Hitler's Terror Weapons, Brooks, Geoffrey [cat reading book .txt] 📗

is obvious that what Lt Taylor said to Cox was: “I’m sure I’m in the Cays, but I don’t know how far down.”

If he was in the Bahama cays but didn’t know exactly where, we can see the dilemma, for he was supposed to be over the most northern few large cays which he knew well and which are isolated by at least 100 miles from the main chain.

Cox: “What is your altitude?”

Taylor: “I know where I am now. I’m at 2300 feet. We have just passed over a small island. We have no other land in sight. Can you have Miami or someone turn on their radar and pick us up? We don’t seem to be getting far. We were out on a navigation hop, and on the second leg I thought they were going wrong. I took over and was flying them back to the right position. But I’m sure that neither one of my compasses is working.” This confirms that Taylor did not mean the Florida Keys. He knew he had been on the second leg of the navigation hop, i.e. the 73-mile stretch between Great Stirrup and Great Sale Cays; he thought his trainees had gone wrong, so he took over to get them right.

But here is another strange expression Taylor uses: “We don’t seem to be getting far”. This seems to imply that he couldn’t make progress physically through the air: he was attempting to fly head-on to the anomaly and was more or less hove-to, prevented from returning to the second leg of his navigational hop by an apparent force equal to his airspeed. In response to a question, Taylor said that he had not switched on his IFF transponder, and did not reply when Cox suggested he use his ZBX homing receiver. This was standard procedure and it is incomprehensible that an instructor would not have taken this step at once. In the event of disorientation he was supposed to have changed radio frequency to the 3000-kilocycles emergency band, climbed for altitude and attempted to obtain a bearing on the base homing transmitter. If over water in the Atlantic, he was supposed to fly west. But he did none of these things. All he did was fly around and talk. Already we are gaining the impression of a swiftly developing mental problem symptomatic of exposure to an electro-magnetic gravity field: a wilful lassitude and inability to see the obvious solutions to a simple problem.

4.25 Captain Stiver to Fort Lauderdale Tower: “We are not sure where we are. We think we must be 225 miles east of base.” The estimate of 225 miles east of base indicates that the flight had been deposed from the northern leg of the triangle in an easterly direction by 100 miles in thirty minutes. This implied a 200-knot crosswind which naturally would not have escaped attention. A discussion of their estimated position and compasses now ensued between all five pilots of the flight. The only remaining explanation was that Powers had led the flight in the opposite direction SE at a speed of 200 knots because of compass failure. This could only account for an error of navigation of this magnitude if all compasses had malfunctioned and Powers had forgotten that he was supposed to be flying a left-handed triangle. But even then it would have brought the sun abeam to starboard and everybody would have noticed. Thus it was utterly inexplicable.

After some static interference, Stiver to base: “It looks like we are entering white water.” What this latter sentence is intended to convey is not obvious, but numerous veteran pilots, shipmasters and coast guard officers have mentioned being seized by a strange vapour and their equipment going haywire while in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. Actually that may have been at the point where Flight 19 emerged from the anomaly, for a few minutes later Lt Taylor began to steer a number of strange headings. As we saw earlier in the incident over Ohrdruf, passage through an electro-magnetic anomaly can cause temporary insanity. And that is what now seems to have befallen the pilots of Flight 19.

Lt Taylor’s Mad 100 Minutes

4.45 Taylor to Flight: “We are heading NNE for 45 minutes, then we will fly north to make sure we are not over the Gulf of Mexico.”

5.07 Taylor to Flight: “All planes in this flight join up in close formation. Let’s turn and fly east. We are going too damn far north instead of east. If there is anything we wouldn’t see it. To all planes in this flight change course to 090 degrees (due east) for ten minutes.”

5.15 Taylor to Port Everglades: “We are now flying 270 degrees (due west) until we hit the beach or run out of gas.” Taylor to Flight: “All planes close up tight. Will have to ditch unless landfall. When the first plane drops to ten gallons, we all go down together.” (It will be remembered that the aircraft had enough fuel for at least seven hours, therefore it was another four hours before they had to consider ditching.)

Port Everglades to Taylor: “Can you change to 3000 kilocycles emergency channel?”

Taylor: “I cannot change frequencies. I must keep my planes together.”

Just before 6.00 Lt Taylor described a large island he had just seen through a break in the clouds. Baker identified it as Andros Island, the largest in the Bahamas, and gave Taylor a course to steer that would get him to Fort Lauderdale. Taylor steered a westerly heading as instructed and the signal volume increased as he approached Florida.

6.04 Taylor to Flight: “I am pretty sure we are over the Gulf of Mexico. We didn’t go far enough east. I suggest we fly due east until we run out of gas. There is a better chance of being picked up closer to shore.”

Because of Taylor’s use of the word “suggest” the board of enquiry stated in Opinion 34 “that at some undetermined time prior to 6:05 pm,