Marin Independent Journal
By Mark Prado
4/19/2018
Somewhere under the undulating Pacific Ocean, two to
three miles off the coast of Point Reyes, is the airplane Army Pvt. Clint
Eastwood was aboard when the pilot ditched it in 1951.
Now more than 66 years later, the search is on for the
aircraft that was part of a real-life drama for Eastwood, long before he would
become a Hollywood star.
“What was going through my mind was just a stark fear, a
stark terror, because (in the) first place, I didn’t know anything about
aviation at that particular time — I was just hopping a ride,” the actor said
in 2015, recalling the incident in which the pilot also survived.
The future actor and director — 21 at the time — was en route
back to Fort Ord after visiting his parents in Seattle when the Navy bomber he
was on crashed into rough seas.
“In those days, you could wear your uniform and get a
free flight,” he said in a talk at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film
& TV. “On the way back, they had one plane, a Douglas AD, sort of a torpedo
bomber of the World War II vintage, and I thought I’d hitch on that. Everything
went wrong. Radios went out. Oxygen ran out. And finally we ran out of fuel up
around Point Reyes, California, and went in the ocean. So we went swimming. It
was late October, November. Very cold water. (I) found out many years later
that it was a white shark breeding ground, but I’m glad I didn’t know that at
the time or I’d have just died.”
The incident, which was reported in a front-page story by
the Independent Journal, occurred on Sept. 30, 1951, and has caught the
interest of Walt Holm, who works with Berkley-based Open ROV, which builds and
operates underwater drones. He wants to find the wreck and has started posting
archaeological information on National Geographic’s Open Explorer site, which
promotes expeditions.
“I’m a bit of an amateur archaeologist and when I heard
about this incident I thought it would be an interesting thing to post on Open
Explorer,” Holm said. “It’s not significant in terms of archaeology, it won’t
re-write the history books, but it’s of public interest because of his public
persona and it’s a chapter of his life that not too many people are aware of.”
According to an account posted by Holm, two Navy AD-1
Skyraiders left Naval Air Station Seattle for a routine flight to Mather Field
in Sacramento.
But one of the planes had radio problems, got separated
from the other in bad weather and then got lost. While the pilot eventually
managed to get into clear weather, he ran out of fuel while flying down the
California coast and had to ditch at about 6:25 p.m., putting Eastwood in a
life or death situation off Point Reyes.
“It makes you wonder how if he had drowned, how would
have that changed history,” said Holm, who started the project dubbed “The Hunt
for Clint Eastwood’s AD-1 Skyraider” last year. “It’s a human interest story.”
Part of the reason for posting the project on Open
Explorer is educational, Holm said.
“We will walk people through the process of doing a
historic investigation in a marine environment,” he said. “It’s a project that
is close to home for us.”
There were several accounts of the incident, which makes
it difficult to pinpoint the crash site, Holm noted.
“We will just have to jump in and go. We do have to wait
for the right seas, which is likely in the fall,” said Holm, who gives his
effort 50/50 odds of success. “The seas are rough off of Point Reyes and we
will be in small boats. We could have a weather window this summer.”
Holm will utilize a side scan sonar device, which is
adept at picking up obstructions on the ocean floor and often used in the
shipping industry. The airplane could be as deep as 200 feet below the water’s
surface, he said.
“It works best if the aircraft is on a flat, smooth
area,” Holm said of side scan sonar. “But if you look at the underwater terrain
off Point Reyes there are boulder canyons and if it’s in there it will be hard
to see. No matter what, it’s going to be fun.”
James Delgado, the retired director of maritime heritage
for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National
Marine Sanctuaries, looked for the Eastwood plane as part of larger search of
aircraft and shipwrecks between 2013 and 2016.
“Eastwood’s Skyraider was one of the targets, but nothing
turned up,” Delgado said. “But I think there is a real chance it could be
found.”
While not historically significant, the Eastwood airplane
search draws attention to the larger effort of finding craft that have been
lost at sea, incidents which also had a human toll in many cases.
“It highlights the importance of finding everything out
there, and in many cases, it helps bring closure for families,” Delgado said.
[Here is the
Independent Journal’s Oct. 1, 1951 account of Clint Eastwood’s plane crash off
Point Reyes:
Two servicemen, who
battled a thick gray fog and a strong surf for almost an hour last night
following a plane landing in the ocean near the Marin shore, are returning to
their service units today uninjured.
Army Pvt. Clinton
Eastwood, who wandered into the RCA radio station at Point Reyes after
struggling in the ocean, told radio operators he and the pilot were forced to
land their AD-2 bomber in the ocean and left on life rafts.
Eastwood said he
was returning to Ford Ord from his house in Seattle when the mishap occurred.
The pilot, Naval
Lt. F.C. Anderson, landed his life raft on the shore at Kehoe Ranch near Pierce
Point. He is stationed at Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento.
Men at the station
said Eastwood walked into the building cold, wet and in a state of shock and
spoke incoherently of the plane running out of fuel and how the pilot made a
dramatic landing on the rough ocean.
Earl Foster of
Inverness, a radio operator on duty at the station last night at 6 p.m. when
the 21-year-old serviceman pounded in the station door said:
“The boy was dazed
and in a state of shock. He could hardly speak.”
Foster added he was
able to piece together certain parts of the private’s story. From his
disjointed speech the operator learned that the plane was landed upright on the
water by the pilot.
After the landing
the two servicemen jumped into the rough sea and inflated two rubber life rafts
only to maneuver the crafts away from the plane in time to see it engulfed by
the water.
Eastwood explained
that he and Anderson kept their life rafts together until they hit the breakers
near the rocky Marin coast. At this point, he stated, they were separated.
Eastwood said he continued to paddle through the strong surf until he was
thrown from the raft.
The serviceman told
Foster each time he advanced toward the shore, the strong breakers would carry
him out to sea again. At one spot, he said, he was almost drawn down by the
undertow.
Eastwood said he
could not say how long he was in the water. When he reached shore though, he
recalled, he fell to the ground and crawled to the station house.
After a brief rest
in the house where he was warmed, Eastwood was taken to the Coast Guard Life
Boat Station at Point Reyes where he met Anderson. At the station the men
received medical attention and started on their way back to their units.
An officer of the
Coast Guard station said security restrictions prevented any report concerning
the plane which was no longer visible in the ocean. He refused to comment on
the possibility of recovering the aircraft.]
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