George E. Maynard helped to save Buford H. Morris from burning, Memphis, Tennessee, December 17, 1944. As Morris, 33, military pilot, was taking off in an airplane, engine trouble developed; and the airplane crashed and burst into flames at the airport. Morris’s co-pilot was in the cockpit, and four other men were back of the cockpit. The co-pilot and one of the other men crawled out, both being injured. Maynard, 18, student mechanic, ran 150 to the airplane and was told by one of the injured men that Morris was in the cockpit. Flames rose 25 feet from one wing and from the rear of the cockpit to the tail. Heat was intense. Using his coat to cover his hands, Maynard tried to open a hatch on the nose in order to break into the cockpit. Firetrucks then arrived and put out the flames in the rear end of the cockpit. Reaching through the windshield, from which the glass had fallen, Maynard unfastened Morris’s safety-belt and tried to pull him out. He then ran to an ambulance near by and asked for help, and two men of the Army Medical Corps went with him to the airplane. Maynard and the others took hold of the metal covering at a break in the fuselage at the cockpit and pulled it upward. Maynard leaned into the cockpit to his hips and grasped Morris under his armpits, and one of the others got hold around Morris’s waist. Morris’s feet were fast, and they could not pull him out. Maynard kept hold of Morris while a fireman released his feet, and Maynard then lowered him through the opening. The flames were extinguished in 30 minutes. Morris was seriously burned and injured otherwise. 40347-3399
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40347-3399