Snake 23451
Member
The remains of a B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber was found by our Philippine based Australian team, Sea Scan Survey, off Northern Palawan, in August 2018 at a depth of 56 meters.
It was originally thought to be a USAAF aircraft, but new information has recently come to light indicating that it could be the RAAF B-24, A72-191 from 200 Flight SOA (Special Operations Australia), which went missing on March 25, 1945, with eleven crew and one jumpmaster on board.
Two other Australians who were looking for the aircraft on behalf of Bruce Low, the nephew of Sgt. Keith Low, a wireless air gunner on A72-191, contacted us and furnished us with these new details after reading about the find on another forum.
A72-191, captained by Squadron Leader Harold ‘Graham’ Pockley, and A72-159, captained by Flight Lieutenant F. J. Ball, both late model B-24M-10-CO aircraft, were on a highly secret mission, Semut 1, to drop commandos and supplies from Z Special Unit behind enemy lines in Central Borneo. The commandos were led by Major Tom Harrison, who became known as ‘The Barefoot Anthropologist’ for his exploits in Borneo.
In the early hours of the morning on March 25, both planes took off from McGuire Field at San Jose, Mindoro, on a third attempt to carry out the mission which had previously been abandoned on the 21st and 22nd due to bad weather.
With the mission completed, both aircraft returned to Brunei Bay before parting company in cloud for the independent return flight to Mindoro. Although there had been clouds in the valleys between the mountains on Borneo, the weather over the ocean was clear and Ball's crew landed back at McGuire at 1235 hours. Nothing, however, was heard of Pockley's crew ever again.
The last sighting of A72-191 was made by a US Navy PB4Y Liberator about eight kilometers north of Kota Kinabalu at 0915 and both aircraft had rocked wings in mutual recognition.
The following day a search was conducted by A72-159 and A72-192 as far south as Brunei Bay but there were no sightings of 191. The crew of 192 did report seeing three “long streaks of oil” in the vicinity of Balambangan Island just off Borneo's northwest coast, but I believe this oil most likely came from the Japanese oil tanker Nisshin Maru which was sunk by Submarine USS Crevalle (SS-291) on May 6, 1944 in this location.
Another search was made on the 27th without success and after the war the RAAF vigorously set about trying to establish the fate of all its missing aircrews. Despite postwar interrogations of Japanese personnel, investigation of Japanese documents and extensive searches of Borneo and nearby islands, including investigating wreckage reports from natives, nothing further was ever heard of A72-191.
There was also an unsubstantiated report that Pockley had been seen attacking an enemy ship on the return flight and that the plane may have been shot down, but the origins of this report cannot be found.
I doubt very much that he would risk a brand new aircraft on a highly secret mission, equipped only with defensive armament, on such a risky enterprise. I also doubt that by this time of the war that there would be any enemy ships to be found between Northern Borneo and Mindoro. There are no records of any Japanese ships being sunk by any means in this region during this period.
The wreck that we found is not all there, the tail section and other parts of it are missing and the wing and forward fuselage structure have hit the water hard, indicating that the plane has fallen from a height after an in flight break up, scattering wreckage over a wide area and making it difficult to get a positive identification.
I reseached USAAF and USN B-24’s that went missing in the area and came up with a couple of possibilities, but A72-191 actually looks more promising.
It’s thought that as there was no distress signal from the plane that whatever happened to it was catastrophic. The wreck has also suffered from a catastrophic event of some kind. I’ve determined that it’s a late model B-24 (J, L or M) and it lies not far from a direct flight path from northwest Borneo to McGuire Field.
I’m sure that if we can find the tail section, we’ll be able to determine if it’s this aircraft or not as these were the only B-24’s to be modified for parachute drops.
We’re planning to make the search for the tail using multi beam sonar in November once the South West Monsoon is over.
Martin 250CE upper turret. Later identified as an upgrade Martin A-3D turret.
The remains of the cockpit. The pilot's yoke is behind the large piece of debris at the bottom.
It was originally thought to be a USAAF aircraft, but new information has recently come to light indicating that it could be the RAAF B-24, A72-191 from 200 Flight SOA (Special Operations Australia), which went missing on March 25, 1945, with eleven crew and one jumpmaster on board.
Two other Australians who were looking for the aircraft on behalf of Bruce Low, the nephew of Sgt. Keith Low, a wireless air gunner on A72-191, contacted us and furnished us with these new details after reading about the find on another forum.
A72-191, captained by Squadron Leader Harold ‘Graham’ Pockley, and A72-159, captained by Flight Lieutenant F. J. Ball, both late model B-24M-10-CO aircraft, were on a highly secret mission, Semut 1, to drop commandos and supplies from Z Special Unit behind enemy lines in Central Borneo. The commandos were led by Major Tom Harrison, who became known as ‘The Barefoot Anthropologist’ for his exploits in Borneo.
In the early hours of the morning on March 25, both planes took off from McGuire Field at San Jose, Mindoro, on a third attempt to carry out the mission which had previously been abandoned on the 21st and 22nd due to bad weather.
With the mission completed, both aircraft returned to Brunei Bay before parting company in cloud for the independent return flight to Mindoro. Although there had been clouds in the valleys between the mountains on Borneo, the weather over the ocean was clear and Ball's crew landed back at McGuire at 1235 hours. Nothing, however, was heard of Pockley's crew ever again.
The last sighting of A72-191 was made by a US Navy PB4Y Liberator about eight kilometers north of Kota Kinabalu at 0915 and both aircraft had rocked wings in mutual recognition.
The following day a search was conducted by A72-159 and A72-192 as far south as Brunei Bay but there were no sightings of 191. The crew of 192 did report seeing three “long streaks of oil” in the vicinity of Balambangan Island just off Borneo's northwest coast, but I believe this oil most likely came from the Japanese oil tanker Nisshin Maru which was sunk by Submarine USS Crevalle (SS-291) on May 6, 1944 in this location.
Another search was made on the 27th without success and after the war the RAAF vigorously set about trying to establish the fate of all its missing aircrews. Despite postwar interrogations of Japanese personnel, investigation of Japanese documents and extensive searches of Borneo and nearby islands, including investigating wreckage reports from natives, nothing further was ever heard of A72-191.
There was also an unsubstantiated report that Pockley had been seen attacking an enemy ship on the return flight and that the plane may have been shot down, but the origins of this report cannot be found.
I doubt very much that he would risk a brand new aircraft on a highly secret mission, equipped only with defensive armament, on such a risky enterprise. I also doubt that by this time of the war that there would be any enemy ships to be found between Northern Borneo and Mindoro. There are no records of any Japanese ships being sunk by any means in this region during this period.
The wreck that we found is not all there, the tail section and other parts of it are missing and the wing and forward fuselage structure have hit the water hard, indicating that the plane has fallen from a height after an in flight break up, scattering wreckage over a wide area and making it difficult to get a positive identification.
I reseached USAAF and USN B-24’s that went missing in the area and came up with a couple of possibilities, but A72-191 actually looks more promising.
It’s thought that as there was no distress signal from the plane that whatever happened to it was catastrophic. The wreck has also suffered from a catastrophic event of some kind. I’ve determined that it’s a late model B-24 (J, L or M) and it lies not far from a direct flight path from northwest Borneo to McGuire Field.
I’m sure that if we can find the tail section, we’ll be able to determine if it’s this aircraft or not as these were the only B-24’s to be modified for parachute drops.
We’re planning to make the search for the tail using multi beam sonar in November once the South West Monsoon is over.
Martin 250CE upper turret. Later identified as an upgrade Martin A-3D turret.
The remains of the cockpit. The pilot's yoke is behind the large piece of debris at the bottom.
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