December 5, 1945
Lost in The Bermuda Triangle Part 4
At 5:50 pm several land based stations had triangulated Flight 19's position as being well off the coast of Florida but the weak radio reception and interference from radio stations in Cuba meant neither the pilots or the stations could be certain of that information.
Fox Tare 28 asked for another weather check at about 6:20 and not long after that, in his last decipherable transmission, he was heard asking his colleagues to close formation. He informed them they would need to ditch unless they reached land in the next few minutes. He advised the other pilots that when the first plane dropped below ten gallons of fuel they would all descend together. That was the last message heard from any of the members of Flight 19.
Earlier in the afternoon when it became obvious the flight was indeed lost, numerous air bases, aircraft and Coast Guard Vessels were alerted and dispatched to search for the Avengers and guide them back if they could locate them. A PBM-5 Martin Mariner took off at 7:37 pm with a crew of 13 from Banana River Air Station at Cocoa Beach to join the search. The PBM radioed a routine message several minutes after takeoff, but was never heard from again. The plane apparently exploded 23 minutes after takeoff and at 7:50 pm a tanker reported seeing a mid-air explosion then flames leaping 120 ft high and burning. They searched the area for survivors, but found none.
Navy investigators spent months examining thousands of pages of testimony from people involved and anyone that could shed light into the disappearance of Flight 19 and the Mariner. They concluded that the Flight 19 Avengers became lost and ditched in rough seas after running out of fuel, and that the Mariner exploded in mid-air, possibly caused by a fuel fume buildup inside the cabin of the plane.
Aircraft and ships carried out what has been described as one of the most rigorous searches in history for the Flight 19 Avengers and the Mariner, but without success.
Back at the NAS Ft. Lauderdale operations office three men, the duty officer, flight operations officer and Lt. Cox stood around talking. In order to put the whole story into context it would be good if we had the names of the duty officer and flight operations officer, but unfortunately we do not. After all the investigations, inquiries and hearings the identity of two of the principles in the case are still unknown to us.
Why their names were not made prominent in the final report is a question. And since that is the case, it’s just possible that somewhere earlier in the hearings those two names were set aside and didn’t reappear in the final report. Again that’s just a guess, but I suspect that some on that the panel of judges, hearing the case, believed that two out of those three officers present at the operations office that afternoon were culpable to some degree. On the surface it might be concluded that the flight operations officer and duty officer were both slow to react to the current events – but when all the evidence came out in court would their slow reactions be reasoned to be prudence or negligence? I suspect that JAG probably figured that prosecuting the case would end up in a draw, but even so the proceedings alone might tarnish the reputations and careers of the two officers involved.
On the other hand the third officer, Lt. Cox first known as Fox Tare 74, was a man of action and from the time he heard that garbled radio message between pilots of Flight 19 he was concerned enough to put out a blind radio call saying, “This is Fox Tare 74. Will the plane or boat calling Powers please identify yourself so someone can help you.” Then with the tenacity of a bulldog he didn’t let go while he was trying to piece the problem together in the air or when he returned to base and talked to his colleagues in the operations office.
Every article written about Flight 19 is done in hindsight and in most cases there is an element of speculation. I’m going to weigh in on the conversation and add my two cents to the dialogue. It is my belief that Lt. Cox, Fox Tare 74, reacted a lot like Lt. Krieger would have. And while I am also guessing, with my personal experience, I do have a point of reference.
To give you some idea about Lt. Krieger’s personality and also illustrate the typical finish to a bombing and strafing exercise over those same Rocks I’ll recount something that happened and I observed from my gun turret. After we had completed our bombing and strafing assignments the skipper, in order to regroup for the next leg of our course said, “Flight 14 will climb to 3, 000 feet and rendezvous over the Rocks.”
We climbed out to 3,000 feet and from our position we could look down and see that several planes had not followed. The skipper opened his mike and in an irate tone said, “Flight 14 from Flight 14 leader, I gave an order to rendezvous over the Rocks at 3,000 feet. And in case you don’t understand what rendezvous means, I’ll tell you. It’s a French word that means come together. Now come on up and join me. We need to reform before we can move on to the next leg of our assignment.”
Now chances are that was about the situation Flight 19 found itself in following their bombing and strafing run at Chicken Rocks on the afternoon of December 5, 1945.
The question is, who was in charge? Was it Taylor, Powers or one of the other students that made the call for Flight 19 to reassemble and continue on a course of 091 degrees for the next 67 miles?
(To be continued)
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Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
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