Army Air Corps training flight was nearly his last
Orton Lamb, 91, is a resident of St. James House in Baytown.
“When I was young, I built model airplanes. I always wanted to fly. During World War II, I joined the Army Air Corps.
“My last training flight was cross-country at night in a twin-engine plane. I was stationed in Pecos, Texas. When I got over Big Spring, one engine quit and we were losing about 500 feet a minute. I tried to make it into the airfield there. I could have made it, but then the other engine quit and we just went down.
“We clipped a couple of trees and braced ourselves for the crash. We hit about a mile from the end of the runway. Fortunately, as soon as we hit the ground and stopped, my co-pilot and I were able to get out of the plane and we weren’t hurt too bad.
“After nearly two years of training, we thought for sure we’d be eliminated from pilot training because anybody who had a crash was usually washed out. Luckily, I grabbed the logbook from the plane and had it with me when they took us in an ambulance to the hospital. The logbook saved us. It showed that both engines were way overdue for being overhauled. That plane shouldn’t have been flying.
“The guys back at our home base heard that we crashed and thought we had been killed. When we returned the next day, we went to sleep on our cots because we were so tired. When the other guys walked in and saw us there, they thought we were dead. We sure surprised them when we both sat up. It scared the heck out of them.”
— Orton Lamb
(Note: Orton Lamb passed away on Jan. 7, 2019, at age 93.)
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