03 July, 1994

Dear Mr Marrs

   I conversed with John Bossi on several occasions and spoke with his mother once since Joe was lost on December 5, 1945. I have delayed writing my book, which includes the disappearance of Joe's flight, for obvious reasons.

   Before joining the Navy as an enlisted man in August, 1941, I was raised in a small rural town about twelve miles southwest of Birmingham, Alabama.

   Joe and I met in the Naval Aviation Cadet program in the latter phase of our flight training. After being commissioned Ensign and receiving our wings we were assigned to NAS Miami, Florida for operational flight training in the TBF Avenger, a three place single engine carrier based torpedo bomber. (TBF was built originally by Grumman and later by General Motors as the TBM.) In
addition to the pilot, the TBF carried a gunner and a radioman— both enlisted men. Operational training flights included navigation, communications, gunnery, bombing, torpedo tactics, night flying, instrument flying, formation flying, carrier take-off/landings, and to some degree air-to-air weapons tactics, both offensive and defensive.

   In November, 1945 we moved from NAS Miami up the coast to NAS Fort Lauderdale to continue the operational training in the TBF.

   On 05DEC45 six crews (three men in each airplane, except one which carried only one crewman) -a total of 17 men, briefed for the flight (Flight 19) and proceeded to man the airplanes on the parking ramp. Taxiing from the ramp were; leading Lt. Taylor, USN; wingman Capt. Powers, USMC; wingman Capt. Stivers, USMC; leading second section Ensign Shoemaker, USNR; wingman Lt. Gerber, USMCR; wingman Ensign Bossi, USNR (who was unable to get his engine started).
 

   Lt. Taylor and I both saw that Joe's engine would not start and noticed his crew chief removing the engine cowling. Joe and his two crewmen came running across the open field toward my airplane waving their hands over their heads signalling me to stop.  Joe knew that I had already completed this mission on a previous flight and that it was not really necessary for me to perform it again.

   I braked my airplane to a stop and throttled the engine back to idle. Joe climbed up on to my wing and shouted into my ear asking if he could take my plane and suggested that I could try and get his engine started and follow later to join up with the flight.

   I relayed Joe's request and the circumstances to lead Lt. Taylor. Lt. Taylor concurred and I, and my crewmen, got out of the airplane, and Joe and his two crewmen entered and continued the taxi for take-off. This meant that Joe was now leading the second section with Gerber as his wingman.

   I subsequently could not get Joe's engine started, so I returned to the Ready Room and "Radio Operations" ( just below  the Control Tower) to hang-out until the flight returned. Joe and I had planned to go to a movie that evening.

   Flight 19 departed NAS Ft. Lauderdale at 2:10 PM.  The local weather was fair with low winds. The flight was scheduled to return to base before sunset.

   The planned mission was to fly east to the Hen and Chicken Shoals (an old sunken ship hull) and make three bombing runs on the hulk- dropping small practice bombs; rejoining up in formation and proceeding on an easterly course —a distance of 123 nm; turn north for the second leg —73 nm, and then west southwest 120 nm for the return leg to base.

   After take-off Taylor passed the flight lead to Capt. Powers (a normal training procedure). Taylor then assumed an aft trailing position behind his flight but at a somewhat higher altitude until arriving over the bombing target.

   Following the bombing runs, Powers— with Stivers on his wing, and Joe in trail and a little wide with Gerber on his wing, continued east on- the first leg. Taylor flew ------ (purposely omitted). Ed. Purposely omitted by Shoemaker, for some reason, most likely because he didn’t know it.

   At the point of turning into the third leg —a westerly heading —Taylor reassumed lead control of the flight from Powers. The weather was now multi-layered Clouds, rain squalls and a brisk southwest wind with heavy seas, (Surface ship's reports (logs) confirmed) .Taylor radioed that he was lost and stated that he thought that he was in the Gulf of Mexico. Taylor established a heading of 030 degrees. After that, he flew 090; then west; then east; then west for a short time; then turned to the east again. Back and forth; but mostly to the east.

   Shortly afterward, NAS Ft, Lauderdale, et al, declared an emergency. At this time we at Radio Operations could hear some of Taylor's radio calls but not all; most were intermittent. We could hear Taylor better than he could hear us. In Radio Operations,  there was  an ADF "birddog" instrument on which we received a weak directional signal toward Taylor’s transmissions. I could hear Taylor talking with Powers. I heard Taylor — and Powers — calling in the blind for anyone to come up on the radio. I never heard Stivers or Gerber at any time on the radio.

   On the next to last time Taylor picked up on an easterly heading (with a stiff tailwind) , Joe, leading the second section in trail with Gerber on his wing, said to Taylor, "if we turn to a west heading, we'll get home." Taylor responded,
"--------  and tighten up your position. A short time later Taylor turned his flight to a westerly heading for a few minutes; then again to an easterly
course. Upon Taylor's final decision to return to the east, Joe radioed to Taylor, “dammit, if you would turn west we would hit the coastline.” Taylor did not respond to Joe's plea.

   It was now after sunset, dark, raining at the flight’s location and they were flying between cloud layers. The flight's radio signals were becoming weaker and weaker to Radio Operations— the birddog needle began to rotate with only a slight hesitation toward the received signal; then a steady smooth rotation.

   I was spending my time between the control tower and Radio Operations. At sunset I approached the Operations Officer and requested permission to take the "ready airplane" aloft for radio relay to Flight 19— he refused the request.

   Getting no response from his last urgent demand for Taylor to turn around to a west heading, Joe radioed that he was turning to a heading of 270 degrees and “ - - - - - if anyone wants to go with me, join up."

   Joe, Taylor and Powers ditched heading west before 8:00 PM. Joe ditched last. I heard Joe declare his intentions before starting his flight descent on instruments several hundred miles on a magnetic bearing of 055 degrees from NAS Fort Lauderdale.

       Please extend my best regards to John and the Bossi family.
 

                                                                                   Very truly yours,

                                                                 Calvin Shoemaker

This letter is passed out by the Cherokee Strip Land Rush Museum as a part of “history” concerning Flight 19. It is merely the claims of Calvin Shoemaker about his fanciful part in the drama that day. (There is no wonder why Americans have little regard for history, considering the standard for determining it.) They gave it no analysis, nor challenged anything about it. 

Back to critical reviews of Shoemaker’s tale

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