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Charles Carroll Taylor

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Charles Carroll Taylor (October 25, 1917 - December 5, 1945) was a United States Naval Lieutenant whose notoriety is due solely to the fact that he commanded the Flight 19 squadron that disappeared without a trace in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945.

Background

Charles Taylor served in the United States Naval Reserve during World War II. He graduated from Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in February, 1942 and became a flight instructor in October of that year. Contrary to Bermuda Triangle enthusiasts who have since reported that Lt. Taylor was a seasoned combat pilot, and that he had a vast amount of combat experience, he in fact had only moderate combat experience. Lt. Taylor did serve during World War II, and he did serve in combat, and he flew several combat missions, but only saw minor combat zone service in the Pacific theater. It was during this time that his abilities would be called into question on at least three occasions.

Over the next three years after his graduation and assignment, Taylor would ditch three planes into the ocean, twice specifically because he got lost, and was rescued all three times. These events will come into play heavily in the decades that follow his ill-fated leadership of Flight 19, in 1945. Following the war, on November 21, 1945, he was transferred to Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale. By this time, Taylor had in excess of 2,500 hours of flight time.

Flight 19

A training mission on December 5, 1945, consisting of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers was scheduled to fly 320 nautical miles, first to the southeast, then north to Grand Bahama, and finally back to Fort Lauderdale. Taylor commanded the flight and its 14 servicemen taking off at 14:10. After take-off, Lt. Taylor assumed a rear role, allowing a trainee for training purposes to lead the flight, which was common procedure. Flight 19 made its first dummy bombing run, then turned onto their second leg of the training flight. It is known now that it was some time after the first turn when Taylor took over command, believing the trainee's were headed in the wrong direction.

At 16:00 a transmission was received from Lt. Taylor: "Both my compasses are out, and I am trying to find Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am over land, but it's broken. I am 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." [1]

Shortly after this communication, Taylor was asked to switch his radio to the emergency frequency for better communication with the base, but he refused, saying, "I cannot switch frequencies. I must keep my planes intact." By this stage, Lt. Taylor was showing signs of panic, and he was very indecisive.

Disagreement between Taylor and a student pilot as to which direction the planes should travel to return to base was overheard. The student wanted to turn the flight westward, stating (most likely correctly) "Damnit, if we could just fly west we would get home; head west, damnit. If we would just fly west we would get home." [2]

Taylor finally ordered the flight to turn west and radioed to the base that he would continue in that direction until he "hit the beach or run out of gas." Due to this assurance and worsening weather conditions, a duty plane in Fort Lauderdale was not sent out to guide Flight 19 back to the base until 18:20. At 18:04 Flight 19's radio transmissions were triangulated and indicated they were north of The Bahamas and far east of Florida.

In fact, even had they been where Lt. Taylor had believed them to be, in the Florida Keys, the answer to his problem since he was not certain, would and should have always been to turn west. A westward to northwest path, if confused as to whether he was in the Bahamas or the Keys, would have taken them eventually to landfall in both instances, from both locations. Had he been in the Florida Keys, a west to northwest path would at the very least brought him to the Gulf coast before the planes ran out of fuel. Had they been where they actually with all likelihood were, in the Bahamas, that west to northwest path would have brought them to the east coast long before fuel ran out. Due north or northeast should have never been an option he chose, and would ultimately prove to be the demise of Flight 19.

By the time Lt. Taylor ordered their westward turn, it had became obvious to monitoring stations that Lt. Taylor and Flight 19 were hopelessly lost. He was urged to turn the flight over to one of the students, but evidently he did not do so. As nightfall came, communications had deteriorated, mostly likely due to the fact that Flight 19 was too far out to sea for solid communications. By all accounts, by the time Lt. Taylor ordered the flight to fly west, it was too late, and the planes were inevitably going down. [3]

Airfields in the vicinity turned on beacons and landing strips. The first plane sent after Flight 19 was forced to return when its antenna froze. The second duty plane, a 13-man PBM Mariner flying boat was dispatched. By nightfall, rain squalls were setting in, and would have been hampering the visibility of Flight 19's pilots.

Lt. Taylor requested a weather check at 17:24, and at 18:04 radioed to his flight "Holding 270, we didn't fly far enough east, we may as well just turn around and fly east again". However in that transmission he was indecisive, and obviously not in command, because the transmission indicated more of an opinion than an order. In his last mostly decipherable message, at about 18:20, he was heard saying "All planes close up tight . . .we'll have to ditch unless landfall . . .when the first plane drops below 10 gallons, we all go down together." [4] That was the last decipherable message ever heard from Flight 19.

To date, it is believed that Lt. Taylor mistakenly led Flight 19 far out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean, and that the flight was forced to ditch, at night, in stormy waters after running out of gas. Much later, it was revealed that Lt. Taylor was heard saying "We are entering white water, nothing seems right. We don't know where we are, the water is green, no white". However, that is totally false, created some time around the early to late 1970's during the boom of interest in the Bermuda Triangle and UFO's. There were also reports during that time that one of the planes, identifying itself as a part of Flight 19, was heard in broken radio transmissions hours after the last plane should have ran out of gas. However, there is nothing to support that claim, either.

The second PBM Mariner that was sent out in search of Flight 19 mysteriously fell silent also, at 19:47, and was not heard from again. Although Bermuda Triangle enthusiasts since have often attempted to link the disappearance with a mystery, the facts indicate otherwise. A search and rescue mission involving 250 planes and 15 ships was begun the next day, but no trace of wreckage from either Flight 19 or the lost PBM Mariner plane was ever found.

All twenty-seven men were presumed lost. Information collected since about the PBM Mariner indicate that it most likely suffered a ruptured fuel line explosion, or a fuel leak sparked, which desintigrated the aircraft. The SS Gaines Mill reported that it witnessed an over-water explosion in an area that coincided with the PBM Mariner's location, shortly after it took off. Bad weather did not allow for any debris recovery, but an oil slick and some debris were witnessed at the location of the over-water explosion. [5] [6]

US Navy assessment of the incident and disappearance

What is known by the US Navy about the case of Flight 19, contrary to popular belief by Bermuda Triangle enthusiasts, is ample. To the US Navy, there is no mystery as to what happened to Flight 19, the only mystery is where did the planes actually go down.

The US Navy knows from the radio communications that Lt. Charles Taylor, for training purposes acting as an observer at first, took the lead of Flight 19 some time after it turned north on its second leg of the flight, believing the students had taken a wrong turn. They know that Lt. Taylor seemed to have panicked, refusing to switch to the emergency radio channel fearing he would lose contact with his flight. The US Navy also knows that there were strong differences of opinion between Lt. Taylor and his student-pilots as to where they actually were located. [7]

The consensus as to why Lt. Taylor believed Flight 19 was in the Florida Keys is easily explainable in that, without his compasses, he could have easily become disoriented and believed the visible islands to have been the Keys, and the water beyond to have been the Gulf of Mexico. His first of many mistakes was that he refused to rely on his student-pilots who had working instruments, and who were more familiar with that area than he, deciding instead to trust his own judgement. The students, by the intercepted radio communications, seemed to know exactly where they were located, and the US Navy has documented that it is to the student-pilots credit that they obeyed Lt. Taylor, to their own demise, even knowing that he was in error. The end result was that Flight 19 changed command several times, albeit too late, between Lt. Taylor and one of the student-pilots, and the flight zigzagged back and forth north east of the Bahamas until they ran out of fuel, and ditched in a turbulent sea. Contrary to some statements made by writers and Bermuda Triangle enthusiasts about the weather being fair, by the time nightfall came rain squalls hampered visibility, and the seas were rough with high, choppy waves. [8]

The US Navy questioned former TBM Avenger pilots, all of whom had combat experience in the aircraft, as to the possibility of survival if an Avenger ditched in rough waters. Most agreed that the chance of surviving the initial water impact in rough seas was remote. In stormy seas, the likelihood of the plane floating at all was nonexistent. Any pilots who might have survived the initial crash would not have lasted long in cool waters with high winds. The rescue force had no actual bearing as to where Flight 19 could be located, and a very short timeframe as to when they would have needed to have located any surviving pilots before they would have died from exposure or drown. To date, the blame for the demise of Flight 19 lies squarely with Lt. Taylor. [9]

A Close Encounter?

Flight 19 was featured in the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film depicts that the flight was abducted by aliens, only to be returned later, fully intact. There have been many other references since the disappearance that Flight 19 was intercepted by aliens, and all of these depictions reflect that the pilots were all seasoned, experienced pilots.

Theories

Theories about Flight 19's fate have circulated for decades. Many blame the Bermuda Triangle, others blame Lt. Taylor, and yet others blame UFO's. The fact that no wreckage has ever been found only fuels theories and speculation. [10] [11]

What is known, is that Lt. Taylor was disoriented, which was reflected by his radio transmissions to the base and another aviator that tried to assist Lt. Taylor with advice, and no one could agree on where they were. It was mysterious that both of his compasses were not working, but he seemed unwilling to take the advice of his trainee's, who at least on one occasion disputed him insisting they turn westward. [12]

In the latest History Channel documentary about the incident, several theories were given some weight. However, the most common belief, by that documentary, is that Lt. Taylor wrongly believed the flight to be located in the far to the south-west Florida Keys, when in fact they were exactly where they should have been, in the island chain of the Bahamas. By turning the flight hard right in a desperate attempt to hit land, and believing them to be in the Florida Keys, Lt. Taylor in fact turned them out to sea, deep into the Atlantic Ocean. By the time he turned them west, after a dispute with one of the students who was insistent that they do so, it was too late. Fuel was low by that point, and they were inevitably going down. [13]

Whatever the cause and outcome, this incident more than any other, launched the modern day interest and fascination with the Bermuda Triangle. It captured the imagination, and although the actual events are likely explained by pilot error on the part of Flight 19's commanding officer, those who are fascinated by the event continue to specualte and investigate. Although it might not be known for some time what actually did happen, if ever, the real mystery isn't what happened, but rather the final whereabouts of the five Avenger planes wreckage. [14]

A rescue plane disappearing without a trace during the search for Flight 19 only fueled more interest and theories of mysterious events and causes. However, by the above described History Channel documentary and other sources, that disappearance was most likely due to a fuel explosion, disinegrating the aircraft shortly after takeoff. [15]

Sources

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