[elcid1970]

We arrived in Japan in September 1956. The Pan Am ditching was a month later and the magazine covers showed the doomed tailless plane. Post barber shop still had Life magazines on the Andrea Doria sinking.

There were several Stratocruiser crashes in the Pacific during the next two years. There was one where an engine seized & tore up the adjacent prop; they landed safely on two engines. One, The Romance of the Skies, had friends of ours on board when it disappeared without a trace.

Learned much later that the 28 cylinder “corncob” engines on the Boeing 377 were notoriously unreliable.

Flew to Japan & back; I always envied those who voyaged on Army transport ships like the Gen. E.D. Patrick (there are vids of its final days).

[fugazi]

the 28 cylinder “corncob” engines on the Boeing 377 were notoriously unreliable.

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Crews jokingly called the C-97 (essentially the military's version of the 377 in this story) the Boeing tri-motor because the engines failed so often.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

6 trips on five different ships, including;
William O. Darby
E. D. Patrick
M. M. Patrick
G. M. Randall
W. A. Mann

The MM Patrick was nicknamed the “Mickey Mouse.”
One of the vessels broke in half at a dock in California, was raised and welded back together. It went on to serve for years...