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MILLING, T.DEWITT, BRIG. GEN. USAF. - BIOG. FILE FOLDER NO. 2 ITEM NO. 5A

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
NATIONAL AIR MUSEUM

Burgess was most desirous of my flying the plane and I finally consented to do so. Prince was anxious to go as passenger and since I was flying from the front seat instead of the back seat, he occupied the rear seat. I had no trouble in operating the plane - landed and took off several times and then climbed to 2000 feet while we cruised around some 45 minutes. I started my glide to finish the flight and came down to 2000 ft. flying around bay. I always had been in the habit of cutting my throttle and took my plane up into [[note]]steep banking turn gliding turn[[/note]] a bank making a steep turn and then gliding[[note]]straighten out[[/note]] in for a landing in that manner. Unfortunately, I made no allowance for the additional weight which was caused by the pontoons which was just sufficient to stall the plane and we dived head first for the bay. I realized immediately the only thing to do was to dive out between the cross [[in front]] wires and [[strikethrough]]under[[/strikethrough]] over the motor when the plane hit the water. Also I figured that if the propeller was vertical, I would break my neck but if it stopped in a horizontal position I would be all right. I undid my belt and got set to make the dive - as the nose of the plane hit the water, which I accomplished successfully. After going down like what seemed 30 or 40 feet, I finally came to the surface top - found the plane with its tail in the air by [[and no]] Prince was not in sight. Of course he could not have realized the predicament we were in. I swam back to the plane and found Prince entangled in the wires. Fortunately, there were some tools carried for such purposes on the inside of the fuselage.  I was able to get some pliers and cut him loose and we were soon rescued by a boat from the factory. I will never know to this day, how the news of this accident was kept out of the papers and it was not until years later that anyone, not even the Air Corps, knew that the accident had happened. 
   During this summer the first agitation from a separate area [[sec]] of many attempts was made to establish a separate Aviation Activity [[was inducted]]. Captain Paul W. Beck who [[this would aleve the]] drafted a bill which was introduced by a member of the House of Representatives taking aviation away from the Signal Corps and putting it on an equal basis with the other branches of the Army. There was

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