Flying Tiger Airlines flight 739....
The March 15, 1962, night shift started like any other aboard the Standard Oil super tanker Lenzen.
The ship and its crew were cutting through the waters between Guam and the Philippines. It was calm on the seas and in the skies. Above, scattered clouds floated pale across the inky blackness. About 1:30 a.m., the night watchman spotted what looked like a vapor trail high above him. When he spoke later to investigators, he said it appeared to be moving in an east-west direction. He tracked it until it passed behind a cloud. Then, something exploded.
Night turned to day as a flash lit up the deck. Crew members recalled seeing a “white nucleus surrounded by a reddish-orange periphery” and two large, flaming objects falling to Earth. The captain, now wide awake, hurriedly used the stars to estimate where the burning wreckage may have landed. The vessel, in hot pursuit, steamed into the night.
It wasn’t until the next day the crew learned what they’d witnessed: the last probable sighting of a plane taking 93 Army Rangers to a mission so secret, it’s a mystery to this day.
The mission, still a secret to this day, was so dangerous many men bid emotional goodbyes...
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