Return to USAAF B-24D #42-40387"Beautiful Betsy"
Our visit to the site in February 2000
On the eve of the 55th Anniversary of one of the Australia's great mysteries, three Mackay men recently visited the site and conducted a brief commemorative service where an American bomber crashed, south of Rockhampton, during WWI, claiming the lives of eight men servicemen.
Firstly, let us go back to a chance meeting, in August 1995, with former WWII pilot, Frank Gorham, from Fair Oaks, California. He passed through Mackay on a fleeting visit to see his sister in Victoria and t o take a look at the "top end" where he had flown on operations during World War II. He carried with him a 1995 magazine article about his squadron's missing bomber Beautiful Betsy. He had hoped to visit the recently discovered crash site but time and rem oteness of the site south of Rockhampton did not allow him to do so.
Secondly, after inadvertently coming across Frank's address in an old RSL diary, I phoned him on the eve of the 55th Anniversary of Betsy's disappearance to tell him I had recently been to see Beautiful Betsy, and told him about the visit. He was surprised to be dug out of bed at 0300 to answer my call, but accepted my apology! There are few of his Unit left and the 380th Bomb Group has held its last reunion. Reports of my meeting with Frank, in 1995, are reproduced at the end of the following story.
After some discussions, in late 1999, with former RAAF fighter pilot, Garry Cooper, living interstate, and some friends in Mackay, a visit to the crash site was planned. Necessary permits for camping and traversing the forest were obtained for a trip on the weekend of 12 - 13 February 2000.
About mid-January, Garry announced he had badly sprained an ankle and was hobbling about on crutches. Although he progressed to a walking stick then limited walking on his bandaged limb, his injury had not sufficiently healed in time to accompany the thre e from Mackay.
So, Operation Betsy one involved Col Benson (Mackay RSL Historian), Terry Dixon (engineer) and Harry Mole (school teacher). Terry and Harry are experienced campers, and Harry's V-6 Mitsubishi twin-cab Triton proved to be an ideal vehicle fo r the mountainous terrain that had to be negotiated. \par \tab Gaining information about the site and how to get there proved a little tricky. It took several calls to Department of Natural Resources (DNR) offices in Mackay and Gladstone before a very knowledgeabl e and helpful officer was reached in Rockhampton. After a few in-depth questions about the reason for the visit were answered, DNR officers were most helpful and obliging. Arrangements were made by telephone with the Rockhampton office. We wish to thank t hem for their assistance, and for calling to advise about Calliope Shire Council planning to carry out road maintenance around the time we were in the area.
DNR officers are obviously concerned about limiting the number of visitors to minimise damage to t he site. Apart from being in a controlled area of national forest / national park, the crash site of Beautiful Betsy has been declared a heritage site. Severe penalties apply to its desecration under heritage legislation. Miscreants can be fined up to $180,000 and face two years' imprisonment.
Although DNR provides a detailed map showing the access roadway through the mountainous area, the map does not have grid referencing necessary for getting a "fix" on the site. Following the map was relatively easy, but there were some road junctions in the forest where a wrong turn could have been made. \par \tab Harry had obtained a 1:250,000 geographical map of the area obtained from DNR in Mackay. However, on reaching the area, we found it was too small of scale to be of much value in the dense forest and rugged terrain in the vicinity of the crash. We hope to obtain a larger scaled map for a future trip.
A few days before heading out, I borrowed a small hand-held GPS satellite navigation receiver. This sophisticated nav igation aid, about the size of a mobile telephone, tracks a number of satellites to provide position, direction, distance and speed information. The GPS receives coded signals from a number of geo-stationary satellites from which it determines its positio nal information. This can be in degrees, minutes and seconds, or other formats, such as UTM (7 digit information) that allows direct calculations of distances and bearings between two points on the globe.
The GPS needs at least three satellites to lock on, or begin "tracking". It may get information from six or seven satellites if they are in direct line-of-sight from the GPS receiver. It is necessary to enter some initialising parameters to give it a "leg-up"; such as the hemisphere, country, state, and altitude. If the sky is clear and the receiver can "see" the required number of satellites, it should provide information in a few minutes.
Although the GPS was relatively easy to use, lack of experience limited its value during the trip. It readily locke d onto six satellites in Mackay and gave stable positional information, but in Rockhampton and further south the number rarely exceeded four and the readouts varied.
The bearing kept varying at the camp site in the forest and at the site of Betsy about 5 00 metres away. The effect of the variations was not determined at the time. They seemed significant, but calculations made on return to Mackay showed the error was only about nine metres, maximum! The accuracy of this GPS is about three metres, so it wasn't really a problem.
We were left wondering over a significant discrepancy noted on the return journey. The plaque on the Tropic of Capricorn marker in South Rockhampton (summer solstice or the furthermost excursion of the sun on/about 22 December each year) gives its position as 23°27'30"S. The GPS showed 23°24'05"S (and 150°30'22"E) a difference of about 6.3 km. (I suspect the marker has been moved into the city from a point south of the city for the benefit of tourism!)
Weather reports from Rockhampton in the days leading up to the trip were encouraging. However, as we headed south from Rockhampton on Saturday morning, things looked dismal as rain closed in. We were consoled by the fact the area where we were headed was further inland and notably dry. The rain had eased by the time we reached Calliope where we stopped and asked for directions from locals relaxing in the early morning sunshine at a corner shop. The sky remained overcast, but as we travelled further inland from Calliope, there seemed to be less chance of rain.
At one point when we stopped to check our location, a local grazier drove up and stopped beside us. Frank Lenz had been working on a water tank for his cattle when we drove by a few kilometres further back. He obviously decided to "check out the strangers" to the area. It was a pleasant encounter as he told us about some historical events and enticed us to stop a few kilometres further on at an historical tree that he likes to talk about.
The effects of smelting gold bearing ore in the 1800s can still be seen at the bottom of a hill on the edge of marshy ground, above a small stream. Despite more than 100 years passing, the soil is darkly coloured and remains sterile from the cyanide used by early miners to extract the gold. Some large steel cylinders in the vicinity, probably used for chimney stacks, have not rusted away. (The lack of rust in old steel was recently discussed on ABC National radio by a south Queensland farmer who said he used horse-drawn farming equipment made in the 1800s.) One cylinder lays beside a fence in a cow paddock, while another now serves as a large culvert across the stream.
Frank showed us a large tree, blazed in 1877, in which a survey identifying mark "P336" was carved. Nearby, he said, excavation revealed discolouration in the soil showing where a large peg had been driven although it had rotted away. He said he had a photocopy of the original survey of his property, in 1877, through which the blaze on the tree was discovered a few years ago.
Unless some "civic minded" enthusiast sees fit to remove it, the old mountain apple, a eucalypt, looks healthy enough to see out the 21st century. It could have been between 50 and 100 years old when surveyors hacked into it to leave their mark in the nineteenth century; the scar from which is partly hidden by growth over the last 123 years. That old tree would have seen many "goings on" and a lot of development during its lifetime. It probably keeps a close eye on Frank and his neighbours as they drive by!
Frank told us a bit about the condition of the road through the forest and mountain, though he said he had only visited Beautiful Betsy on one occasion.
He also told us some interesting folklore to make our trek more interesting. A neighbour, claimed he had heard a plane flying low level in the area on the morning Betsy vanished. Although now deceased, his son, George McKay, remembers the details. We had hoped to visit him on the way home, but had to postpone this meeting when we realised a meeting would not allow us to return to Mackay on scheduled ... 1800 hours.
According to Frank, there was a lady hermit living in the forest at the time Beautiful Betsy disappeared. He didn't recall her name, but said everyone thought she was mad. When she said she had seen a plane crash into a mountain, it confirmed what everyone thought about her. Her claim died with her, so we will never know if she really witnessed the crash on the morning of Tuesday, 27th February 1945, possibly between 0600 and 0700 hours.
There were other items of historical interest around Frank's property ... old fences, and abandoned gold mines up in the hills. We stopped to look at the cyanide poisoned soil on the return journey. Along with a nearby pile of unidentified slag, it was somewhat disturbing. Apart from the lack of running streams, there seems to be enough points of historical interest in the area to attract hordes of tourists. We found Frank really interesting and friendly; as are most farmers and people from "the bush". He would make a good tourist guide. We promised to send him a copy of Drumbeat, so he ought to get a kick out of this article ...
Frank ... we enjoyed chatting and hearing what you had to say.
We arrived, mid-morning, at a locked gate barring entry to the crash of unauthorised vehicles. Soon after the discovery of Beautiful Betsy was announced, police apprehended a vehicle with two of the plane 's engines aboard. Whether any penalty was dished out for removing them is not known, however they were returned to the site.
We were anxious to see the crash site, about a kilometre from the gate, but controlled our eagerness to do so. Our first priority was to setup a campsite for the night. We were advised by the Department of Natural Resources to camp near the gate, so that's where we erected a tent fly; some 50-60 metres from the gate and clear of large, overhead branches.
Although overcast, it was quite warm in the clearing. There was no breeze coming through the fairly dense forest. Tall trees on the edge of the clearing partly blocked the sun appeared to have little effect on the temperature.
Our first visit to the crash site took place after l unch on Saturday afternoon. We followed the road through the locked gate up and over a steep hill to where we found signs point to the crash site. It is about 400 metres off the road ... all up, about a kilometre from the locked gate.
According to Frank Lenz, Beautiful Betsy may have been located a few years earlier had the roadway built for forestry access been on the other side of a rise.
The first encounter at the site is a sign beyond which are two blades and the part of the hub from a three-bladed propeller.
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Despite its isolation, judging by the well formed tracks amongst the wreckage, the site has many visitors. Hopefully, the sign reminds visitors that everything should be left where it is.
It is not known when the sign was erected, but there are indications parts have been removed from engines. Viewing of a video recorded in January 1996 by army reservists suggests a number of parts have been moved and removed.
A search of the web for Beautiful Betsy revealed a site stating they were incorporating rudders and parts of elevators from Beautiful Betsy into the rebuild of a WWII RAAF Liberator, in Victoria, Australia.
Whilst opinions may differ, it is apparent our laws of the land are not as protective as laws of the sea that protect shipwrecks, or those parts would have been forcefully returned to the site.
Although on a supply mission over Australian soil, the men aboard were on Active Service. Since their remains were never recovered, this site deserves to be accorded the reverence and protection of an official war cemetery.
I encountered an eerie feeling entering the site. I had been told by at least one other that he had felt the same. All in the mind ... perhaps, but the souls of eight men have been absorbed into that part of the Australian bush.
The three of us wandered almost silently amongst the ruins of a once mighty war machine ... now, bits and pieces ... mostly of mangled metal. This was the time before artificial fabrics ... we saw few glimpses of pieces of fabric.
When a US Army identification team from Hawaii examined the site soon after it was discovered, they found a parachute that is no longer there. Other items, such as an instrument panel and broken blades of propellers are no longer present. The team cleared the site of vegetation before mapping the entire area and looking for human remains and personal artifacts. In the last five years, re-growth of the forest has taken place, and may one day again completely envelope the wreckage.
"What happened to Beautiful Betsy", is a summary in a book shown to us by two forest rangers we met at the site (publication details being sought). It states the plane was on a south easterly he ading and had cleared a higher mountain top before crashing just below the summit of the next. As some wreckage would have been moved by the official investigators, some of the conclusions drawn are not readily apparent.
A statement that the engines were on emergency power because the propeller blade tips were bent forward is questionable. FlyPast (Still Working, October, 1999, p. 84) shows a DC-3, operated by Saber Cargo Airlines in North Carolina, with its prop tips bent forwards after its undercarriage collapsed. As this plane was "... temporarily out of service.", there is little to suggest the engines were operating at full emergency power.
We moved rather silently amongst the wreckage looking at various bits and pieces, taking stock of the tremendou s damage, and occasionally discussing some of the things of seemingly major interest. At the same time, the noise made by cameras as photographs were taken was less than that made by some the caretakers ... birds and insects.
After we met and briefly chatted with a couple from South Queensland and saw others arrive, we realised the site wasn't so isolated as we first thought. It looked like it was going to be "as busy as Bourke Street" that Saturday afternoon, so Harry returned to the campsite to maintain a watch over valuable camping and photographic equipment ... not to mention his 4WD twin cab.
After taking in most of the site, an area some 150 metres long by about 75 metres wide, Terry suggested we take a walk to Annie's Creek that is marked on a sig n near the gate as being 1.4 km from our camp. It was a likely prospect for an evening bath as the only water at the camp was what we had brought. It was down hill all the way, and so steep that Terry slid a few times. Unfortunately, at the bottom we note d a water hole so small we didn't climb down the creek bank to look further.
The way back to camp was a rude shock for yours truly. As we turned around to walk back, the hill looked like a cliff! After a few hundred metres, it also felt like I had been cl imbing one! There were many rests along the 700 metres or so to the top. Once there, it seemed strange to walk on level ground and then descend the smaller hill at the camp.
Harry had been busy doing the finer things of life ... making a pot of tea and p reparing the evening meal. A campfire was started in the same place used by previous campers, and soon had a stew ready to cook in a camp oven. All it needed was hot coals.
There had been a short delay, however, as Harry was unsure if we could light a fire, and I had been remiss in telling him that we could so. Having met the two forestry officers before they made their way on foot to see Betsy, he decided to wait until they had left the area before lighting the campfire. So we had a little longer than anticipated before the meal was cooked, but it was delicious and well worth the wait.
While chatting and waiting for the camp oven to do its job, Harry remarked that it would soon be the 55th Anniversary of Betsy's disappearance and crash, presumably, between 0600 and 0700 hours on 27th February 1945.
Having seen no evidence that anyone else, including the US Army team that searched the site in 1994, had ever conducted a commemorative service, we decided to hold a short one the next morning where those aboard obviously perished.
The setting was inspirational and, in the flickering light of the campfire, drawing inspiration from the sights and sounds in the forest, I wrote a short address. As I did so, I reflected on the situation back in 1945, the environment in which the men came to grief and where they now lie.
That was a moving experience. I also reflected on the nights in Vietnam that some of us would sit outside our hootches watching the stars and listening to the sounds of war ... some would talk , others sing, and a few tried to write verse. Only this time it was different ... peaceful. The forest creatures were singing to us as had other creatures ... birds ... insects ... during daylight. The waxing moon set through the dense trees and stars oc casionally shone through an overcast sky. At various times, I walked into the dark of night looking for the Southern Cross until I sighted some of its component stars.
Kroombit Tops National Forest was a very peaceful place, vastly different from the sounds and horrors of war. There was no finer place I could think those airmen could Rest in Peace than in this Australian bush.
We rose at about 0600 hours on Sunday morning, had breakfast and returned to the crash site. Sunlight was streaking through the trees, birds were singing and crickets or other insects set the ambient noise level. Yet, the bush was silent compared to what had taken place on that fateful day during World War II.
The natural bush in its resilience quickly healed and hid the scene of this tragedy for almost one-half of a century before allowing man to sight Beautiful Betsy where she had met her untimely end killing all aboard. A dead eucalyptus tree that stands not far from where the engines came to rest may have been at least 50 yea rs old. Having died at least five years ago in my estimation, it may have been the last witness to this tragedy.
At about that time of the morning after Beautiful Betsy ploughed into the mountain top, everything would have been in a state of shock from the tremendous impact of a large aeroplane at cruising speed ... under power ... the smashing of the propellers from the engines as they hit the earth and rock on the mountain face and blades hurled through the air ... the tearing of sheet metal and the air frame ... heavy engines being torn from their mounts and rushing forward smashing vegetation for almost 150 metres ... a tremendous explosion and fire that melted metal parts ... radios that cried in their death throes as they, too, were torn and flung from their mounts in the aircraft as it disintegrated ... and fell silent as they finally stopped careering through the trees. It is still a shock to the senses to imagine what happened then, and in thousands of other places around the globe as young lives were sacrificed in the service of their country.
The least we could do was to show that we cared ... that their sacrifices in World War II were not forgotten. After setting up a video camera to record our little service, I started the address at about 080 0 hours 13th February 2000, in Kroombit Tops National Forest. Although we had travelled more than 500 kilometres to visit the site, it was insignificant compared to the distances to the homes of the men who lie with the ruins of Beautiful Betsy.
I read the following brief address representing my companions, Terry and Harry, other Australians, families, friends, and former comrades. It was followed by a minute of silence before reciting "The Ode" as is typical at every RSL and most other commemorative cer emonies in Australia.
Address by Col Benson:
They were our allies and friends; soon to leave our shores to fight the World War elsewhere.
There is little doubt their families and friends will never come to see where they lie. So we are here in their place, and will do what we can to convey how they lie in peaceful surroundings in the wonderful Australian bush ... under the Southern Cross ... where wallabies and kangaroos roam ... where birds and insects sing and chirp day-in, day-out ... where kookaburras laugh at sunrise and sunset.
We can think of no finer place where they could rest in peace and find better company. They were serving our needs as well as those of their own countries, so this is a 'Thank You' from us all, as we reflect in a moment of silence."
They shall grow not old, As we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, Nor the years condemn, At the going down of the sun, And in the morning, We will remember them. Lest We Forget.
The Queensland Government has marked Beautiful Betsy as a heritage site with severe penalties for its desecration. That is only part of the job.
The crew and passengers of Beautiful Betsy have no known graves - their remains having been absorbed into the surrounding bush. A plaque should be placed near the entrance to the site to tell everyone who visits the site that they lie here and that it is a war grave ... a sacred site.
I have been told a memorial was discussed by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) team from Hawaii while they were investigating the site, in 1994.
More than five years on, nothing has materialised. I am in the process of contacting the commander of CIL to see if any action has been taken. After a concerted effort by American Veterans, I have his e-mail address.
There are wider issues involved than simply marking the spot. It needs to be addressed in the same manner as other war memorials.
U.S. veterans have indicated that many Americans would be likely to visit memorials to t heir warriors Down Under if they were marked and visits were coordinated. Compare this with the 20,000 young Australians who annually travel to see where 50,000 ANZACS served and 10,000 of them died at Gallipoli - part of Australia's heritage.
Beautiful Betsy may be gone, but the well beaten paths through the wreckage in this remote Australian bush are strong indications she won't be forgotten for quite some time.
Our visit was something like a recce, and we are planning another. Next time we will be armed with a better map ... more details about the plane and its engines ... knowledge gained from others with similar interests we have contacted.
There is interest for our short service to be published. Thus far, we have had a positive response from a British aeronautical magazine for an illustrated story. It may also be published in some Veteran's newsletters. We'll keep you informed of any developments!
We hope to obtain a copy of the report compiled by a team from the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) based in Hawaii, that arrived at the site after the wreckage was identified to carry out forensic and other investigations.