Charles Carroll Taylor (October 25, 1917 - December 5, 1945) was a United States Naval Lieutenant who commanded the Flight 19 squadron that disappeared in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle on December 5, 1945. October 25 is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 67 days remaining. ... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... December 5 is the 339th day (340th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Flight 19 was a flight of five US Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers which disappeared on a training flight out of the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station on December 5, 1945. ... Map of the popularly-held dimensions of the Bermuda Triangle; recent claims by researchers alude to a more trapezium shape, extending back into the Gulf of Mexico and down into the Caribbean Sea. ...

Background

Charles Taylor served in the United States Naval Reserve during World War II. He graduated from NAS Corpus Christi in February, 1942 and became a flight instructor in October of that year. Over the next three years, Taylor would ditch three planes into the ocean, twice because he got lost, and was rescued all three times. On November 21, 1945, he was transferred to Naval Air Station - Fort Lauderdale. The United States Naval Reserve is the reserve component of the United States Navy. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... Naval Air Station Corpus Christi is a United States Navy base in Corpus Christi, Texas. ... This article is about the year. ... Fort Lauderdale, known as the Venice of America, is a city located in Broward County, Florida. ...

Flight 19

A training mission on December 5, 1945, consisting of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers was scheduled to fly 320 nautical miles, first to the southeast, then north to Grand Bahama, and finally back to Fort Lauderdale. Taylor commanded the flight and its 14 servicemen taking off at 14:10. At 16:00 a transmission was received from Taylor: "Both my compasses are out, and I am trying to find Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am over land, but it's broken. I am sure I'm in the Keys, but I don't know how far down, and I don't know how to get to Fort Lauderdale." Grumman TBF Avengers in 1942 The Grumman TBF Avenger (designated TBM for aircraft manufactured by General Motors) was an American torpedo bomber, developed initially for the United States Navy and Marine Corps and used by a large number of air forces around the world. ... A nautical mile is a unit of distance, or, as physical scientists like to call it, length. ... Grand Bahama from space, June 1998 Grand Bahama is one of the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas, and the closest major island to the United States, lying just 55 mi (90 km) off the coast of the state of Florida. ... Palm trees in Islamorada The Florida Keys are an archipelago, a string of about 1700 islands in the southeast United States. ...

Shortly after this communication, Taylor was asked to switch his radio to the emergency frequency for better communication with the base, but he refused, saying, "I cannot switch frequencies. I must keep my planes intact."

Disagreement among the Taylor and his student as to which direction the planes should travel to return to base was overheard. One student wanted to turn the flight westward, "Dammit, if we could just fly west we would get home; head west, dammit."

Taylor ordered the flight to turn west and radioed to the base that he would continue in that direction until he "hit the beach." Due to this assurance and worsening weather conditions, a duty plane in Fort Lauderdale was not sent out to guide Flight 19 back to the base until 18:20. At 18:04 Flight 19's radio transmissions were triangulated and indicated they were north of the Bahamas and East of Florida. Airfields in the vicinity turned on beacons and landing strips. The first plane sent after Flight 19 was forced to return when its antenna froze. The second duty plane, a 13-man PBM Mariner flying boat was dispatched. One of the final transmissions from Flight 19 was Taylor stating, "All planes close up tight. We'll have to ditch unless landfall. When the first plane drops below 10 gallons, we all go down together." A PBM-1 Mariner mariner in flight. ...

The second PBM Mariner fell silent at 19:47, and was not heard from again.

A search and rescue mission involving 250 planes and 15 ships was begun the next day, but no trace of wreckage from either Flight 19 or the lost duty plane was found. All twenty-seven men were presumed lost.

A Close Encounter?

Flight 19 was featured in the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film posits that the flight was abducted by aliens, only to be retuned later, fully intact. This article is about the film; for the classification, see Close encounter. ...

Sources

• IN 1945 FLIGHT 19 FLEW TO ITS DOOM THROUGH A LARGE CLOUD OF MYSTERY The Athens Observer, p. 1A (November 19, 1987).
• Lee, Paul "The Lost Patrol", The Unexplained. (accessed 3/26/06)
• "Flight 19", Check Six (accessed 3/26/06)
• Find-A-Grave biography for Charles Taylor