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The following article
was taken from two pages torn out of a magazine. There is no identifying
information about the magazine or the year the article was written. My
mother saved the article because her brother was one of the crewmen
[Everett Davis] on the plane that went down. It appears to be pages from Look,
Life, the Saturday Evening Post, or a similar sized
magazine from the 1940s.
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"The
weather was bad in the Southwest Pacific on Oct. 18. American B-24's
from the Jolly Roger group at Port Moresby were assigned to strike
the Jap base at Rabaul, but they were shut out by masses of cumulus
clouds. As a secondary target they tried to hit Cape Gloucester, but
it too was cloud-bound. On the way home, as the result of bad
weather and engine trouble, one of the big planes started to
sideslip and dive. Over a valley with tall mountain ranges on either
side the pilot of the plane gave the order to jump. Four of the 10
men went out the camera hatch; other six out the bomb bay. The plane
itself crashed against a mountainside.
All 10 of the men landed safely in a
wild area of New Guinea. Only the assistant engineer who fell 100
feet to the ground from the limb of a tree was badly hurt. Soon
they were discovered by friendly natives and brought to a native
village. In return for shining pieces of metal and cigarets, they
were fed and housed, |
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The rescued
men and the fliers who saved them pose for their picture beside the
C-47 which brought them back to Moresby. The Chinese boy is Jack Wu
of Vancouver, Wash., a gunner on the B-24. He broke his wrist
spinning the prop on a Moth. [Everett Davis is top left standing,
Martin Goff 2nd from left standing.] |
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next day three of the crew started out across the jungle toward a
Catholic mission called Kerau. There they were cared for by an
American missionary and nuns. To attract the attention of rescue
planes from Port Moresby, who were searching for them, they drew
their group insignia, the skull and crossed bombs, on the ground
with their parachutes. The planes spotted it and dropped supplies.
For many days thereafter the men on the ground carried on regular
communication with the men in the air by means of this unique signal
system.
Eventually the seven other men from
the native village arrived at Kerau Mission where they rested for a
week. Then the whole party started on a two-day trip to an emergency
landing strip nearby. From there on Nov. 11 they were picked up by
some Australian Moths (small two-seat planes) and flown 30 miles to
a larger air strip. At this point they climbed into an American C-47
transport and were flown to Port Moresby." |
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On the ground
of the mission the parachutes are laid out to spell the messages for
the planes. This picture was taken by a crew member who borrowed a
camera from the missionary. The country around here was too rough to
land a rescue plane. |
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