War-time crashes were kept quiet
The American Liberator transport cartwheeled as it spectacularly fell from the sky into mangroves near Whenuapai airfield. Yet for years the crash in which Japanese diplomatic staff were killed was hushed up.
Occurring on this day in 1943, it was one of two fatal crashes by big US military planes at Whenuapai within little more than a year that were kept secret until after World War II. The Herald’s clippings file of the time is silent about them.
Not that there was blanket military censorship. We carried reports of many fatal crashes in this country of RNZAF planes, including a bomber ploughing into Akaroa shops in June 1940, with the loss of two airmen.
But it wasn’t until December 1945 that the Auckland Star wrote of the June 1942 crash of a US military B-17 Flying Fortress at Whenuapai. Despite the great “official secrecy” during the war, it said there was wide knowledge of the crash, partly because “the noise of the explosion following the crash woke up half of Auckland”.
US history websites record that the army plane was assigned to an Air Force bombardment group and was known as the Texas Tornado. Carrying bombs, it crashed on takeoff. Two bombs exploded and all 11 people on board were killed.
The next year, on August 2, a US military transport, a Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express operated by a United Airlines crew, crashed soon after take-off about 2.30am, in rain and fog. Its passengers were Japanese internees and Thai nationals.
The Listener in 1991 quoted Mike O’Malley, who reported a witness account: “The pilot tried to turn back and land . . . he cartwheeled into the mudflat between the end of the runway and Herald Island. As he went down he swiped one wing off and the [plane] appeared to slide like a railway carriage.”
Of the 25 passengers and five crew, 15 died at the crash site and one later.
The plane was taking the Japanese to Melbourne to exchange them for British and Allied POWs, the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography said.
The Japanese were diplomatic staff from Tonga and their families. Nine of them died, of whom three were women and four children, along with three Thais and three crew.