Flight 19 the Lost Avengers

The Mystery of Flight 19

Original Painting on exhibit 'Flight 19' by Bob Jenny © NASFL Museum

Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (NASFL - Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale History)

December 5, 1945, at about 2:10pm Eastern Standard Time. A warm day with billowing clouds soaring overhead in the current of a gusting southwest trade wind. The temperature was 67 degrees. The general weather conditions were considered average for training flights of this nature except within showers.

It was supposed to be a routine navigation exercise and mock bombing run of a concrete shipwreck just south of Bimini. Five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers carrying 14 men, were to fly to the Hens and Chickens shoals in the Bahamas to practice and then return to the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station. But 90 minutes after takeoff, squadron commander Lt. Charles C. Taylor reported that he was lost. The weather and sea conditions got worse as the evening wore on.

Over the next three hours, he mistakenly led Flight 19 far out to sea, where the planes apparently ran out of fuel and crashed. That was on December 5, 1945, several months after the end of World War II. A search was launched for 5 lost planes, with units of the Navy, Army and Coast Guard, to scour the sea for the lost NAS Aircraft. Flight 19 remains one of the great aviation mysteries.

THE SQUADRON:

FT - 28: piloted by the Flight Leader, Navy Liutenant Charles Carroll Taylor. It was a TBM-3 - BuNo 23307.
Crew: AOM 3rd class George F. Devlin was gunner and Walter R. Parpart RMC3c was radioman.

FT - 36: piloted by Marine Captain Edward Joseph Powers. It was a TBM-1E - BuNo 46094.
Crew: Sergeant Howell O. Thompson was gunner and Sergeant George R. Paonessa was radioman.

FT - 81: piloted by Marine 2nd Liutenant Forrest J. Gerber. It was a TBM-1C. BuNo 46325.
Crew: Only one, Pfc. William Lightfoot. That day, Corporal Allan Kosnar had asked to be excused from the exercise.

FT- 3: piloted by Navy Ensign Joseph T. Bossi. It was a TBM-1C. BuNo 45714.
Crew: S1c Herman A. Thelander was gunner and S1c Burt E. Baluk was radioman.

FT- 117: piloted by Captain George W. Stivers. BuNo 73209.
Crew: Sgt. Robert F. Gallivan and Pvt. Robert F. Gruebel.

A Brief Sequence of Events:

At about 15:45 the Fort Lauderdale tower received a call
but instead of requesting landing instructions,
the flight leader sounded confused and worried:

“Cannot see land, we seem to be off course.” —he informed the tower.

“What is your position?” —the tower asked. There were several moments of silence.

“We cannot be sure where we are,” —the flight leader announced. “Repeat: Cannot see land.”

Contact was lost with the flight for about 10 minutes
and then it was resumed. But it wasn't the voice of the flight leader.
Instead, voices from the crew were heard:

“We can't find west. Everything is wrong. We can't be sure of any direction. Everything looks strange, even the ocean.”

Another delay, and then to the surprise of the tower operator,
the leader handed over his command to another pilot for no apparent reason.
Twenty minutes later the new leader called the tower, his voice bordering on hysteria:

“We can't tell where we are... everything is... can't make out anything. We think we may be about 225 miles northeast of base...”

For a few moments the pilot rambled nervously
before uttering the last words ever heard from Flight 19:

“It looks like we are entering white water... We're completely lost.”

There was another radio conversation that took place between flight leader Taylor and a fellow Navy pilot Lt. Robert F. Cox, a Senior Flight Instructor who was in the air but not part of Flight 19. This last conversation was uncovered in the Board of Investigation records. The last transmission from Flight 19 took place at 19:04. Lt. Cox was on air communicating with Flight 19 until their signal got weaker. He wanted to search for the Squadron at this point, but was told not to, by NASFL officials who feared losing another pilot. The NASFL Museum has a Flight 19 Duplication Package with high resolution images and documents, available for research.

One of the largest Air & Sea searches in history:

The pilots' ultimate fate was never determined, nor was the fate of thirteen other men sent out to search for their lost colleagues. Within minutes of learning of the squadron's predicament, two PBM Mariner flying boats were dispatched from NAS Banana River in Melbourne carrying rescue equipment. Less than a half hour after take-off (at approximately 7:30 p.m., 5 December), one of the PBM's radioed the tower that they were nearing Flight 19's last assumed position. After sending one more position report the rescue plane and its crew of thirteen was never heard from again. Many naval officers participated in the massive search for the missing planes. Frank Dailey, from Alpharetta, Georgia, a Naval Reserve Captain flew in a PBY-5 seaplane. He recalls that for “three days, six hours a day, they plowed up and down the whole coast of Florida, looking for wreckage but we never saw a thing.”

It was one of the largest air and sea searches in history involving hundreds of ships and planes: search and rescue crews covered more than 200,000 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, while on land they combed Florida's interior in the hopes of solving the puzzle of what became known as Flight 19, the Lost Squadron, and the Lost Patrol (it was not a "patrol" squadron, it was a "navigation exercise"). Combined units joined in the search, as authorities pushed efforts to locate the missing planes. Scouring practically every mile of open water off the coast, were six planes from the Third Air Force, 120 planes from the Navy Air Advanced Training Command and aircraft from the Air Transport Command, the Boca Raton Army Air Field, the Coast Guard and the RAF in Nassau. In addition, dozens of Navy and Coast Guard surface craft joined in the hunt. The search was directed from the Coast Guard Headquarters of the Seventh Naval District in Miami.

Lt. David White, 4th from left to right, top row. Images © NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum.

Lt. Dave White of Hillsboro Beach, who was a Senior Flight Instructor at NASFL, remembers that fateful day, as he was playing bridge when he heard a knock on the door of his friend's house: “It was the duty officer, and he said all flight instructors were due at the hangar at 5 am because five planes were missing.”

For the next three days, White, his assistant instructor and 20 of his students flew up and down the Florida coast at low altitudes, but they couldn't find a trace of the airmen or the wreckage. Today, he's convinced the planes rammed into rough seas about 60 miles east of Daytona Beach: “I don't think anybody got out of their planes at all. I don't think anybody survived.” He likened hitting the ocean at high speed to “hitting a brick wall.” White remains mystified as he has mentioned: “The leader was an experienced combat pilot, these were reliable planes in good condition, and it was a routine training mission. We were alerted to look around the islands and to keep searching the water for debris. They just vanished. We had hundreds of planes out looking, and we searched over land and water for days, and nobody ever found the bodies or any debris.”

The PBM-5 Mariner (BuNo 59225) flying boat that was lost with 13 men during rescue mission.
The Mariner was sent from NAS Banana River. Images © Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum.

- Click on the thumbnails to enlarge and read a description -

Left: Flight 19 crewman Bert Edward Baluk. Middle: Lt. Robert F. Cox, NASFL Senior Flight Instructor, who was on air communicating with Flight 19 until signal got weaker. Right: Flight 19 crewman Bob Harmon aka George Devlin, circa 1944. © NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum.

There is no known photograph of Walter R. Parpart, RMC3c, USNR from Brooklyn, NY who was the Radioman on FT-28.

Flight 19 Avenger Squadron Crew and Home Towns

Burt Edward Baluk, Jr.
S1c, USNR from Bloomfield, NJ - Radioman on FT-3. He was 19 yrs old.

Ensign Joseph Tipton Bossi
USNR from Arkansas City, KS - Attended University of Kansas. He was on FT-3. He was 20 yrs old.
He passed up a discharge so that he could stay in the Navy. He had 373.4 hours of flight time, 65.9 on Avengers alone.

George F. Devlin
AOM3c, USNR from Brooklyn, NY - Gunner of FT-28
Enlisted under the alias Robert F. Harmon because he was underage (at 15 yrs old).
He was in the process of having that changed. He was 17 yrs old.

Robert F. Gallivan
Sgt.,USMC from Northampton, MA. He was on FT-117

2nd Lt. Forrest J. Gerber
USMCR from New Ulm, MN - He had received his gold wings 4 months earlier. He was 24 yrs old.
He was on FT-81.

Robert P. Gruebel
Pvt, USMCR from Long Island, NY. He was on FT-117.

William Earl Lightfoot
Pfc., USMCR training from Lexington, IL. He was on FT-81
Born in Clayton, Union County, New Mexico. He was 19 yrs old.

George R. Paonessa
Sgt., USMC from Mamaroneck, NY. Radioman on FT-36
Paonessa's family would receive a telegram days later reading
"You have been misinformed about me. Am very much alive."
Signed with his nickname (reportedly a hoax). He was 27 yrs old.

Walter R. Parpart
RMC3c, USNR from Brooklyn, NY - Radioman of FT-28

Capt. Edward J. Powers
USMC from Mount Vernon, NY - Graduate of Princeton. 26 yrs old. Was on FT-36
Though a NASFL student, he was the senior officer of the flight. He was the only married man aboard and the only father.
Two months prior, Powers had lost a crewman: he was flying out of NAS Miami in a TBM Avenger with gunner Michael Belvito.
When he got back to the base he found that the man was missing. The gunner's door and parachute were gone.
A search and rescue was launched but nobody found anything. The cause of the gunner's disappearance is still unknown.

Capt. George William Stivers, Jr.
USMC from Piedmont, MS - Graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
He was cited for gallantry in the South Pacific, Guadalcanal in 1942 and Tarawa in 1943.
He was General J.C. Smith's Aide de Camp and in 1944 he became an air cadet.
That same year he received his wings from the Corpus Christi NAS.
He had 374.7 flight hours, 579 in Avengers. He was on FT-117. He was 25 yrs old.

Lt. Charles C. Taylor
Flight Instructor at NASFL - He was 27 yrs old. Was on FT-28
USNR training from Corpus Christi, TX - Graduate of Texas A&M University
Became a flight instructor in 1942. In 1943 he flew with the Scouting Squadron 62 until November 1943
when he became a torpedo plane pilot with Squadron 7. From April 1944 to December 1944 he was aboard the USS Hancock
as part of Task Force 38. Also part of Acorn 36, NAS Miami Opa Locka and Squadron 79.
In November 21, 1945, he was transferred to Fort Lauderdale. He had 2,509.3 flight hours, 616 in Avengers.

Herman A. Thelander
S1c, USNR from Kimbrae, MN - Gunner on FT-3. He was 19 yrs old.

Howell Orrin Thompson
Sgt., USMC from Chicago, IL - Gunner on FT-36

The NASFL Barracks where the crew of Flight 19 lived. Image © NAS Fort Lauderdale Museum.

Resolution 500

5 TBMs in formation

As the founder of the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Historical Association and Museum, Allan McElhiney's efforts caught the attention of US Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale, who in Oct. 18, 2005 sponsored a bill in Congress (H. Resolution 500) honoring the 60th anniversary of Flight 19. Rep. Clay Shaw, member of the Ways and Means Committee, was the author of the resolution.

Every year, several authors, documentary writers and producers get together with Allan to research and do stories about Flight 19, such as the History Channel, Travel Channel, Discovery, the National Geographic, Sci-Fi Channel, NBC and the BBC, as well as others. They have turned to McElhiney, who has become a gatekeeper for facts surrounding the event. The mystique and intrigue over what really happened to the airmen, has kept interest high about the men lost on that fateful day. A detailed account can be found in Richard Winer's book “The Devil's Triangle”, and in his documentary movie of the same name, narrated by Vincent Price. The Mystery of Flight 19 helped popularize the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, the area between Fort Lauderdale, Bermuda and Puerto Rico, where dozens of airplanes and boats have disappeared.

Several colorful and far-out theories surround the planes' disappearance, including one where they were all abducted by extraterrestrials. Another theory asserts they wandered into a strong electromagnetic disturbance that interfered with their compasses.

More practically, experts think that Taylor, the squadron leader, simply lost his bearings after his compasses failed. Believing he was over the Florida Keys, Taylor aimed the Squadron northeast, in hopes that would lead the single-engine bombers back to Fort Lauderdale. Instead, it led the Squadron out over the open Atlantic. To compound matters, the planes likely flew into stormy weather. Perhaps he realized his mistake and aimed the planes west toward Florida's coast, but only after it was too late. Lt. Charles Taylor was exonerated in 1947 by the Board for Correction of Naval Records, at the request of his mother, in regard for "responsibility for loss of lives and naval aircraft."

In 1989, Allan and Frank Hill were brought into the Everglades to investigate a TBM Avenger crash site which was revealed after a fire. This plane was determined not to be part of Flight 19 because the BuNo # didn't match. The wreckage parts are on exhibit at our Museum. An interesting account has been written by Flight 19 expert Jon F. Myhre a former Army pilot and aviation historian, with his book: Discovery of Flight 19. This book comprises his 30 year search for the Lost Squadron in the Bermuda Triangle.

You can download the complete H. Resolution 500 proposition file:

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Flight 19 Memorial Ceremony is Open to the Public every December 5th

You are invited to The Flight 19 Memorial Ceremony
Flight 19 - Navigational Problems
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Online-Only Exhibit - Flight 19: Take an exclusive visual tour

Attention: CD copies and File Transfers a Flight 19 Package of images and documents from the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum Archives (177 items) have been scanned and are available in High Resolution (300dpi), for research and personal use. All proceeds will benefit the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum.