Were 2 dead pilots, plane wreckage part of 'Lost Patrol'?
By Ken Kaye
Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (Tribune News Service)
Published: April 3, 2015
Grumman TBM-3D Avenger bombers fly in formation in January 1945. Five torpedo bombers from Flight 19 vanished during a practice bomb run after taking off from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1945. Their disappearance popularized the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.
While hunting near Sebastian in the mid-1960s, Graham Stikelether stumbled upon the wreckage of a warplane with two bodies inside. Stikelether, an Indian River County attorney, notified the Navy, which picked up the plane and the human remains.
Navy authorities initially told him the plane was from Flight 19, the five torpedo bombers that vanished after taking off from Fort Lauderdale in 1945, but later recanted and refused to identify the bodies. Although Stikelether continued trying to find out who the men were, he died before he could find any answers.
That's according to Jon Myhre, who for decades has been trying to crack the Flight 19 mystery — and who firmly believes that wrecked plane was part of the doomed "Lost Patrol" squadron.
But the Navy has yet to identify the two bodies, despite Myhre's repeated pleas over the past two years and a federal Freedom of Information Act request filed in 2013.
"I was told that I'd run into a brick wall dealing with the Navy," said Myhre, a former Army combat helicopter pilot and later an air traffic controller in Palm Beach County. "After trying to identify those men, I believe I have."
A federal employee told Myhre the names of the Sebastian plane victims had been redacted from the Navy's accident report and thus were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. So last month, Myhre appealed to Adm. Samuel Cox, director of the Naval History and Heritage Command, for help.
After being contacted by the Sun Sentinel, Heritage Command spokesman Paul Taylor said archivists now are trying to find the names of the two crewmen — and will release them if found.
The problem, he said, is the Navy still doesn't have enough information to determine who they were. "There are no relevant records to answer his question," he said. "But we'll continue to work the case."
Flight 19 took off from the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale — today Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport — on Dec. 5, 1945, planning a practice bomb run. A few hours later, the flight leader reported his compasses were malfunctioning and that he was lost.
Many experts believe the planes ran out of fuel and crashed in the Atlantic about 150 miles east of Daytona Beach, killing all 14 crewmembers. Because no trace of the planes was ever found, their disappearance popularized the myth of the Bermuda Triangle.
Myhre thinks one or more of the Flight 19 planes crashed on land — in the vicinity of Sebastian, north of Vero Beach.
The reason: The aircraft carrier USS Solomons, while near Daytona Beach, picked up a radar signal from four to six unidentified aircraft over North Florida about 90 minutes after Flight 19 was due back in Fort Lauderdale.
The carrier observed the planes turn to the southeast before they dropped off radar.
Because of that turn, Myhre calculated that one or more of the single-engine, 8-ton bombers likely crashed in Central Florida.
Myhre initially learned about the two bodies in 1989, after a story about his research into warplanes appeared in Omni, a science magazine.
After reading the article, Stikelether contacted Myhre and told him he found a TBM Avenger torpedo bomber — the same model flown by Flight 19 — and the remains of two crewmembers in a swamp area about eight miles southwest of Sebastian.
Stikelether, who would later become an Indian River County judge, said he attempted to determine the identities of the two men and even called a friend in the Pentagon.
"The friend called back and said, 'just drop it,' " said Doug Westfall, who published Myhre's book, "Discovery of Flight 19."
"So Stikelether was frustrated."
Although the squadron was under the command of the Navy, it included several Marine crewmembers. Myhre thinks the plane found near Sebastian was flown by Marine Capt. Edward Powers, who was accompanied by Sgt. Howell Thompson, the gunner, and Sgt. George Paonessa, the radioman.
When Myhre first inquired about the plane in 1989, the Navy asked for the exact date the aircraft was found, which Stikelether was unable to provide. As a result, the Navy said it couldn't determine the crewmembers' identities. Then Stikelether died in 2009.
Lending support to his theory, Myhre learned that the pilots of an Eastern Air Lines DC-3 spotted a red flare not far from the crash site — a day after the Navy squadron went missing. Myhre thinks the flare might have been fired by a crewmember from the wrecked plane before he either died or went AWOL and disappeared.
It's believed Paonessa was that crewmember and some even theorize he lived anonymously for years after that crash. They include Paonessa's family, who received a Western Union telegram sent from the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville a few days after Flight 19 disappeared, said Minerva Bloom, a docent at the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum.
The telegram said, "I am very much alive," and was signed: "Georgie," according to Bloom, who added that the museum has a copy of that communication.
"The telegram is believed to be a hoax by many. But I am not 100 percent sure because the family believes it is authentic, as only close family members knew his nickname, Georgie," Bloom said.
Myhre said no matter what, he plans to find out the real story. "I'll keep stirring the pot to get answers," he said. "But it's just really frustrating."
http://www.stripes.com/news/navy/were-2-dead-pilots-plane-wreckage-part-of-lost-patrol-1.338195
