Post by errolmartyn on Mar 14, 2011 19:41:12 GMT 12
From "Secret deaths", New Zealand Listener, April 10-16 2010:
Details were not released until more than 60 years later.
Typical journalistic hype, I'm bound to say!
The event has been the subject of various articles dating back to at least the late 1970s.
In 1998 or 1999 I had no difficulty in obtaining a copy of an official 33-page War Department/USAAF report on the accident (from which the names listed below were obtained), and it had been publicly available for some time before that. The television director mentioned obtained a copy in turn from me.
From my trilogy 'For Your Tomorrow - A record of New Zealanders who have died while serving with the RNZAF and Allied Air Services since 1915 (Volume Two: Fates 1943-1998)':
The first foreign military aircraft visit to New Zealand coincided with the arrival of a large number of ships of the American Fleet in August 1925. Aircraft were flown off the vessels at Lyttelton, Auckland and Wellington. Since then only two fatal accidents are known to have occurred to such aircraft in New Zealand, both during the Second World War - one to a B-17 and the other to a C-87. In a strange twist of fate most of those who died in the latter were citizens of a country with which New Zealand was at war. . .
Sat 1/Sun 2 Aug 1943
NEW ZEALAND
Contract passenger and cargo flight to Amberley, Queensland, Australia
Air Transport Command, per United Air Lines contract (Mills Field, San Francisco, California, USA)
Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express 41-24027/JD-4 - crewed by a United Air Lines crew operating under contract to the ATC, took off at 0234 in light rain and 2½-mile visibility with 13-14mph NNE wind, gusting 28mph, and climbed 400-600 feet. Almost immediately entered a steep 180° left-hand turn with flaps down, gradually lost height and had almost levelled out when it hit the ground 1¼ miles NNE of the airfield, ¼ mile to the left of the line of the runway. The C-87 broke up as it bounced and skidded over the Waitemata marshland, the cabin coming to rest 300 yards from the first point of impact. Rescuers were impeded by deep mud, and water rising around the wreckage as the tide came in. Of the 25 on board, three crew and 11 passengers died in the crash, and another passenger of injuries on the 19th. The crew who died are thought to have been buried in the Waikumete Cemetery, but may have been exhumed after the war and transported to their home towns. The passengers were cremated and their ashes later returned to Asia. The passengers were cremated and their ashes later returned to Asia. The crash was the most serious aircraft accident in New Zealand to date. The death toll was exceeded only by the crash of NZNAC DC-3 ZK-AYZ in the Kaimai Ranges on 3 July 1963.
+Captain: Herschel V LAUGHLIN, United Air Lines. Approx 17,000hrs solo (approx 783 on C-87)
*Co-pilot: John WEISDA, United Air Lines.
*Navigator: Paul ULLMAN, United Air Lines.
+Radio Op: Henry PROSCHASKA, United Air Lines.
+Flight Engineer: George ALLEN, United Air Lines.
+Passenger: Hiroshi MINAMI (infant)
+Passenger: Kiyomi MINAMI (housewife)
+Passenger: Seiichiro MINAMI (male clerk)
*Passenger: Takeichi MINAMI (male clerk)
*Passenger: Hiyozo NAGASHIMA (male director)
*Passenger: Katsumasa OTA (clerk)
*Passenger: Masaru OTA (infant)
*Passenger: Miyoe OTA (housewife)
*Passenger: Yuriko OTA (female infant)
+Passenger: Hormiko SARAYE (male infant)
*Passenger: Isao SARAYE (male director)
*Passenger: Kuni SARAYE (housewife)
*Passenger: Misao SARAYE (female infant)
*+Passenger: Saturo UENO (housewife)
+Passenger: Schizuko UENO (female infant)
+Passenger: Tsunejiro UENO (male clerk)
*?Passenger: Tsuneo UENO (infant)
*Passenger: Kinzo YAMASHITA (fisherman)
+Passenger: Koniyo YAMASHITA (housewife)
*Passenger: Nanae YAMASHITA (infant)
+Passenger: Satsuki YAMASHITA (female infant)
*Passenger: Susumu YAMASHITA (infant)
+Passenger: Aua APIBALSREE (male student)
+Passenger: Bira KALAYASIRI (male student)
+Passenger: Yuwan SARANIYAMA (male student)
(+ = killed; * = injured; *? = injured?; *+ = injured and died 19 August.)
The passengers consisted of 22 Japanese and three Thai students, All had been interned in New Zealand after the outbreak of hostilities with Japan. They were being taken from New Zealand ‘to be traded for allied citizens’. One of the ‘infants’ was a child of about nine or 10 years, the others all under three. US military reports on the accident incorrectly record the C-87’s number as 41-124027 and include variations in the spelling of names of crew and passengers, the latter in particular.
And from Vol Three (Amendments & Appendices):
p358: LAUGHLIN, H V, etc – took off from Whenuapai. Coincidentally, regarding the ‘most serious accident’ comment, Australia’s worst ever aircraft accident had occurred less than two months earlier, on 14 Jun 43, when a USAAF B-17C Fortress crashed at Bakers Creek, Queensland, killing 40 of the 41 on board. For a detailed account of the loss of the Liberator Express see pp6-9 of the June 2006 issue of the AHSNZ Journal.
Errol