SBS - WWII Air Crash Detectives (2014) Part 3 Baker's Creek Australias Worst Crash

In the USA alone over 15,000 Airmen lost their lives in training accidents as the WWII Allies scaled-up their Air forces. The relatives of these young men often have no idea what actually happened and typically the official reasons were put down simply to “pilot error”. From 1939 to 1945 thousands of young airmen met terrible ends not at the hands the enemy's machine guns or because of the murderous flak of anti-aircraft fire, but in catastrophic accidents and training crashes. The staggering losses were not just limited to Britain; all over the world training flights, routine sorties and cargo transport journeys all sometimes ended in disaster. Perhaps it's not so surprising that, amid the weight of the human costs of the air war against Germany, these 'hidden' losses have been forgotten; but all the men in the aircraft that never returned signed up for the same war and they were all someone's father, brother or son. The same letters went home to every family. Luckily, there are those who are determined that those brave men should not be a footnote in military history. They've spent years investigating, uncovering, searching, probing and digging the crash sites – and there are hundreds of them. They are the World War II Air Crash Investigators and now, for the first time, they have agreed to let us join them. In this fascinating new series, WWII Air crash Detective, Garth Barnard, re-opens the investigations of some of the most infamous International WWII Air Disasters using modern techniques and fresh eyes to find out what really happened…. and understand if it could happen again now.

Part 3 Baker's Creek Australias Worst Crash

Bakers Creek, Australia, June 13, 1943. For the men about to board “Miss Every Morning Fixin”, the pressures of the War had been eased by a period of rest and relaxation in Queensland, but they were about to return to war operations in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. They were never to return. Shortly after take-off the aircraft plunged into the ground killing everyone aboard - apart from one survivor, who would spend the rest of his life coping with the injuries he received that day. This accident is still Australia's worse ever plane crash and yet it was hushed up by the Australian and US governments until after the war had ended, with the relatives being told that those on board had perished in a crash over the South Pacific.

Full Version Available Upon Request