future leaks. The metalsmiths got the job started but were short-handed, so we had to give them a hand to complete the job on time for deployment. With a lot of help and many man-hours, we got the job done.

I failed to mention that this is the skipper’s plane, Puff Ball One. Puff Ball was the code name given to all PATRON 45 aircraft.

The squadron took off for Halifax. When we got there, Puff Ball seven struck a piece of debris and ripped a gash in its hull. Thanks to quick thinking and fast action on the crew’s part, they were able to rig the portable bilge pump and keep the plane afloat until it was successfully beached.

On this same deployment, Puff Ball One -- on our return trip to Bermuda -- rigged for JATO take off, was taxiing downwind. The Ordnanceman was in the waist station trying to arm the JATO bottle when the plane rolled to starboard. The hatch holding the bottles swung out violently, the hinges snapped off and the hatch fell into the bay.

I was manning the flight engineer’s panel at the time and was in a position to see the reaction of CDR White when he received the report from the waist station. He threw his hands up, jerked his earphones off, and said something -- supplying a few choice words along with it to the copilot. After regaining his composure, he radioed the tender and they sent out a crew qualified in damage control. They took a few measurements, went back to the tender and returned in a couple of hours with a sheet of plywood and a few lengths of 2X4’s, placed the plywood over the hatch, braced it from the inside of the plane. Puff Ball One was in business again!

After a very long takeoff run, we got airborne, flew back to Bermuda without further incident. Bear in mind this happened over 50 years ago. Some of the men are no longer with us. If they are, I would love to hear from them. Ironically, we did not need the deicers.

As best I can remember, here is the crew list for Puff Ball One that day: CDR White, ADC Williamson, ARC Fulstone, AT1 Pfiefer, AOl Yarbrough, AD3 Cat Morgan, AD1 H. Steve Carbo. Maybe two or three more whose names I can’t recall.

Best Regards,
Steve Carbo