...............Flight 19 
                                              29.24 LT   78.90 LN


    December,  1945,  2:10  p.m.  Five  Avenger  torpedo  bombers 
lifted  off  from  the  Naval Air  Station  in  Fort  Lauderdale, 
Florida,  scheduled  for a routine patrol  in  the  Atlantic--160 
miles  east,  40 miles north, and 120 miles back  to  base.   The 
planes  were fully fueled and all equipment was in  good  working 
order;  the pilots and crewmen were all experienced; the  weather 
was excellent.  Flight 19 was scheduled to last two hours.
  
      At  3:45 p.m. the first message came from the patrol.   The 
tower,  expecting to receive a request for landing  instructions, 
instead received:
 
        "Control  tower,  this is an emergency.  We  seem  to  be 
        offcourse.   We cannot see land. . .repeat. . .we  cannot 
        see land."
         
        "What is your position?" the tower asked.
         
        "We're not sure."
 
 
    Perplexed, the tower operators instructed the patrol to  head 
due west.  After a long silence, the patrol leader answered,  "We 
don't    know    which    way    is    west.     Everything    is 
wrong. . .strange. . .we can't be sure of any direction."
 
    The tower operators were at a loss.  The planes were equipped 
with  extensive radio gear, compasses, and homing  devices  which 
showed  the  heading  to take to return to  base.   Even  if  the 
compasses  were affected by a magnetic storm, the  pilots  should 
have been able to find land by flying toward the sun.  It  seemed 
as if they couldn't tell where the sun was.
 
    As  time  passed, the pilots grew confused  and  scared,  but 
stayed together.  After 4:00 p.m. the planes were running low  on 
fuel and the situation was grave.
 
    At  4:25  the flight leader radioed the  tower:   "We're  not 
certain  where we are.  We must be about 225 miles  northeast  of 
base. . .it looks like we're. . ."
 
    Silence.  All contact was lost.
 
    At  once, a Martin Mariner rescue plane (a flying  boat)  was 
dispatched  to Flight 19's last estimated position.  The sun  was 
setting and the weather growing poor, but the Martin Mariner  was 
well-equipped  with  survival and rescue gear and could  land  in 
even  the roughest of seas.  The tower radioed Flight 19  to  let 
them know help was on the way, but received no response.
 
    The Martin Mariner soon reported that it was approaching  the 
Avengers' position, but that it couldn't see anything.  Suddenly, 
radio  messages  from the flying boat  ceased.   The  controllers 
tried without success to re-establish contact.  The rescue plane, 
too, had vanished.
 
    A  general alarm was raised.  Other planes were  sent,  ships 
were  dispatched.   The  flight paths of  the  Avengers  and  the 
Mariner  were thoroughly searched.  At 7:04 p.m., a  Miami  tower 
picked up a faint message:  "FT. . .FT. . ."  Those were the call 
letters  of Flight 19, which would not have been used  by  anyone 
else.   It  was two hours after the flight must have run  out  of 
fuel.
 
    Navy  and Coast Guard vessels searched throughout the  night, 
and  again  the  next day with 300 planes,  21  ships,  and  land 
parties  scouring  the  Florida  coastline,  the  Keys,  and  the 
Bahamas.   The  search  continued for weeks, but  no  clues  were 
found.   No wreckage, no oil slicks, no survivors. .  .Flight  19 
and  its  rescue  plane had vanished into  one  of  the  greatest 
aviation mysteries of all time.
 
-- -- --
 
    Although Flight 19 remains undiscovered, its disappearance is 
not without fact--and theories, ranging from waterspouts to alien 
spacecraft.   On  the factual side, it has been  determined  that 
when Lieutenant Charles Taylor (the flight leader) first reported 
trouble, the five Avenger bombers were just north of the Bahamas, 
almost exactly on course when they decided they were lost.  After 
careful study of the radio messages and other pertinent data,  it 
is  believed  Flight  19 ditched several hundred  miles  off  the 
northern  coast of Florida, approximately adjacent to New  Smyrna 
Beach.
 
    Your  job is to find and photograph the missing bombers,  and 
lay to rest this baffling tragedy.


