Thgis unnamed bomber crashed on landing at Cairns, northern Australia
on 5th July 1942 at 1630 hours during a return from a mission to New
Guinea. The bomber had departed Cooktown at 1330 hours that afternoon.
The cause of the crash was that one engine cut out just prior to touchdown
and the pilot lost asymetric control of the bomber.
The 22nd Bombardment Group deployed from the U.S within sixteen hours
of Pearl Harbor. They reassembled at Muroc Lake in the hot Mojave Desert
with forty-four mint Marauder bombers. More were added for the sudden
deployment, and after arriving in Hawaii in late March 1942, fifty-one
of Martin's latest creation left in stages for the long delivery flight
to Brisbane via Palmyra, Canton Island, Nadi (Fiji), and Noumea (New
Caledonia).
One disappeared somewhere over the vast Pacific between Canton and
Fiji on 25th March 1942, and another two crashed into the ocean near
Palmyra in a storm on 1st April 1942. Incredibly the navigator from
one aircraft survived in a raft and was rescued.
When the rest of the Marauders finally landed at Archerfield near Brisbane,
2/Lt Barry Burnsides damaged a nearby house with his wingtip. US/Australian
relations were smoothed over however when the lady of the house invited
him in for a cup of tea, privng yet again the unswerving hospitality
of the Aussies !
The Group would later transition to Mitchells then Liberators later
in the war, and come to call themselves The Red Raiders.
