Line in Record @I21321@ (RIN 303642) from GEDCOM file not recognized:
EVEN World War II Navy Pilot
U. S. Training plane flight lost at sea off the coast of Florida. The Bermuda Triangle
THE FATEFUL JOURNEY OF FLIGHT 19, THE ILL-FATED JOURNEY OF FLIGHT 19
Ther is a head stone in the Springside cemetery near Arkansas City,Kansas. It has the following inscription carvedin it:" In Memory of Joseph Tipton Bossi, born December 25, 1924.
Lost at sea in War ll over the Atlantic December 5, 1945" Joe Bossi does not lie in the grave. This story tell why. It attempts to tell about the last day of his life. About his dedication to the life he chose.
About his love of flying. About his last fateful decision About his loyalty to his flight leader.
He did not nedd to die. he could have taken his disharge. He could have remained
with his stricken plane. He could hae left the squadron and returned to the base alone.
Joe must have often been afraid and especially those last hours. But no one in our world,
I think, lives without fear. I have often woundered what it is that starts the drum of a man's life to beating? For each of us walks to the beat of our own drum, an unheard rhythumto all our movements and thought.Ambition was strong within Joe. He wanted to see, to become,but, most of all, to understand
and to fly. Much that was taken for granted by other was new to him. World War ll had been over for three months. Naval pilot, Joe Bossi would have been 21 years old on Christmas Day, 1945
He had been a normal bright American boy and had joined the Navy three years earlier. After graduating from Arkansas City, Kansas High School, he went to the University of Kansas for one
semester before joining the Navy. Joe loved flying. Being a polot had been a driving ambition since he could remember. After the war was over, he passed up the opportunity to be discharged from the service. He had one final goal he had to accomplish; land on and take off from a moving aircraft
carrier while at sea.On that fateful day of December 5, 1945, his flight 19 was scheduled to make a routine low-level bombing and navigation training exercise over the Atlantic Ocean from the naval air station at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
His friend Calvin Shoemaker, was one of the other pilots lined up on the runway awaiting take-off. Joe plane had engine trouble and would not start. He jumped out of his plane and ran to Shoemaker's to ask if he could borrow his plane. Shoemaker did not need the flying time but Joe felt he did,
so Shoemaker agreed to let Joe and his crew take it on the exercise Calvin Shoemaker went up to the control tower to watch his friend, Jos Bossi and four other of Flight 19 take off on that disastrous crip winter afternoon.The five doomed Navy TBM Avenger Torpedo bombers with 14 crewmen roared down the runway
lifed into the air and headed out over the Alantric Ocean. They had no inking that they were flying into history.That they were destined to become legends.No trace of the planes or crew members was ever found. thus they became known as the legendary,"Lost Squadron". Their disappearance helped build the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, an area bound by Bermuda, Miami and Puerto rico, Where ships and planes were said to mysteriously disappear.
The group leader was Lt. Charles Taylor, 28, a seasoned combat veteran of the Pacific campaign, but a pilot with a reputation for sloppy navigation. Setting out at 2:10 P. M., the plane were loaded with 5 1/2 hour's fuel for the schedule three-hour flight out over the Atlantic and back to the airfield. Flight 19 ran into trouble afert the first leg of its flight when Taylor's compass failed. Thing quickly become worse as the squadron leader became thoroughly disoriented by the hazy weather. At one piont,a pilot,presumably Taylor, was overheard saying. "I don't know where we are. We must have
got lost after that last turn." A bit later Taylor announced, "I'm sure I'm in the keys, but I don't know how far down, and I don't know how to get to Fort Lauderdale" To make matters worse, while the ground controlleds in Fort Lauderdale could hear Taylor's radio transmisssions, he had trouble picking up the is.At about 4:45 P.M. Taylor radioed again, this time saying that the formation had somehow ended up over the gulf of Mexico, which seemed impossilbe. Listening on the ground, Lt. Comdr. Don Poole, the flight training officer at Fort Lauderdale, knew then that Taylor was only getting himself more confused. "It canhappen to a pilot when you look out and you don't see anything familiar" says Poole. "But usually you snap out of that panic and stay on course.
But he didn't ," The tragic irony wes that investigation now believe that Taylor was nowhere
near the Keys but where he was supposed to be over the Bahamas. More important, they theirize that as a result of his mistake in identifying the ground below, Taylor concluded wrongly that his
compas was malfunctioning and from then on disregarded its readings It seems clear that some in Taylor's group realized thier leader's error.The transmissions from Flight 19 were growing increasingly faint, apperently because the squadon was getting farther away, but at 5 P.M. Calvin Shoemaker heard Joe's voice say to another "Dammit,
if we would just fly west, we would get home."But the iron code of military discipline and costom dictated that they stay with Taylor,It was a matter of self-respect. Honor can be a troublesome thing, yet, if you have it you do not yeild it lightly. " In training it's embedded in you to follow orders, "says Poole
And so the five planes droned on into the gathering dusk,desperately zig-zagging somewhere off
the coast, as best the ground controllers could tell from theintermittent radio transmissions.At 5:22 Taylor was heard telling his team, "when the first man gets down to 10 gallons of gas we will all land in the water togeter" That would have helped the search and rescue
Team find them.About that time a strom front hit the sea, bringing 40-knot winds, torrential rain and 12 to 14 foot waves.
At 6:02 one of the Avengers radioed that "We may have to ditch any minute."For the next hour there were sporadic broadcasts until at last one of the planes called for Taylor and got no responce. it was the last anyone heard from Flight 19.
The awful truth began to sink in. All were probably lost. The sea was silent and empty
planes