Disappearance

At 0815 Hours local time, the Texas Terror lifted off from RAAF Base Garbutt.  The day was hot and overcast; stormy weather had grounded aircraft at the airfield for several days.  The Texas Terror disappeared into the opaque sky, once again bound for Iron Range, 500 miles to the north of Townsville.  While flying north along the coast of Queensland, it ran into a heavy tropical storm.  The B-24 never arrived at Iron Range.

A search was immediately begun for the overdue bomber.  No wreckage was found; however, civilians began making reports that gave clues as to the plane’s fate.  Residents of Ingham, a town seventy miles north of Townsville, reported that as the town was being battered by the storm, an airplane could be heard circling overhead.  At the same time, coastal inhabitants near Ingham saw a flash of light on Mt. Straloch, on Hinchinbrook Island, located just off the coast of Australia in the Great Barrier Reef.  For several nights thereafter, these residents claimed a flashing light could be seen on the shoulder of the mountain.  Workers in a nearby sugar mill reported that when the light was just right during the day, they could see sunlight reflecting off metal atop Mt. Straloch.

At first, these sightings were discounted; military authorities believed that the plane would have been much farther north at the time it went down, which would have been about 0900 Hours.  By January 1943, the search for the plane was discontinued, and the focus of the war soon shifted north.  In February, the 90th Bombardment Group moved across the Coral Sea to Port Moresby, New Guinea (today  Papua New Guinea).  The fate of the bomber and all aboard might have remained a mystery but for a chance event that occurred later in the year.

You can zoom out on the marker on the map below to see the location of Mt. Straloch on Hinchenbrook Island, as well as Ingham, Townsville, and the surrounding area.