November 18, 2005

December 5, 1945 a flight of 5 Avenger aircraft took off from the Naval Air Station at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Flight 19, as it would become known, had become lost over the Bermuda Triangle. In radio messages for several hours the flight Leader Charles Taylor, had become disoriented by malfunctions of the gages in his aircraft. Of course the aircraft finally ran out of fuel and vanished. One of the search aircraft also disappeared. In all 27 US Naval Aviators died. None of the wreckage from any of the six aircraft was ever found.

Yesterday in the US House of Representatives a resolution (H RES 500) was introduced by Congressman Clay Shaw (R-Fla.) honoring the 60th anniversary of the loss of these men.

 

Recognizing the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of the 5 naval Avenger torpedo bombers of Flight 19 and the naval Mariner rescue aircraft sent to search for Flight 19.

(Introduced in House)
HRES 500 IH

109th CONGRESS 1st Session H. RES. 500

Recognizing the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of the 5 naval Avenger torpedo bombers of Flight 19 and the naval Mariner rescue aircraft sent to search for Flight 19

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 18, 2005

Mr. SHAW submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services

RESOLUTION

Recognizing the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of the 5 naval Avenger torpedo bombers of Flight 19 and the naval Mariner rescue aircraft sent to search for Flight 19.

Whereas on December 5, 1945, the 5 Avenger torpedo bombers of Flight 19, originating at the Naval Air Station of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and its crew of 14 Navy airmen, disappeared;

Whereas the Mariner rescue aircraft sent to search for Flight 19 , originating at the Naval Air Station of Banan River, Florida, and its crew of 13 Navy airmen, also disappeared on that date;

Whereas December 5, 2005, marks the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of Flight 19 ;

Whereas the loss of Flight 19 occurred during peacetime;

Whereas the disappearance of Flight 19 sparked one of the largest air and sea rescue searches in history covering over 250,000 square miles;

Whereas all investigations of the disappearance of Flight 19 have failed to recover any aircraft, debris, or remains;

Whereas there remain unanswered questions concerning the disappearance of Flight 19 ; and Whereas there are continuing efforts with the latest technology to determine the location of the lost aircraft and crews:
Now, therefore be it

Resolved , That the House of Representatives--

(1) recognizes the 60th anniversary of the disappearance of the 5 naval Avenger torpedo
bombers of Flight 19 and the naval Mariner rescue aircraft sent to search for Flight 19 ;

(2) honors the memory of the 27 Navy airmen lost in these disappearances;

(3) recognizes the historical significance of Flight 19 ;

(4) acknowledges continuing efforts to determine what caused these disappearances; and

(5) commends the Naval Historical Center for preserving the history of
Flight 19.

Following is a list of the crew of Flight 19
(I was unable to locate the names of those lost on the search plane.)

FT. 28 Lt. Charles .C. Taylor , USNR
G.F. Devlin, AOM3c, USNR
W.R. Parpart, ARM3c, USNR

FT. 36 Capt. E.J. Powers, USMC H.Q.
Thompson, Sgt., USMCR
G.R. Paonessa, Sgt., USMC

FT. 117 Capt. G.W. Stivers, USMC
R.P. Gruebel, Pvt., USMCR
R.F. Gullivan, Sgt., USMC

FT. 81 2nd Lt. F.J. Gerber, USMCR
W.E. Lightfoot, Pfc., USMCR

FT. 3 Ens. J.T. Bossi, USNR
A.H. Thelander, S1c, USNR
B.E. Baluk, JR., S1c, USNR

© 2005 Michael W. Pocock
MaritimeQuest.com

This is not Flight 19, but it is five avengers in flight.

The following message was sent to MaritimeQuest on May 2, 2007:

I saw your comment that you did not have a list of the men who were on the Mariner rescue plane. I wanted you to know one of them was my uncle (my mother's eldest brother) Roger M. Allen. I believe he was an ensign at the time. He was the eldest of 5 children from Sumter, South Carolina. His mother (my grandmother) lived to be 100 years old; She died in December of 1995.

I came across this website while I was looking for another one that I had searched a couple of years ago. The contact there supplied me with a picture of my uncle that we had not seen. I believe it was his official Navy photo. This past December, my mother and my other uncle were interviewed by a reporter from WIS-TV in Columbia, SC commemorating the 60 year anniversary of Flight 19.

Tricia Quarles