William J. (JIM) Touhey served with VR-24 from late 1951 through 1952 as one of the squadron’s Hospital Corpsmen assigned to the station hospital. In the following article he relates his experience as the Flight Corpsman on a VR-24 medical evacuation flight that departed Port Lyautey on 6 February 1952.

Jim recalls being awakened in the middle of the night and told to report to the flight line. When he asked where they were going, he was told he would find out on the plane. He inquired whether to pack warm weather clothes or cold weather clothes and was told to pack both. This was a hush-hush mission he was told.

Everyone on the crew list were members of VR-24 with the exception of a LT William M. Foster who was a "special person" assigned to the flight. The plane’s crewmembers were told not to talk to the medical staff on the flight.

Jim usually flew alone as Hospital Corpsman, but when he reported to the flight line he found that LTJG W. A. Tatge, the VR-24 Flight Surgeon, was also going on the flight. The doctor had no information on the flight either. When Lt. Foster arrived he said the medical staff members of the crew would find out more information once they were airborne. During the flight they were told that they were going to Cypress to pick up the crew from a crashed plane. LT Foster said that thirteen men had been found but one man was missing. Jim said that he and LTJG Tatge were surprised to learn that the downed plane was a P4M. Previous indoctrination briefings for the station medical staff had indicated that those aircraft normally carried a crew of seven. Other than being assured that the thirteen men had all been on the same plane, they were given no additional information. They were also ordered not to talk to the P4M crew about the incident. Jim would learn later that the rescued crew had also been instructed not to speak to the VR-24 med-evac crew or onboard medical personnel.

The flight from Port Lyautey to Cypress took most of the day and the R5D crew RON’d upon arrival. They took off again early the following morning and spent most of the day conducting a low-altitude search of the area where the P4M had ditched. Some on board got air sick, which was probably due to the fact that no one had had anything but coffee and soup for dinner the night they arrived in Cypress.

At the end of a long day’s unsuccessful search effort, the VR-24 crew returned to Cypress. As soon as the plane was refueled, the surviving members of the rescued crew were loaded aboard and the med-evac flight departed for Port Lyautey. Upon arrival in Port Lyautey the rescued airmen were transported to the NAS hospital for treatment and/or further transfer to medical facilities in the U.S.

After "crew rest", Jim and LTJG Tatge resumed their regular duties at the station hospital. That mission, like most of those flown by VR-24 crews, had been accomplished without fanfare or publicity. Jim’s account illustrates the low-key "on-call" type of service provided by the squadron in support of the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean and European areas of operations.

Editor's note: The P4M was returning from a surveillance mission when it ditched in the Mediterranean between Turkey and the island of Cypress. A comprehensive account of the ditching and loss of the aircraft commander can be found in the pages of the U.S. Naval Air Station Port Lyautey Moroccoweb site.