ByGeorge!

November 2004

Officer of the Day

GW Professor Searches for Descendants of Casualties of WWII’s Worst Aviation Disaster

By John Carroll

On June 14, 1943, at the Mackay Aerodome in Queensland, Australia, Captain Samuel L. Cutler, was designated as officer of the day. Among the duties included in this assignment was oversight of flights to and from the WWII airstrip that day. Cutler signed off on the flight manifest and shut the hatch of a B-17C Flying Fortress carrying 35 Army Air Corps soldiers back to the front lines in New Guinea after a week of leave on allied soil. Just after takeoff, the plane, nicknamed “every morning fixit,” made two abrupt turns and crashed in the cane fields below. All but one of the 41 men on board died, making it the worst WWII aviation disaster in the Southwest Pacific.

The cause of the crash was unknown. Eyewitness accounts, technical analysis and years of speculation by WWII airplane buffs have narrowed the probable cause down to mechanical malfunction, possible overloading or a combination of the two. During WWII, circumstances under which soldiers were killed were kept secret by the US military in the interest of security and morale. The families of the soldiers who perished at Mackay were told only that their loved ones had been killed somewhere in the Southwest Pacific.

Long after retiring from the military as Lt. Colonel, Samuel L. Cutler felt he had yet to complete his tour of duty as Officer Of The Day, June 14, 1943. His son, Robert Cutler, a retired Air Force major and GW professorial lecturer in engineering, read such sentiments in his father’s wartime journals and immediately felt an emotional attachment to the story. In honor to his father and his country, the younger Cutler set out to complete the unfinished business that had gripped his father for so long.

In his book, Mackay’s Flying Fortress, Cutler details an uncommon war story, less about battles and victories, and more about some accidental heroes of WWII who gave their lives for their country and those who honored them. The disaster is known to Australians as the Baker’s Creek tragedy for the place where the plane went down. A monument at the site honors the crew, the victims and the sole survivor. According to Cutler, the citizens of Mackay grew fond of the American soldiers who visited their town on leave during WWII. The presence of these young Americans made a lasting and positive impression. They taught the curious Australians about America, the superpower protecting their home from an encroaching enemy.

“Young men who spent their recreation here and were adopted into the homes and hearts of our people, leave an aching void by their passing,” read a local newspaper article published shortly after the crash in Mackay.

While researching for the book, Cutler learned he was not the only American dedicated to the paying due diligence to honoring the casualties of Baker’s Creek when he met Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Teddy W. Hanks. On the day of the tragedy, Hanks had been waiting on the front lines in New Guinea for the ill-fated aircraft to return with four of his squadron buddies on board.

In 2002, when Cutler and Hanks crossed paths, Hanks unsuccessfully had been trying for three years to find the passenger list of the B-17C in order to notify the families of his fallen comrades and the rest of the men on board. He had been unsuccessful, in part, because of the secrecy policy observed by the US military at the time of the tragedy. After several dead ends, Hanks finally found the passenger list in the form of a cemetery burial record from Townsville, Australia. The bodies had been shipped there for temporary burial pending their eventual return to the US after the war.

Inspired by the same longing in Hanks he had known in his father, Cutler wanted to help him find living relatives and relay the truth he had uncovered about their loved-ones patriotic death. Recently Hanks has been diagnosed with a terminal cancer, bringing a new urgency to the search. “Ted has been a central character in the search for the families,” says Cutler. “Because of his present terminal condition, his mission to find those families ought to be recognized. If it weren’t for Ted, I’d probably have stopped my efforts with the publishing of the book.”

Cutler and Hanks traveled to an assisted-living home to meet the one man who had literally walked away from the crash; sole survivor, Corporal 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 little more than a list of names and hometowns, the two men embarked on an expedition Cutler calls genealogy in reverse.

“Usually, genealogists search for family lines of dead ancestors,” says Cutler, “In this case the genealogy researchers are looking for living family relatives of men who had died, not were born, in a foreign land.”

As they started to contact families, Cutler was amazed at the reactions of families to being found. In letters, E-mails and other communication they continue to express genuine gratitude that extends far beyond the relief of knowing what happened. Many are astonished to learn that long after their loved one’s passing, volunteer efforts to find them and relay the truth is just as relentless as their own longing to know.

“I truly appreciate what the Australians and the Americans have done to honor my uncle and the men he died with,” writes the niece of Cpl. Charles W. Sampson. “It means a lot to know all this had happened including the truth about how he died.”
Cutler knew he could not rest until he was able to relay the story of Mackay's Flying Fortress to a family relative of every single name on the flight manifest his father signed had off on some 61 years earlier.

“There is a human need to know the truth of what happened to their loved-ones,” says Cutler. “History prevented it, but that does not make it impossible.”

Presently a team of five retired Air Force veterans and two volunteer genealogists who also are military vets are assisting Cutler and Hanks in their search. Current efforts are concentrated in finding any living relatives of one of Hank’s fighter squadron buddies, Cpl. Raymond H. Smith from Pennsylvania. Also on the list are two from California, F/O William C. Erb and T/5 George A. Erhmann.

The mission to find living relatives of all 40 men has become a life goal for Cutler and one rich with the rewards. Last year Cutler found the descendants of Cpl. Edward Tenny living in West Virginia. The Tennys have their own family association and invited Cutler to speak at their annual family reunion in Buckhannon, WV.

Cutler has traveled to Australia twice to take part in an annual memorial ceremony at the crash site in Bakers Creek. The tragedy is as much a part of Australian history as American. Legislation was recently introduced in the US Congress to make space available at the Arlington National Cemetery for a memorial marker commemorating the aviation disaster.

“Our team will have some measure of closure to our efforts on June 14,” says Cutler, “when we hopefully will lay a wreath at the first memorial marker dedicated to the tragedy on American soil.”

The publishing of Mackay’s Flying Fortress has given some Americans a chance to fill a gap in family history with the truth. It also gives historical legitimacy and significance to the death of American servicemen who were the brothers, husbands, uncles, fathers and grandfathers of living Americans. Grandchildren and great grandchildren of the men lost are finally given a story to pass down to their children about a true WWII hero in the family.

“These men died not on the front lines, nor in the jungles of New Guinea,” reads an excerpt from the book, “but nevertheless in service to their nation. They deserve to be remembered.”

As Cutler sees it, military policies of secrecy and embargoes on news reporting allowed the largest aviation disaster in WWII history to fall through the cracks. “Advances in technology, news reporting and military policy would not allow this to happen today,” says Cutler. But in honor to those who came before him, he will carry out the duties of Officer of the Day, June 14, 1943.

Far removed geographically and almost lost in time, the memories of these fallen soldiers rested far from home. Cutler’s writings, his subsequent efforts and those of Hanks and the volunteers revive a colorful WWII story and bring the memories of these men back to US soil.

“Americans have a precedent of repatriating their own,” says Cutler. “Part of the contract between the military and the families is that they borrow the boys. One way or another, the sons come home.”


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