+ bermuda triangle +
Howell Thompson was a bored 24-year-old Marine when he sat down to write home to Chicago. "We aren't doing any thing now days," he began.
But, he wrote from Florida, "Tomorrow, we're supposed to make a three-hour hop . . . navigation, low-level bombing and strafing. This hop will give us enough time to draw flight pay for this month," he wrote.
He hoped to be home for Christmas.
Howell Thompson never made it.
Sixty years later, people are still interested in his "hop" -- Flight 19, the so-called Bermuda Triangle trip on Dec. 5, 1945, that ended with five Navy planes and 14 aviators, including Thompson, being mysteriously swallowed. A rescue mission involving 13 other men also disappeared in the stretch of ocean between Puerto Rico, Bermuda and Miami.
Just this week, a three-night television drama about the Triangle ran on cable, as have a couple of documentaries featuring the story of how the Lost Flight vanished without a trace. Books and the Internet brim with tales of the supernatural, including suggestions of alien abduction.
Rep. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), who sponsored a House resolution honoring the men of Flight 19 in connection with the 60th anniversary, talks of "so many weird things" about the training mission. "Something happened out there," said Shaw.
'Proud to be a Marine'
But for one northwest suburban family, the Bermuda Triangle isn't sci-fi: It's where they lost Howell Thompson -- their son, their brother, their uncle.
"My family doesn't believe in the mystique of the Bermuda Triangle. It could have been the wind, it could have been a water spout. I just don't think it was anything creepy or weird," said Joan Pietrucha, a niece of Thompson.
Pietrucha, 61, attended a memorial service this week in Florida for the 27 men who disappeared. In a speech there, the Schaumburg resident described her uncle as a Cubs fan with a dry sense of humor who liked bowling and roller skating. He graduated from Lane Tech.
"Most of all, he was proud to be a Marine," said Pietrucha, whose knowledge of Thompson mostly comes from reading about 300 letters her uncle sent to his family's home in the 4100 block of North Hamlin.
Howell Thompson's brother Carl, now 78, also rejects explanations revolving around the supernatural. "I don't believe in any of that," he said. "Once those planes hit the water, they would have gone down quickly."
'Electronic fog' cited
The five Navy Avenger planes left the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station on a routine training mission over the Bahamas. The compasses on the lead plane apparently began malfunctioning 90 minutes into the mission.
With no instruments to guide lead pilot Lt. Charles Taylor over the open ocean, he thought he was south of the Florida Keys and decided to head north, radioing that they would keep flying until "we hit the beach or run out of gas." They disappeared, as did the Navy rescue airplane that followed.
In addition to the Flight 19 crewmen and would-be rescuers, more than 50 ships and 20 aircraft have disappeared in the Triangle, according to the U.S. Navy's Naval Historical Center.
A fact sheet prepared by the U.S. Coast Guard cites how the "extremely swift and turbulent" Gulf Stream creates sudden storms and water spouts and "can quickly erase any evidence of a disaster."
The ocean floor in the Bermuda Triangle contains "some of the deepest marine trenches in the world," the Coast Guard says.
Gian Quasar, author of Into the Bermuda Triangle (Dimensions Publishing), says electromagnetic anomalies in the atmosphere led to the demise of Flight 19. Such "electronic fog" can cause needles on compasses and other instruments to spin. The fog comes and goes and can cause pilots to become disoriented, Quasar said.
"It is something that will seize the aircraft and travel with you," he said. "You are not flying into the fog; it is flying with you."
'They just don't know'
As for Flight 19, the Navy Board of Inquiry concluded: "We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened."
"Tons of theories, but they just don't know," said Pietrucha as her 2-year-old granddaughter, Kendall Bloomfield, played with a photo of Howell Thompson in Pietrucha's living room earlier this week.
Pietrucha will sometimes watch TV specials on Flight 19. But, she said, "If I hear them talking about the supernatural, I just tune them out. Where's the evidence?"
Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
AUTHOR :
by Andrew Herrmann
Howell Thompson was a bored 24-year-old Marine when he sat down to write home to Chicago. "We aren't doing any thing now days," he began.
But, he wrote from Florida, "Tomorrow, we're supposed to make a three-hour hop . . . navigation, low-level bombing and strafing. This hop will give us enough time to draw flight pay for this month," he wrote.
He hoped to be home for Christmas.
Howell Thompson never made it.
Sixty years later, people are still interested in his "hop" -- Flight 19, the so-called Bermuda Triangle trip on Dec. 5, 1945, that ended with five Navy planes and 14 aviators, including Thompson, being mysteriously swallowed. A rescue mission involving 13 other men also disappeared in the stretch of ocean between Puerto Rico, Bermuda and Miami.
Just this week, a three-night television drama about the Triangle ran on cable, as have a couple of documentaries featuring the story of how the Lost Flight vanished without a trace. Books and the Internet brim with tales of the supernatural, including suggestions of alien abduction.
Rep. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), who sponsored a House resolution honoring the men of Flight 19 in connection with the 60th anniversary, talks of "so many weird things" about the training mission. "Something happened out there," said Shaw.
'Proud to be a Marine'
But for one northwest suburban family, the Bermuda Triangle isn't sci-fi: It's where they lost Howell Thompson -- their son, their brother, their uncle.
"My family doesn't believe in the mystique of the Bermuda Triangle. It could have been the wind, it could have been a water spout. I just don't think it was anything creepy or weird," said Joan Pietrucha, a niece of Thompson.
Pietrucha, 61, attended a memorial service this week in Florida for the 27 men who disappeared. In a speech there, the Schaumburg resident described her uncle as a Cubs fan with a dry sense of humor who liked bowling and roller skating. He graduated from Lane Tech.
"Most of all, he was proud to be a Marine," said Pietrucha, whose knowledge of Thompson mostly comes from reading about 300 letters her uncle sent to his family's home in the 4100 block of North Hamlin.
Howell Thompson's brother Carl, now 78, also rejects explanations revolving around the supernatural. "I don't believe in any of that," he said. "Once those planes hit the water, they would have gone down quickly."
'Electronic fog' cited
The five Navy Avenger planes left the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station on a routine training mission over the Bahamas. The compasses on the lead plane apparently began malfunctioning 90 minutes into the mission.
With no instruments to guide lead pilot Lt. Charles Taylor over the open ocean, he thought he was south of the Florida Keys and decided to head north, radioing that they would keep flying until "we hit the beach or run out of gas." They disappeared, as did the Navy rescue airplane that followed.
In addition to the Flight 19 crewmen and would-be rescuers, more than 50 ships and 20 aircraft have disappeared in the Triangle, according to the U.S. Navy's Naval Historical Center.
A fact sheet prepared by the U.S. Coast Guard cites how the "extremely swift and turbulent" Gulf Stream creates sudden storms and water spouts and "can quickly erase any evidence of a disaster."
The ocean floor in the Bermuda Triangle contains "some of the deepest marine trenches in the world," the Coast Guard says.
Gian Quasar, author of Into the Bermuda Triangle (Dimensions Publishing), says electromagnetic anomalies in the atmosphere led to the demise of Flight 19. Such "electronic fog" can cause needles on compasses and other instruments to spin. The fog comes and goes and can cause pilots to become disoriented, Quasar said.
"It is something that will seize the aircraft and travel with you," he said. "You are not flying into the fog; it is flying with you."
'They just don't know'
As for Flight 19, the Navy Board of Inquiry concluded: "We are not able to even make a good guess as to what happened."
"Tons of theories, but they just don't know," said Pietrucha as her 2-year-old granddaughter, Kendall Bloomfield, played with a photo of Howell Thompson in Pietrucha's living room earlier this week.
Pietrucha will sometimes watch TV specials on Flight 19. But, she said, "If I hear them talking about the supernatural, I just tune them out. Where's the evidence?"
Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2005
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
AUTHOR :
by Andrew Herrmann
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