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All those Wonderful Stories

TALOA Truk a Lifesaver

TALOA News, December 1952

As Flight 400/29 under command of Captain Kosteff with First Officer Jubinville and Navigator Angelos proceeded from Kwajalein to Majuro on a routine operation under TAL's Trust Territory contract early this fall, the vessel M. V. Rogue radioed it was standing by at Likiep Atoll with a child on board in need of immediate medical care. Reporting that it was anchored in the lagoon of the atoll, the Rogue requested that a TAL craft pick up the child. Back in TAL's Guam dispatch office a map check revealed that Likiep was 106 miles NW of Ebeye. Vic Lakin radioed Kosteff approval to divert his flight after passengers were offloaded at Majuro. Within a half-hour of receiving the radioed approval, TAL's crew was again in the air with a doctor aboard and headed for the lonely atoll. In the lagoon TAL's seaworthy Taloa Truk made the' water landing and maneuvered close to the ship. 'Smoothly the two crews transferred a tiny, shrunken baby and its Marshallese mother to Taloa Truk. At Kwajalein's hospital Navy doctors diagnosed the child's case as an unknown tropical disease, but TAL's quick action had delivered a living child for whom there was still hope.

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Transocean cameraman catches the emergency take-off o f a TAL PBY. Under Captain Kosteff, First Officer Jubinville and Copilot Angelos, mission from Majuro to save a child's life was quick and successful.

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