heard at 03:00, with no mention of trouble. The Navy announced on 10 May that a search for the flight and the twelve aboard was underway by the Navy and Air Force. 11 May Maj. Simon H. Johnson, deputy commanding officer of Eglin AFB's fighter section, was killed when his Republic F-84 Thunderjet broke up during an air demonstration at the base before about 600 spectators. Eglin's public information officer said that the pilot was "engaged in operational tests on the plane" when the accident occurred. Johnson, a resident of Shalimar, Florida, was originally from Houston, Texas. He had served a year in Italy, flying 50 missions in North American P-51 Mustangs with the 31st Fighter Group and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and the air medal with five clusters. He had attended the University of Texas, and graduated from the U.S. Army flying school in 1940. 13 May "LOCARNO, Switzerland, May 13.(AP) - Maj. Pisle Hitz, who helped rescue 12 Americans from Agull glacier [sic] in 1946, died in a plane crash today. Hitz, 30, and Cpl. Willy Kiene were killed when their army plane crashed while practicing emergency landings. Hitz and another Swiss army pilot landed on the glacier, 9000 feet above sea level, and flew the Americans out. They had been stranded five days after a United States army transport landed on the ice." Other sources list the pilot's name as Pista Hitz. Two North American P-51 Mustangs engaged in training combat manoeuvers at high altitude over Anchorage, Alaska, collided, exploded, and crashed into the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet before hundreds of onlookers. Both pilots were killed. One body was found floating in an oil slick on the water, but the other body was not immediately recovered. A USAF Douglas C-54 Skymaster, making an instrument approach in a driving rainstorm to Northampton, Massachusetts, crashed on soggy ground (making an eight-foot crater), exploded and burned, spreading wreckage over a five-acre area. All three crew were killed. Air Transport Command identified the victims as Capt. Paul Longuich, 40, of Yonkers, New York; 1st Lt. Wilfred W. Lavinder, 23, of Portsmouth, Ohio, and Staff Sgt. Jack Zaresky, 26, of Jackson Heights, New York. 14 May "FRANKFURT, Germany, May 14 (Friday) (AP) - The United States Air Force announced today that a B-29 Superfortress crashed 120 miles northwest of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, with a possible loss of 13 lives." 17