Safety equipment. Rubber lifeboats. Aftermath. Safely back at base with their now historic rubber life raft which will be placed on permanent exhibition at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. Anthony J. Pastula, AOM2c, Gene D. Aldrich, RM3c, and Harold F. Dixon, ACMM. This picture was made weeks after their ordeal of thirty-four days in this tiny craft in which they sailed some 1200 miles after their Navy bomber was forced down in the South Pacific. Dixon has received the Navy Cross, his companions commendations for their exploits

The United States Naval Academy is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland, United States established in 1845 under Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft. It replaced Philadelphia Naval Asylum, in Philadelphia, that served as the first United States Naval Academy from 1838 to 1845 when the Naval Academy formed in Annapolis. The 338-acre campus is located on the former grounds of Fort Severn at the confluence of the Severn River and Chesapeake Bay 33 miles east of Washington, D.C. and 26 miles southeast of Baltimore. The entire campus is a National Historic Landmark and home to many historic sites, buildings, and monuments.