Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum: a salute to the missing of Flight 19 and ...

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 6, 1945; newspaper displayed at Naval Air Station
 Thirteen more airmen were lost in a search for
the missing squadron

Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

4000 West Perimeter Rd., Fort Lauderdale, 33315

www.nasflmuseum.com

Open Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 am to 3:30 pm - CALL FIRST
Staffed by volunteers - call first

(754) 300-9259 or (954) 359-4400 

By Jane Feehan

There’s a slice of World War II military history sitting near Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport that draws visitors from around the world. They pay homage to those who trained here, including President George H. W. Bush, and to the 27 men of the Lost Squadron or mysterious Flight 19 and its rescue plane.

The Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum houses the Link Trainer Building #8, which was added to the National Register of Historical Places May 20, 1998. Navy vet Allan McElhiney, who served on the US Asheville in Port Everglades during World War II, founded the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Historical Association in 1979. The group saved the landmark building, so called after the Link Trainer, a flight simulator widely used in WWII. 

Broward County Property Appraiser at the time, Lori Parrish, took interest in the NAS and was instrumental in finding a Department of Transportation grant to move Building #8, the remaining building of the WWII campus, in 1999, to its present location off Perimeter Road. The move saved the structure from demolition, paving the way for creation of the museum.

The building was one of more than 200 constructed at the site to serve as a training center, part of

Work order for building #8

the Navy Air Operational Training Command, specializing in TBM/TBF Avenger aircraft. U.S. Navy and marine personnel as well as some of the British Royal Navy graduated from the facility. Nearly 1,700 pilots and thousands of air crewmen passed through this NAS, one of 257 across the nation at that time.

Broward County turned over the old Merle Fogg Airport to the military shortly after Pearl Harbor (1941). The training facility was built in early 1942 for about $6 million. It was expected to be used for five years. The NAS was decommissioned in 1946 and turned back over to the county in 1947.

 

Nineteen year-old Ensign George H.W. Bush trained at the NAS in 1943. His instructor was Thomas “Tex” Ellison, uncle of Jim Naugle, Fort Lauderdale’s mayor 1991-2009. A recreation of Bush’s room is featured in the museum.

The museum also serves as memorial to the men who went missing on the mysterious Flight 19. On Dec. 5, 1945, at 2 p.m., five TBM Avengers carrying 14 crew set out on a routine training mission over the Atlantic near Bimini. Ninety minutes later, flight leader Lt. Charles C. Taylor made the first of several radio transmissions to the NAS reporting that he and the other four planes were lost. When nothing more was heard from the flight several hours later, a PBM Mariner flying boat with 13 on board was sent to look for Flight 19. It too, was lost. A five-day search in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico failed to yield any clues to the disappearance of the 27 men, igniting the Bermuda Triangle controversy. The navy closed its investigation into Flight 19 citing loss of fuel in bad weather. Since then, the incident remains a tantalizing mystery.

Replicas of the missing planes are on exhibit as well as more than one hundred handmade 

Replicas of the Lost Squadron plus its missing
rescue plane

models of different aircraft. Also displayed:  a Link Trainer, uniforms of the period, documents, books, photographs, personal memorabilia, and paintings by late artist Bob Jenny. Outside the museum sits two torpedoes, a 3-inch gun from a WWI ship and Hedgehog.

A Link Trainer (flight simulator)

In 1992, before the museum was established, President George H.W. Bush visited Building #15 (since destroyed) where he lived as an ensign and signed several Bob Jenny paintings, one a 27-foot mural now at the Link Trainer Building #8.

WWII vets and a few relatives of the lost crewmen of Flight 19 visit the NASFL Museum as well as donate diaries, artifacts and other memorabilia to be placed on display or archived. Visitors also include those who appreciate the role played by the NASFL during WWII and in Broward County’s history.  Many who trained at NASFL returned after the war to make Fort Lauderdale their home, contributing to the explosive growth of the city in the 1950s.

The NASFL played an important part not only in the city’s history but also in the readiness of the nation during WWII. The navy was hesitant in giving the training station up in 1947 and in fact, ordered it re-activated the same year. The order was soon rescinded. The navy said they had been reluctant to turn the NASFL back over to Broward County “because of the uncertainty of future military requirements together with the important position the Fort Lauderdale station occupies in the navy’s mobilization and readiness plans.”

Today, the NASFL Museum retains an “important position” in recognition of the area’s contribution to the war effort and serves as a salute to those who gave their lives in that conflict. 

Copyright © 2015. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, April 20, 1943

Miami News, April 30, 1947

Miami News, Dec. 8, 1948

Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Dec. 19, 1985

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale during WWII, Flight 19, Link Trainer, Fort Lauderdale history, About Fort Lauderdale

Broward County reaches milestone in 1966

Broward County reached a milestone in 1966. By the end of March that year, 500,000 people claimed the county as permanent residence. The headcount rose at an estimated rate of 90 people a day: 20 being born, 12 dying and roughly 80-85 moving to the area each day.   That rate began in 1964 and continued through 1966.

The 1966 population number doesn’t seem impressive when compared to that of 2021 which points to an estimated 1.9 million in Broward. In contrast, the 1950 population was counted at 83,933 persons; in 1960 the U.S. Census recorded 333,946. The rate slowed during the next decade; in 1970 the U.S. Census tallied 620,000 residents.

Broward County, established in 1915, is comprised of 30 municipalities within 1,196.9 square miles, including about 787 square miles (65 percent) of conservation area. (Little wonder that land values continue to soar.) The county’s boundaries, which extend 50 miles west and stretch 25 miles north to south, include 23 miles of sandy white beaches and 126 miles of navigable canals.Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, March 16, 1966

U.S. Census

Broward.org

Tags: Broward County history, Broward population, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

Mystery of Flight 19 and the Bermuda triangle myth - Fort Lauderdale

  

By Jane Feehan

One of the most enduring stories of Fort Lauderdale and World War II is that of missing Flight 19.

Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor led a squadron of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that took off from the U.S. Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale, at about 2 p.m. December 5, 1945. This mission was to take 14 crewmen (an additional member remained ashore because of a hangover) on its last training flight. The planes were to fly 77 miles due east to Great Stirrup Key, then 84 miles north to Great Sale and back to Fort Lauderdale. Another squadron flew the same route 30 minutes ahead.

At around 4 p.m. Taylor radioed that both his compasses were not working. He said he was in the Keys but didn’t know how far down and wasn’t sure how to get back to Fort Lauderdale. The last discernible radio transmission at 5:25 p.m. estimated location  at about 200 miles north of Miami.

The dark blue 14,000-pound Avenger, built by Eastern Aircraft under license from Grumman, was the largest single-engine plane ever built; it proved to be a reliable aircraft during World War II. On the December 5 mission, Flight 19 had enough fuel until 8 p.m. that night. The planes would have sunk immediately if ditched into the ocean.

Avenger aircraft 
Florida State Archives

A decision was made to search for Taylor and the squadron two hours after the last communication.

A sixth plane with 13 on board tasked as a rescue team took off at 7:30 p.m. and also not heard from again. A ship's crew reported having seen a mid-air flame, possibly an explosion and later an oil slick. For five days hundreds of planes searched for the 27 missing crewmen. Nothing more was ever found of the rescue plane or the five Avengers of Flight 19.

The U.S. Navy assumes Flight 19 ran out of fuel east of Florida and sank in storm-churned waters. Lieutenant Charles Taylor was absolved of responsibility for its fate; bad weather was deemed as probable cause of the mystery. Some of his peers thought Taylor to be a poor navigator. A news story written years after the disappearance reported he once got lost flying out of a base in the Keys and wound up on a raft in the Caribbean for five days.

Flight 19 has been the subject of myth since 1945, and at times, attributed to Bermuda Triangle energies—especially after the idea was first floated in the Miami Herald, Sept. 17, 1950.  One certainty prevails: it hasn’t been the only flight – military or civilian – that’s gone missing in those waters or in other oceans of the world. 

See Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum, A salute to Flight 19:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2014/03/naval-air-station-fort-lauderdale.html

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Miami News, Dec. 5, 1985.

Palm Beach Post, Dec. 7, 1945.

Miami News, Dec. 7, 1945.

Weidling, Philip J. , Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press (1966).

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq15-1.htm

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, lost military flights, Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale during WWII, World War II in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, 

film researcher, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian

Prohibition and the only legal hanging in Fort Lauderdale

Building circled  Coast Guard site of
Alderman
hanging 1929
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Rum running from the Bahamas to southeast Florida seemed an adventurous profession during Prohibition (1920-1933). That perception changed for South Floridians in 1927 when a federal agent and two U.S. Coast Guarders were murdered at sea after chasing down a boat carrying rum.

Aug. 7, 1927, Secret Service Agent Robert K. Webster was on his way to Bimini aboard Cutter 249 from U.S. Coast Guard Base Six in Fort Lauderdale to investigate a counterfeiting ring. Along the way, he and the crew stopped a suspicious-looking boat skippered by James Horace Alderman. 

Alderman and his mate, Robert Weech, denied they had liquor, but 160 cases--a small load--were found. After they were arrested and brought on board the cutter, Alderman found a gun and shot Webster and Boatswain Sidney Sanderlin in the back, severely wounded Machinist Victor Lamby (who died later that day) and shot cook Jodie Hollingsworth (who survived).  Alderman told the remaining Coast Guard crew he was going to take them out to the Gulfstream and make them jump into the sea. Weech broke a fuel line and threw a match into the patrol boat but it failed to ignite.

The Coast Guard crew managed to subdue the rumrunners when their boat wouldn’t start. With assistance from Base Six, the surviving Coast Guarders brought the two back to Fort Lauderdale where they were charged with piracy and murder.

It took two years to convict the rumrunners; Weech testified against Alderman and received a sentence of a year and a day. Alderman was sentenced to death by hanging. A new federal piracy law of the time required that the death sentence be carried out in the port city the “pirate” was brought. Broward County did not want to perform the execution, so the Coast Guard agreed to carry out the sentence.

While incarcerated, Alderman found religion and wrote a book about his life. His wife appealed to the White House for executive clemency three times but was denied (or ignored). As the hanging day approached, the media were blocked from covering the event.

A few civilians and Dr. Elliot M. Hendricks, a Fort Lauderdale physician and Public Health Service and Quarantine Officer for Coast Guard Base Six, witnessed the execution at the base’s seaplane hangar Aug. 17, 1929. It stands as the only legal hanging ever held in Broward County.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

_______

Sources:

Miami News, Aug. 16, 1929, p.1, 2

Miami News, Aug. 17, 1929, p. 4.

Miami News, Aug. 9, 1929.

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2005.

Weiding, Philip and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966.

Willoughby, Malcom, Commander USCGR. Rum War at Sea. U.S Government Printing Office, 1964.

Tags: Florida Prohibition history, Fort Lauderdale Prohibition history, Fort Lauderdale history, Florida history Fort Lauderdale, rum runners, bootleggers, film researcher

Houses of Refuge, Fort Lauderdale and New River House No. 4

Courtesy of Broward County Historical Commission

By Jane Feehan

  

A swim to land after surviving a ship wreck did not guarantee seamen safety on Florida’s east coast during its early days. Human bones discovered over the years are testimony to onshore tribulations of those who managed to escape sinking ships. Florida was a wild, desolate place with sandy barrier islands that offered fresh water only to those with shovels who knew where to dig.

Survival odds climbed a notch or two in 1876 when the U.S government built five Houses of Refuge spaced 25 miles apart from the Indian River Inlet south to Cape Florida.

Patterned on the Massachusetts Humane Society’s Houses of Refuge, each Florida refuge was run by a paid keeper on a permanent basis. The keeper, paid $400 yearly, was tasked with providing food, water and shelter to the ship wrecked and to patrol coastal waters for wreck survivors.

“New River House No. 4” went up near today’s Hugh Taylor Birch State Park (Bonnet House).  In 1891 it was moved to the Bahia Mar area, site of one of the old forts (a fort marker sits there, near the base of a bridge over A1A). The first keeper of Fort Lauderdale’s House of Refuge was Washington (Wash) Jenkins. He was replaced seven years later by Edwin Ruthven Bradley.

One of these houses still stands on Hutchinson Island in Martin County and serves as The House of Refuge Museum.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
______________

 *Bradley went on to secure a contact for mail delivery between Jupiter and Miami. As mail contractor, he shared delivery duties with Ed Hamiliton, known to us as the Barefoot Mailman who apparently drowned in the Hillsboro Inlet in 1887.

_______________

Sources:

Broward Legacy, Vol 1, No. 1. Life Saving Station #4 by Eugene E. Wiley, 1974.

Weidling, Philip and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966. 

Broward County Historical Commission

Palm Beach Historical Society

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Florida history, houses of refuge, history of Florida

Broward County's Black-White teacher exchange and desegregation

By Jane Feehan

Though public schools in the U.S. were ordered to desegregate in 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education), they remained segregated for decades in schools across the nation and in Broward County, Florida.

When Broward County announced its Black-White teacher exchange program was a success in March 1966, it made news.

The pilot exchange program was conducted for a week, with no major problems reported William Drainer, Broward County elementary education supervisor. 

White teachers were sent to teach Black students, Black teachers taught in White schools. Sixteen elementary schools participated in the program.  Teachers, parents, and students favorably evaluated the exchange afterward, leading to plans for a second exchange weeks later at 16 different schools.

“A good teacher is a good teacher no matter where he teaches,” said Drainer. A teacher is a teacher.

Apparently the program did little to abate resistance to desegregation by parents and some county politicians. In August of 1966, Broward County did not (at first) sign federal guidelines for desegregation, jeopardizing $4.5 million in federal funds. A confrontation among different stakeholders brought the county back to the drawing board.

By 1970 there were four public school systems in the South that refused to bus students to desegregate: Dade and Broward counties in Florida and two counties in North Carolina. 

Miami-based attorney Ellis Rubin, on behalf of United Stand for America, Inc., filed a petition against busing in the court. The group, which was also headed by Rubin, contended that a recently adopted state law prohibited expenditures of state or county funds for desegregation purposes. 

Based on that reasoning, a judge granted temporary injunction to prevent busing. Eventually, Broward County received a $1.7 million federal grant to help pay for the school buses but lost that temporarily for noncompliance to federal requirements.

William Drainer, acting superintendent of Broward Schools in 1970, fully endorsed the transfer of 500 teachers and 3,000 students. Though his pilot program four years prior underscored a teacher was a teacher, it did not take into account politicians. 

The busing controversy was not resolved until the early 1970s. Today, many desegregated schools in Broward and Miami-Dade are once again minority schools.

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, March 17, 1966

Palm Beach Post, Jul 16, 1966

Palm Beach Post, Jul 23, 1966

St. Petersburg Times, Jul 24, 1966

Daytona Beach Morning Journal, Dec. 22, 1969

Palm Beach Post, Aug. 26, 1970

 Tags: African American history, Broward County history,  Broward County in the 1960s, Broward County in the 1970s,

Trailblazer Dr. Mizell served African Americans of Fort Lauderdale, Belle Glade

By Jane Feehan

Dr. Von Delaney Mizell (1910-1973), familiar to many in Fort Lauderdale for providing medical care to his African American community and establishing the Fort Lauderdale NAACP chapter in 1938, also served as a voice for minorities in Belle Glade, near Lake Okeechobee.

Son of Dania pioneers, Mizell lived in Belle Glade (span unknown to this writer) where his wife, Ida, operated a nursing home. Dr. Mizell served as the home’s physician but also commuted to Fort Lauderdale to practice medicine.

In 1971, reporter Janice Gould of the Palm Beach Post, wrote of a funding controversy swirling about two hospitals - Everglades Memorial and Glades General – in Belle Glade. She interviewed Mizell about the hospitals. He claimed care for the poor there was inferior and substandard to that “received almost anywhere in the U.S.”                                                                                     

Mizell had applied to practice at Glades General once a year from 1962 until he was accepted as staff in 1970 – but not allowed to perform surgery, his specialty. Gould wrote that Mizell's background included studies at the University of Pennsylvania with a residency at Howard University. Other records indicate he also attended Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Decades before - 1938 - in Fort Lauderdale, Mizell, with Dr. James Franklin Sistrunk, founded Provident Hospital. The facility served the Black community until desegregation of Broward General Hospital and other facilities in 1964. Even so, neither doctor is mentioned in the first written history of Fort Lauderdale, Checkered Sunshine (1966). Mizell, according to news accounts (if not the city's first history book) never stopped speaking for those who needed the most help in Fort Lauderdale, or Belle Glade.

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Sources:

Palm Beach Post, Feb. 28, 1971

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~flgsbc/resources/biographies_q-s.html

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004.

Great Floridians 2000




Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale African-American history, history of blacks in Fort Lauderdale