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528th
Bombardment Squadron, 530th Bombardment Group
Located 1994,
Kroombit Tops National Park, Queensland, Australia
It was 1966 and Squadron Leader Keith Rundle was responding to a phone
call he had just received from his former employer, the Royal Australian Air
Force. He dusted off his old tropical uniform and drove to Townsville’s RAAF
base flight line. There he supervised the loading of a Dakota being prepared
for a long flight west. Liberator
BEAUTIFUL BETSY was back on Keith Rundle's search agenda.
Whilst it might be an American aircraft, two English fliers had also
been aboard, hence Rundle’s official interest in the aircraft through the RAAF/
RAF special relationship. Rundle’s personal interest in finally locating the
elusive wreck was almost obsessional however. BEAUTIFUL BETSY for
years had thwarted his best efforts to locate her, almost deliberately it
seemed. It wasn’t that Rundle hadn’t been unsuccessful at his work – for years
since the war he had headed an unusual unit termed the RAAF Searcher Party.
What began as a short‑term commitment in late 1945 turned into an
obsession to determine the fates of Australian airmen who had gone missing in
the SWPA. In the course of trampling the vastness of Pacific jungles for years,
Rundle had of course come across dozens of American wrecks, and these were
reported too. Sometimes wrecks had carried both Australians and Americans as in
the case of several Fortresses and Mitchells. Regardless, throughout the
forties and fifties the work was incessant, for there were hundreds of unsolved
cases. It was clear to Rundle, even just after the war, that many on the list
would never be found. He was correct.
For Rundle, the mystery of this particular American bomber at times had
brought with it similar frustrations and obsession he had experienced with
a particularly elusive Avro Anson in New Guinea, a site from which he had
finally claimed the crew in 1964. Rundle had only recently formally retired
from the RAAF. However, he had been pulled out of mothballs, as word had just
filtered through to Townsville. The news was that owner of St Vidgeons Station
(a vast property on the Roper River in Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria region),
had stumbled upon an aircraft engine whilst mustering cattle. Yet the owner
had found more. Several weeks later, not far away, he had also come across
a pile of Dutch, Australian and US coins, along with a burnt crucifix, a military
water bottle and a pannikin.
Rundle excitedly plotted the location of the finds. They lay directly
underneath BEAUTIFUL BETSY's planned Darwin-Brisbane
flightpath. After landing at Katherine in the Dakota, Rundle immediately set
out for St Vidgeons with a guide. Driving for miles through trackless country
and heavy scrub, he finally arrived at the site. What he found was not a radial
engine, but rather an aircraft supercharger, and to boot it was in a rotting
wooden box. Someone had probably thrown it out of an overflying aircraft, but
why ? His guide reported that two aborigines had reported aircraft wreckage in
a nearby creek‑bed, but both were away mustering cattle, and not expected
back for days.
Thus forced to abandon the search, Rundle's next opportunity to visit
the same area had to wait until the following year when he was called out of
retirement yet again to investigate another reported wreck. Returning to the
same spot, he was shown more coins, a buckle, a fountain pen nib and a glass.
The items proffered evidence that an American serviceman had probably passed
this way and perhaps died in the area.
Despite a widening aerial search by Rundle’s Dakota, he found no further
evidence of an aircraft wreck. Forced to return to his forward base at Roper
Bar Police Station, Rundle rallied to make one last effort to contact one of
the aboriginal stockmen who had reported the wreckage. The next day Rundle and
his air force colleague, Squadron Leader Edward Plenty, set off on a
two-hundred-mile round-trip to Elsey Station. Although they were rewarded by a
rough map of the alleged wreck site, drawn by the property owner, the actual
aborigine who had sighted the wreck was again out mustering and thus beyond
reach. The alleged wreck was never found, and so in late August 1967, after
weeks in the bush, Keith Rundle was forced to admit defeat for a second and
final time. Sadly, Rundle did not live to see this mystery solved. In 1986,
while painting his house, he complained to his wife of exhaustion and faintness. Rundle was admitted to Townsville hospital
where he died on an operating table from an aortic aneurysm.
In
late July 1994, almost two thousand miles from Rundle’s old searching ground,
park ranger Mark Roe was checking the results of a controlled burn in the
Kroombit Tops National Park, about fifty miles West of the Queensland town of
Gladstone. The area is rugged, covered by dense scrub and tall ironbark gum
trees. Standing on an escarpment, Roe saw a glint of sunlight from metal on a
ridge about half a mile away. When he reached the site by foot it was obvious
that the reflection had come from aircraft wreckage. As he moved further across
the ridgeline, Roe found more scattered debris and torn metal. One wing and a
tall section of what was obviously a wartime bomber lay broken on the North‑western
edge of the ridge, just above a cliff‑line which dropped sharply into a
gully. Other broken pieces of fuselage lay strewn among the trees. The force of
impact must have been considerable - despite the density of the bush, much of
the wreckage had been thrown considerably forward, with one engine a good
hundred yards away. Within days of Roe's find, numbers on the tail had
confirmed BEAUTIFUL BETSY’s identity. Keith Rundle could now truly
rest in peace.
Evidence provided by the bent propellers indicate that the aircraft was
under power and on descent to the south-west when it hit the ridge. The pilot
was probably unaware that he had narrowly cleared an even higher escarpment
seconds before the crash. He had probably been forced to a lower altitude by
adverse weather or perhaps, unsure of his position at night, had descended
through cloud to try and find a reference point.
Almost fifty years after she vanished, the riddle of BEAUTIFUL BETSY’s final resting place was solved. But, as occasionally happens in such circumstances,
the find highlighted another mystery, a question Keith Rundle had asked many
times over the years. If not a crewman from BEAUTIFUL BETSY, who then was the American who had left behind the personal items which
Rundle and the station owner found at St Vidgeons thirty years ago ? Until
some outback stockman stumbles across another clue, his identity, and the
origins of the B24 supercharger, will remain forever elusive.
To understand this wreck’s remarkable history we return to Brigadier
General Eugene L. Eubank, Director for Army Air Corps Bombardment, delivering a
speech at Lowry Field, Colorado, in March 1943. Eubank lectured the assembly, “You men are a shambles - nothing but a
Flying Circus" ! Henceforth
the 380th Bombardment Group (Heavy) would call themselves The Flying Circus. The Group crossed the
Pacific with D model Liberators in April 1943. After combat orientation in New
Guinea with the 43rd and 90th Bombardment Groups they
flew their first solo combat mission against the Japanese airfield at Gasmata,
New Britain, on 21st May 1943. Their base was the recently‑built
Fenton Field, about eighty miles south of Darwin. One of the Liberators which
had crossed the Pacific was B‑24D‑53‑CO, serial #42‑40387,
assigned to the Circus’ 528th
Squadron. Aircraft commander l/Lt Joe Roth had named the aircraft BEAUTIFUL BETSY after his wife. The name was painted in a flowing yellow script shaded by
red over the bomber’s olive drab camouflage. Several of the Group’s Liberators
were diverted to Charters Towers on arrival, to have a Consolidated tail turret
grafted into the nose to replace the 'greenhouse' of the standard B-24D, but BEAUTIFUL BETSY was not one of them and she entered combat almost immediately.
On 13th August 1943 the Group mounted one of their more
notable raids from northern Australia - to the oil refineries of Balikpapan in
Borneo. Twelve Circus Liberators were selected for the attack, staging to
Darwin for briefing, arming and refueling. Roth departed Fenton at 0800 hours
with the others, but on arrival at Darwin made a heavy landing, smashing BEAUTIFUL BETSY’s tailskid through the
fuselage. The damage was substantial and the Liberator was pulled off the raid.
After repairs at Darwin, BEAUTIFUL BETSY flew more missions until November 1943. During a Rabaul mission this
month the bomber nearly collided with another aircraft in formation as they
processed through a thunderstorm. Her
pilot wrenched the controls to avoid the collision, causing BEAUTIFUL BETSY to enter a high‑speed
stall. She spun and tumbled from formation, with bombs and much fuel. The
resultant G forces imposed on the airframe and mainspars during recovery were
severe, and the squadron’s engineers decided to retire her from combat.
This was no big deal, as the bomber had already accumulated more than a
thousand hours stateside, and twenty‑five missions against the Japanese.
However, on 13th December 1943 BEAUTIFUL BETSY was
selected for a special task. Services Reconnaissance Department of the Allied
Intelligence Bureau was having difficulties with submarine transport, and in
order to insert operatives and supplies deep into Japanese held territory, it
was decided to test an operational long‑range aircraft capable of
carrying heavy loads. At this stage of the war the RAAF was without Liberators,
so the Australian Army turned to the U.S Army Air Corps and BEAUTIFUL BETSY was trialed for parachute‑dropping
tests. On 26th December 1943 she headed for the Adelaide River drop
zone, near Batchelor Field in Northern Australia. Aboard were five special
forces soldiers from ‘Z’ Force and 'ACW Wood', a test dummy which would make
the first exit. After successful tests, other Flying Circus Liberators were provided to insert more operatives
behind enemy lines. When No. 200 Special Duties Flight (RAAF) was formed in
February 1945, it took over the role, and was equipped with more surplus
Liberators. The Flight made use of an Australian‑designed slide apparatus
which accurately deployed parachutists through the aircraft’s camera hatch.
Special operatives were subsequently dropped behind Japanese lines in places as
remote as New Guinea, Borneo, Timor, Sarawak and other islands in the Dutch
East Indies. On completion of the parachute trials, a decision had to be made
on BEAUTIFUL
BETSY's future however. Instead of being salvaged for
parts, her former 528th Squadron decided to take her back as a hack.
Thus she was stripped of her camouflage, all guns and armor plating, but the
name BEAUTIFUL
BETSY was repainted on her nose in black.
Over the next year the old bomber roamed far and wide throughout Australia,
plying her trade of transporting fresh produce, alcohol and sometimes even
live poultry to relieve the monotonous diet of canned food which was standard
fare in the north. Personnel travelling on leave were also carried. In February
1945 the Flying Circus packed up
their northern Australian bases in preparation to move to Murtha Field on
Mindoro, the Philippines. The 528th Squadron continued with operations
however while the other squadrons shuttled personnel and materiel to their
new base. The 528th Squadron mess officer had raised six hundred
Australian Pounds and BEAUTIFUL BETSY was to be dispatched on one
last ‘fat‑cat’ mission, this time to Brisbane, after which she would
be scrapped (she had by now accumulated nearly 1,500 airframe hours). At ten
o’clock in the evening of 26th February 1945 BEAUTIFUL BETSY lifted off from Darwin with 1/Lt William E. McDaniel at the controls.
Also aboard were Lieutenants Eugene A. Kilcheski (co-pilot), Hilary E. Routt
(navigator), Jack W. Owens (navigator/bombardier), Sgts Raymond S. Tucker
(engineer), Harold I. Lemons (radio operator) and two English passengers.
Both were Spitfire pilots from British RAF No. 54 Squadron, then based in
Darwin. They were F/O Roy Cannon and Flt/Lt T. J. Cook. The former, twenty‑three
years old, was due to marry Miss Daphne Studdards of Brisbane on 2nd
March 1945, and Cook was to be his best man. As was common for that time of
year, the weather en route that night was forecast as marginal, with developing
thunderstorms along track. Forecast northerly winds which would have also
brought heavy cloud turned out stronger than expected. However, Flying
Circus men were used to such weather over long distance, and McDaniel
accepted the flight as just another long distance caper.
McDaniel set a South‑easterly course, and his crew settled in for
a nine‑hour tedious flight. If all went well they would arrive at
Brisbane’s Eagle Farm airport in the darkness of early morning. However BEAUTIFUL BETSY vanished, and apart from a report of a large aircraft heard over
Claraville Station, near Croydon in Queensland, nothing was ever heard of the
aircraft again (there had not even been a radio message from McDaniel after
departure). When BEAUTIFUL BETSY failed to arrive, Major H.
C. Williams took charge of a search. He first dispatched two Flying Circus Liberators fifteen to
twenty miles either side of the track the lost bomber had planned. Then, on the
return both aircraft searched the area carefully around Claraville, but found
nothing.
From the wreck site it can be established that McDaniel was close to his
planned track (a great circle route Darwin-Brisbane passes close to the crash
site). It can be surmised that he had commenced descent too early in pre-dawn
darkness, probably around 0430 hours, and that the bomber slid down the standard
but invisible five hundred feet per minute glideslope, superchargers throttled
back, and with most aboard still sleeping. The pilots, believing that they
had crossed the ranges and were over the coastal lowlands, were unaware that
they had just missed the top of a ridge - and didn’t see the next one. At
just over three hundred mph BEAUTIFUL BETSY slammed
into the ridge face and exploded.
Or perhaps is there another explanation ? A few weeks after the crash
former RAAF Sergeant, Peter Alexander, came forward and tendered the following
entry for his diary for 22nd February 1945, only four days before BEAUTIFUL BETSY’s demise. Did a structural
problem cause the crash ? It now seems as if the cause of BEAUTIFUL BETSY’s sudden end will always
remain an unknown. Read the below, and make up your own mind:
“After 12 months in Northwestern area including eight months in charge of the HF/DF station at Groote Eytland in the Gulf it was my second stint in the tropics since 1942. I said my farewells to the operators and proceeded to the airfield in Darwin and tried to book a flight south to Adelaide or Sydney on official RAAF transport which was in very short supply at the time. Anxious to get south I eventually was able to hitch a ride aboard an American liberator Beautiful Betsy one of the 380 Bomber Group old veterans pensioned off from combat duties and utilized now for the fresh fruit and beer run to Adelaide. After obtaining flight level I went up to the rear end tail gun turret position. The vibration was really something and the fuselage rivets were rattling like crazy. I could not get back quickly enough to the flight deck”.
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