Missing RAAF Beaufort found

[MiTasol]

Bone fragments in PNG underwater wreck identified as Australian WWII crew

Almost eight decades after their aircraft crashed in waters south of Papua New Guinea, Australian crew members have been identified, as Twiggy Forrest searches for his late wartime relative.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Snautzer01]

Missing Royal Australian Air Force World War II bomber and crew discovered

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-10/missing-wwii-bomber-and-crew-found-papua-new-guinea/103691758

ww2aircraft.net

 

[GTX]

Double post - deleted.

 

[MiTasol]

The official RAAF press release. I will try and find the accident report and post that

 

[MiTasol]

History card and the only accident report for 186 contained in Nat Archives file # 7127573 (unless the files are out of order - I will OCR later to check). Given that none of the crew on the final flight were involved in this accident we still do not know what the various crew were rated as.

Given my knowledge of the Beaufort I suspect that the two bodies recovered are the navigator and the turret gunner. Getting out of that turret is #$%^ impossible unless you have hydraulic power and the Nav, if not injured, has to wait until the pilot exits before he can use the same exit if going up. Remember the Nav is stuck in the very nose and when the glass and perspex lower nose panels shatter he would be hit with the fragments and a lot of water travelling at high speed.

The pilot and the Wireless Operator on the other hand can exit quite easily. The pilot is protected from the water jet by the instrument panel and all the structure below it and exits straight up or to the left. The WAG goes out through the main entry door. In combat he is standing next to that door manning one of the two or three (depending on mod status) Vickers GO waist guns.

 

[MiTasol]

I OCRd the file and searched by aircraft serial and by each crews name (using two groups of just three letters for each) and found nothing. Given several of the three letter groups were not found and I tried a couple of simple tests like the and bea and the OCR could not find them this does not mean the record is totally missing - just that I do not think that the record is there.

I went to the ADF-serials.com.au site and found this - I find it very strange that the Navs remains were recovered but neither of the two guys in the back. The Wireless operator had a good chance of initial survival so may well have taken to the water and been lost there with or without the raft. I cannot see how the guy in the turret was able to escape unless the pilot signalled he was going to ditch well in advance and he got free and sat on the Elsan before the aircraft hit the water.

 

[special ed]

Since wreckage was "extensively damaged by fire" two of the crew may have bailed before hitting the water.

 

[Lucky13]

 

[Wildcat]

This was a bad mission for 100 sqn. 10 aircraft set out to bomb Gasmata airstrip at 1500ft, 3 aircraft were quickly shot down while a 4th was written off when crash landed back at base due to battle damage. A fifth Beaufort received damage but was later repaired.