'43 bomber crash victims honored

Boston Globe ^ | 15 June 03 | Don Phillips

[GATOR NAVY]

WASHINGTON -- ''I put the men on the ship,'' the diary read, ''and so had a direct part in sealing their fate. Also, I was at the scene of the crash and saw the mangled bodies, killed while flying at 200 miles per hour. Terrible.'' Robert Cutler always knew his father nursed a searing memory from his time in Australia during World War II. But his father never spoke of it, beyond a few indirect references. ''Always sit in the back of the plane,'' he would warn his son, and, darkly, ''I don't trust military maintenance.''

The son never pressed. But in 1989, while helping his father move into a nursing home, he came upon the diary. There, for the first time, he read about the 1943 crash that killed 40 US soldiers and still is the deadliest aviation accident in Australian history.

[GATOR NAVY]

This is a few days old but I couldn't find it posted before.

I was in Mackay for a port vist in 2001. If we had known about this I'm sure we would have had a memorial service of some kind.

Mackay was great little town, very friendly. The high school band was playing on the pier as we moored.

[GATOR NAVY]

Ping

[SAMWolf]

Thanks for the ping, Gator Navy.

I wonder how many stories like this are out there buried in memories and some dusty archive somewhere?

[quietolong]

Who knows ?
In 1980 deployed to Japan. One of the other squadrons aircraft was taking off from an air show ( not in Japan don’t remember were it was now ) the P-3 clipped a tram cable sheared off the tail and crashed in to a Hotel. Killing the crew and a number of people on the ground.
When I got back to the States. Would be talking to people back here. And no one had ever heard about it.

[snippy_about_it]

Thank you Gator Navy for the ping to this story. This could use more coverage.