Officer of the Day: GWU professor searches for descendants of World War II's worst aviation disaster in the Pacific Southwest

At Mackay Airport in Queensland, Australia, June 14, 1943, CAPT Samuel Cutler was designated "Officer-of-the-Day." Among his duties was the oversight of flights leaving the airstrip. At 6:05 a.m., Captain Cutler signed the flight manifest and shut the hatch of a converted B-17C Flying Fortress carrying 35 Army troops back to front lines in New Guinea after 10 days of R&R leave on safer Australian soil.

Just after takeoff, the big, war-torn plane, nicknamed Miss EMF--for Every Morning Fix-it--made two left turns at low altitude, then crashed into a sugarcane field five miles away. All but one of the 41 men on board lost their lives, in what later proved to be the Worst aviation disaster in the Southwest Pacific during World War II.

The cause of the crash is unknown. Eyewitness accounts and years of speculation by World War II aviation buffs have narrowed the probable cause down to mechanical problems, possible overloading or a combination of the two. Because of wartime censorship, facts of the deadly crash were kept a military secret. Moreover, families of the soldiers who perished were told only that their loved ones had been killed somewhere in the Southwest Pacific.

Fifty years later, Robert Cutler, professorial lecturer at George Washington University in D.C., discovered his father's wartime diary. He read sentiments of loss in his father's handwriting on that day and felt an emotional attachment to the story. The younger Cutler set out to research the tragic plane crash that had gripped his father for so long.

In his book, Mackay's Flying Fortress (CQU Press), Robert Curler tells an uncommon war story about some forgotten heroes of World War II who gave their lives for their country in a far-off place, and those who saw fit to honor them. The disaster is widely known to Australians as the "Baker's Creek Air Crash," named for the area where the plane went down. Now there is a permanent monument there, honoring the crew, the 35 passengers and the sole survivor. According to Cutler, the citizens of Mackay grew quite fond of the American soldiers who visited their town for R&R during the war. The presence of these young Americans made a lasting and positive impression. They taught the curious Australians about America--the superpower protecting their homes from encroaching enemy invasion.

"Young men who spent their recreation here and were adopted into the homes and hearts of our people, leaving an aching void by their passing," reads a local newspaper editorial published the day after the crash.

While doing research for the book, Professor Cutler learned he was not the only one paying diligence to the World War II casualties of Baker's Creek. In December 2000, he met retired CM/Sgt. Teddy W. Hanks, USAF, in Wichita Falls, Texas. The day of the 1943 tragedy, Hanks had been waiting in Port Moresby, New Guinea, for the ill-fated aircraft to return with four of his squadron buddies on board.

When Cutler and Hanks crossed paths, Hanks had been successful in developing the B-17C casualty list from U.S. Army Quartermasters' burial records and set out to notify the families of his fallen comrades. It took nearly three years of letter writing, in part because of the secrecy policy observed by the Army after the crash. After several dead-ends, Hanks finally constructed the passenger list from cemetery burial records of that period in Townsville, Australia. The bodies had been interred there for temporary burial, pending eventual return to U.S. soil after the war.

Inspired by Ted Hanks' devotion, Professor Cutler decided to help Hanks find some of the casualties' living relatives and relay the information he had uncovered about the crash and the circumstances of their loved ones deaths.

Recently, Hanks was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died February 12, 2005, which brought a new urgency to the search. "Ted had been the central character in the search for the families," says Cutler. "If it weren't for him, I'd probably have stopped my efforts after publishing my book."

Two years ago, Cutler and Hanks visited a Texas nursing home to meet the one man who had literally walked away from the plane crash: the sole survivor, Cpl. Foye Kenneth Roberts. An emotional meeting with Roberts bonded the men in their mission, but yielded little information to aid in the search process.

With nothing more than a 60-year-old list of names and hometowns, the two men were joined by a team of volunteer genealogists, including LTC Charles K. Gailey, USA (Ret.), of Springfield, Va.; retired investigator Arvon Staats of Oklahoma City, Okla.; and Belva Ogren, living in Bremen, Ga. Together, using the Internet, they embarked on an exercise that Cutler calls "genealogy in reverse." Usually, genealogists search for family lines of dead ancestors. In this case," says Cutler, "the genealogy researchers are looking for living family relatives of men who died, not were born, in a foreign land."

As they made contact with casualty families, Cutler was amazed at the reactions of family relatives being found. In letters, e-mails and other communications, they continue to express genuine gratitude, which goes far beyond the relief of knowing details of what actually happened. Many were astonished to learn that long after World War II, there was a volunteer effort under way to find them and relay the circumstances of their loved-one's death.

"I truly appreciate what the Australians and the Americans have done to honor my uncle and the men he died with," writes Shirley Hirschey, the niece of Cpl. Charles W. Sampson, of Port Leyden, N.Y. "It means a lot to know all this had happened, including the truth about how he died."

Professor Cutler and 12 family relatives of crash victims traveled to Australia in June 2003 to take part in the 60th anniversary commemoration ceremonies at the Baker's Creek crash site. The tragedy is as much a part of Australian history as American.

Professor Cutler wants to tell the Baker's Creek Air Crash story to each casualty family indicated on the flight manifest that his father signed off on, more than 60 years ago in Australia. "There's a deep human need to know the truth of what happened to one's loved one in World War II," says Cutler. "It may well have fallen through the cracks in history, but that doesn't make it impossible to piece together now."

Presently a team of retired Air Force veterans and volunteer genealogists are working with Cutler on the search. Efforts now are concentrated in finding any living relatives of Cpl. Raymond H. Smith from Pennsylvania, one of Hanks' fighter squadron buddies. Two others, F/O William C. Erb and T/5 George A. Erhmann, from California, recently were located by retired Lt Col Eugene D. Rossel of Chino, Calif.

In a letter to Lt Gen John B. Hall Jr., USAF (Ret.), a former commander of Fifth Air Force, retired CMSgt. Teddy W. Hanks last year wrote:

"No one knows more than I how difficult it is to find someone so many years after the incident. The effort expended is almost always time-consuming, seldom fruitful--and can be very discouraging. But the rewards that result when a family member is found and provided long-overdue data about a loved-one are beyond description. I've made true friends of total strangers, friendships that will last the remainder of our lives."

Hank's original mission to find living relatives of the 40 men became a new goal for Cutler--one rich with emotional rewards. His cyber team of skillful genealogists located descendents of Cpl. Edward Tenney July 20, 2004; they were living in West Virginia. Unfortunately, Teddy W. Hanks will not see the final results of the search he initiated. He died in Wichita Falls, Texas, February 12, 2005, and was buried with full military honors.

Legislation (H.R. 106) recently was introduced in the U.S. Congress by Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) to make space available at Arlington National Cemetery for a memorial marker to those lost in the tragic World War II aviation accident. "Our group of vets and the casualty families will have some measure of closure next June 14," says Cutler. On that day, a memorial wreath will be placed at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Bakers Creek air crash.

"These men died not on the front lines, nor in the jungles of New Guinea," reads an excerpt by Gen Paul V. Hester, commander of Pacific Air Forces, from Cutler's book, "but nevertheless in service to their nation. They deserve to be remembered."

John Carroll is a member of the Media Relations staff at The George Washington University. The article is reprinted with permission from By George! the official news source of The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

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