This Day in History: DECEMBER 05, 1945 : AIRCRAFT SQUADRON LOST IN THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE

At 2:10 p.m., five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo-bombers comprising Flight 19 take off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned.

Two hours after the flight began, the leader of the squadron, who had been flying in the area for more than six months, reported that his compass and back-up compass had failed and that his position was unknown. The other planes experienced similar instrument malfunctions. Radio facilities on land were contacted to find the location of the lost squadron, but none were successful. After two more hours of confused messages from the fliers, a distorted radio transmission from the squadron leader was heard at 6:20 p.m., apparently calling for his men to prepare to ditch their aircraft simultaneously because of lack of fuel.

By this time, several land radar stations finally determined that Flight 19 was somewhere north of the Bahamas and east of the Florida coast, and at 7:27 p.m. a search and rescue Mariner aircraft took off with a 13-man crew. Three minutes later, the Mariner aircraft radioed to its home base that its mission was underway. The Mariner was never heard from again. Later, there was a report from a tanker cruising off the coast of Florida of a visible explosion seen at 7:50 p.m.

The disappearance of the 14 men of Flight 19 and the 13 men of the Mariner led to one of the largest air and seas searches to that date, and hundreds of ships and aircraft combed thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and remote locations within the interior of Florida. No trace of the bodies or aircraft was ever found.

Although naval officials maintained that the remains of the six aircraft and 27 men were not found because stormy weather destroyed the evidence, the story of the “Lost Squadron” helped cement the legend of the Bermuda Triangle, an area of the Atlantic Ocean where ships and aircraft are said to disappear without a trace. The Bermuda Triangle is said to stretch from the southern U.S. coast across to Bermuda and down to the Atlantic coast of Cuba and Santo Domingo.

Flight 19's scheduled navigation exercise on December 5, 1945.
1. Leave NAS Fort Lauderdale 14:10 on heading 091°, drop bombs at Hen and Chickens shoals (B) until about 15:00 then continue on heading 091° for 73 nautical miles (140 km)
2. Turn left to heading 346° and fly 73 nautical miles (140 km).
3. Turn left to heading 241° for 120 nautical miles (220 km) to end exercise north of NAS Fort Lauderdale.
4. 17:50 radio triangulation establishes flight's position to within 50 nautical miles (93 km) of 29°N 79°W and their last reported course, 270°.
5. PBM Mariner leaves NAS Banana River 19:27.
6. 19:50 Mariner explodes near 28°N 80°W.

Article Details:

December 05, 1945 : Aircraft squadron lost in the Bermuda Triangle

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  December 05, 1945 : Aircraft squadron lost in the Bermuda Triangle

• URL

  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aircraft-squadron-lost-in-the-bermuda-triangle

• Access Date

  December 05, 2016

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  A+E Networks

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This Day in Crime History: DECEMBER 02, 1991 : KENNEDY COUSIN RAPE TRIAL BEGINS

Opening testimony takes place in the highly publicized rape trial of William Kennedy Smith, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy and son of Jean Kennedy Smith, the president’s sister and a former ambassador to Ireland. Smith, then a 30-year-old medical student at Georgetown University, was accused of sexually assaulting a 29-year-old Florida woman in the early hours of March 30, 1991, at the Kennedy family’s Palm Beach compound.

On the night of March 29, Smith went out in Palm Beach with his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, and cousin, Patrick Kennedy. They ended up at a night spot called Au Bar, where Smith met the accuser, who later accompanied him back to the Kennedy estate. Smith and the woman went for a walk on the beach, during which time Smith allegedly tackled and raped her. Taking the stand in his own defense in court, Smith testified he had sex with the woman but that it was consensual. At the trial, Judge Mary E. Lupo barred prosecutors from presenting testimony from three other women who claimed Smith had assaulted them.

As a member of one of America’s most famous families, Smith became the subject of intense public scrutiny and his trial turned into a media circus. Millions of viewers watched the nationally televised event and reporters from around the globe converged on the West Palm Beach courthouse. On December 11, after deliberating for 77 minutes, the six-member jury acquitted Smith on all charges. (In an interesting side note, Smith’s lead defense attorney, Roy Black, later married Lisa Haller, one of the jurors, in 1995.)

During the live television coverage of the trial, the accuser’s identity was electronically obscured with a large dot to protect her privacy. However, following the trial, the woman, Patricia Bowman, chose to identify herself publicly.

William Kennedy Smith became a doctor after the trial, specializing in working with victims of land mines, and remained largely out of the national spotlight. In 2004, a Chicago woman who was Smith’s assistant at the nonprofit Center for International Rehabilitation filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault. A judge subsequently dismissed the suit.

Article Details:

December 02, 1991 : Kennedy cousin rape trial begins

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  December 02, 1991 : Kennedy cousin rape trial begins

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  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/kennedy-cousin-rape-trial-begins

• Access Date

  December 02, 2016

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  A+E Networks

This Day in Crime History: NOVEMBER 21, 1986 : OLIVER NORTH STARTS FEEDING DOCUMENTS INTO THE SHREDDING MACHINE

National Security Council staff member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, begin shredding documents that would have exposed their participation in a range of illegal activities regarding the sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of the proceeds to a rebel Nicaraguan group. On November 25, North was fired but Hall continued to sneak documents to him by stuffing them in her skirt and boots. The Iran-Contra scandal, as it came to be known, became an embarrassment and a sticky legal problem for the Reagan administration.

Only six years earlier, Iran had become an enemy of the United States after taking hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. At the time, Ronald Reagan had repeatedly insisted that the United States would never deal with terrorists. When the revelation surfaced that his top officials at the National Security Council had begun selling arms to Iran, it was a public relations disaster.

During the televised Iran-Contra hearings, the public learned that the money received for the arms was sent to support the Contras in Nicaragua, despite Congress’ Boland Amendment, which expressly prohibited U.S. assistance to the Contras. Though the communist Sandinistas had been legitimately elected in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration sought to oust them by supporting the Contras, an anti-Communist group.

During the Iran-Contra hearings, North claimed that the entire Reagan administration had known about the illegal plan. After admitting that he had lied to Congress, he was convicted of shredding documents, obstruction of justice, and illegally receiving a security fence for his own residence. He received a light sentence of a fine, probation, and community service.

A year later in July 1990, an appellate court voted 2-1 to overturn his conviction based on the possibility that some of the evidence may have come from testimony that Congress had immunized in their own hearings on the matter. President Reagan and Vice President George Bush maintained that they had no knowledge of the scheme.

Article Details:

November 21, 1986 : Oliver North starts feeding documents into the shredding machine

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  November 21, 1986 : Oliver North starts feeding documents into the shredding machine

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  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oliver-north-starts-feeding-documents-into-the-shredding-machine

• Access Date

  November 21, 2016

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  A+E Networks

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This Day in Crime History: NOVEMBER 15, 1923 : ACCUSED OF RAPE, JAMES MONTGOMERY’S STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE BEGINS

Mamie Snow, a mentally disabled white woman from Waukegan, Illinois, claims that James Montgomery, a black veteran, factory worker, and homeowner raped her. Montgomery, who was promptly thrown in jail, spent more than 25 years in prison before his conviction was overturned and he was released.

From the start, Montgomery’s trial seemed ill fated. Local Ku Klux Klan members threatened Montgomery’s lawyer during the proceedings, and, in 1923, after a weak defense and a trial that took less than a day, Montgomery was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

While serving time, Montgomery studied the law in an attempt to prove his innocence. In 1946, he convinced civil rights attorney Luis Kutner to investigate his case. Kutner discovered a medical report from Snow’s hospital stay revealing that not only was Snow never raped, she was likely a virgin. Kutner also located additional evidence suggesting that the Klan had framed Montgomery and that prosecutors had withheld the medical evidence from the defense. Nonetheless, it took Kutner three more years to have the unjust conviction overturned. Montgomery was finally released in August 1949.

This case of wrongful imprisonment is not an isolated incident for Illinois. Between 1977 and 1999, the state released 11 people from death row because they had been wrongly convicted.

Article Details:

November 15, 1923 : Accused of rape, James Montgomery’s struggle for justice begins

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  November 15, 1923 : Accused of rape, James Montgomery’s struggle for justice begins

• URL

  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/accused-of-rape-james-montgomerys-struggle-for-justice-begins

• Access Date

  November 15, 2016

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  A+E Networks

This Day in Crime History: AUGUST 29, 2007 : HERO SECURITY GUARD WRONGLY ACCUSED AS BOMBING SUSPECT DIES

Richard Jewell, the hero security guard turned Olympic bombing suspect, dies at age 44 of natural causes at his Georgia home.

On July 27, 1996, during the Summer Games in Atlanta, a pipe bomb with nails went off in crowded Centennial Olympic Park, killing one woman and injuring 111 other people. Shortly before the explosion, Richard Jewell, who was working as a temporary security guard in the area, discovered a suspicious-looking backpack abandoned beneath a park bench. Jewell alerted police to the backpack, which held a bomb, and moved people out of harm’s way before it exploded. In the aftermath of the bombing, Jewell was praised as a hero for his actions. However, three days later, the media reported that Jewell was being investigated as a suspect in the case. Although he was never arrested or charged with any crime, for the next three months, Jewell faced intense scrutiny from both law enforcement officials and the media, who combed through his background and tracked his movements. Even after the Justice Department officially cleared Jewell of any involvement in the bombing in late October 1996, some people still viewed him with suspicion.

Jewell later filed libel lawsuits against several major media companies and reached settlements with CNN and NBC, among others. Before his death on August 29, 2007, Jewell, who suffered from diabetes and other health problems, worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Georgia. In 2006, during the 10-year anniversary of the Atlanta Olympics, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue publicly commended Jewell for saving lives at Centennial Park.

In May 2003, police in North Carolina captured Eric Rudolph, the real person responsible for the Olympic bombing, as well as the bombings of several abortion clinics and a gay bar. Rudolph, who eluded law enforcement authorities for years by living in the Appalachian wilderness, eventually pled guilty to his crimes and was sentenced to life in prison.

Article Details:

August 29, 2007 : Hero security guard wrongly accused as bombing suspect dies

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  August 29, 2007 : Hero security guard wrongly accused as bombing suspect dies

• URL

  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hero-security-guard-wrongly-accused-as-bombing-suspect-dies

• Access Date

  August 29, 2016

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  A+E Networks