beaches at Scoglitti; the crew could hear it, but not see it. At almost the same time, Beatty suffered hits on her starboard side by what were believed to be machine gun bullets. Beattys men suddenly noticed the plane pass across the ship's bow at about , "missing the forecastle by a few feet", and turned down the port side of the ship, landing in the water next to the number two stack, about away. Beattys 20 mm guns fired two bursts before the plane came to a stop in the swells alongside. At that point, Beattys sailors could see that the plane was a United States Army Air Forces C-47 Skytrain troop transport. Beatty ceased fire as six flares lit up the area. The destroyer then rang up flank speed as she pulled away from the sinking Skytrain. Beattys executive officer, Lieutenant Commander William Outerson, marked the charts with the American plane's position. After the flares had burned out, Beatty returned to the spot and found a rubber boat with all four members of the Skytrain's crew. The plane, attached to the 15th Troop Carrier Squadron, had endured quite an evening since leaving Malta with paratroops on board. She had been hit by gunfire from both friend and foe alike. The plane had disgorged her paratroops before she crash-landed at sea; her pilot, First Lieutenant P. J. Paccassi, USAAF, earned praise from Beattys commanding officer for the skill with which he had landed his badly damaged aircraft. The large amount of noise Beattys sailors had heard had been caused by one of the Skytrain's engines disintegrating. Beatty remained on antisubmarine patrol until 2100 on 12 July, when she departed the Scoglitti area in the screen for a group of transports returning to Algeria. The warship arrived at Oran on 15 July. Underway for the United States on 21 July, Beatty escorted a convoy to New York where she arrived on 3 August. Following voyage repairs at the New York Navy Yard, she again sailed for the Mediterranean on 21 August. Action soon followed her return to the Mediterranean. On 2 September, while part of the antisubmarine screen of Section II of Convoy UGF-10, bound for Bizerte, Tunisia, Beatty went to general quarters upon the report of enemy aircraft in the vicinity. None came near enough for Beatty to take them under fire, but one managed to torpedo at around