Aircraft History
Engines R-1830-65 1) 42-90354 2) 42-90078 3) 42-89852 4) 42-90498

Mission History
In addition to the crew of ten, an additional six Australian crew members were aboard, for a total of sixteen aboard. Took off from Fenton Airfield near Darwin at approximately 22:59 on March 18, 1944 for a 'night attack' against Babo. Last seen on take off.

1st Lt. John E. Lawor adds:
"This aircraft was on a highly secretive mission, the details of which are unknown to this headquarters, the operation being conducted by the RAAF at Darwin. In addition to the regular crew of ten men this headquarters has been informed that six additional men were aboard the missing airplane.

At approximately 0345/L on 19 March 1944 four of our crew reported seeing an explosion which appeared to originate at approximately 5,000' altitude... This sighting was observed in the vicinity between 3.05S 132.40E and Kokas Village. All crews reporting were from 20-30 miles distant and no other details of the explosion were observed.

Search Efforts
After the loss, a search mission was conducted on March 20, 1944 in the area the explosion was reported for one hour, but no signals from possible survivors were picked up. There was no sighting of a crashed airplane. Officially, the entire crew were reported as dead on February 18, 1945.

Recovery of Remains
On January 13, 1948 AGRS, HQ Philippines stated that this B-24 crashed at Fak Fak was found by an Australian search unit, including 15 remains were recovered and interred as a group burial, at Galala War Cemetery at Ambon, Grave Numbers ZDB 1 to 15.

All are now buried in Section 84, Collective Grave 402 at the St Louis
(Jefferson Barracks) National Cemetery. All AIF members were part of Z
Special Unit. Cpl Mitchell-Burden had an alias of "M C Taylor".

One body was recovered with flight jack with the name "O. H. Martens", and thus was identified. Martens remains were identified and buried at USAF Cemetery Manila #2 in 1948.

References
MACR 3723
Thanks to Daniel Leahy for RAAF and AIF crew details

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Last Updated
October 1, 2009

B-24

MIA
(1 ID, Group Burial)