“Remember the PRAIRIE, A 52 year old destroyer tender and oldest active Navy ship that served in every conflict from WWII? This mother to “”tin cans”” did innumerable repairs as well as providing medical and dental services. She is to be scrapped and cut up in Singapore. We honor her service to our country.”

A letter was sent to the “Reunion President” from one of the survivors of the plane crash, Oather Morper of El Cajon, California.

“…the ship’s came by ‘The Shack’, the little shop I operated at Fleet Landing, a day or two later and I expressed to him my gratitude for the rescue. You may be interested to know that I had been photographing US Navy ships for 6 years when this happened. I had photographed your ship one mile west of Point Loma. The pilot had failed to leave on the carburetor heat so we went down 150 yards from the ship. A rescue operation was in operation, so a small boat rescued my pilot and me within about 10-12 minutes. A big man, I believe of Indian descent, pulled me from the water into the boat. I was swimming for dear life because someone had removed one of the CO2 bottles from my life jacket and besides, it was leaking air. My pilots CO2 bottles were absent, so he had a very difficult 10-12 minutes. He did hang onto the plane until it tipped up and sank in about 3 minutes.”

“True to form, TCG YUCETEPE, (ex-USS ORLECK), arrived at Golcuk, Turkey on Christmas Day, as scheduled.”