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

WFTL and RH Gore - Afloat in the Venice of America

By Jane Feehan

Radio station WFTL, the first in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County has had a series of owners closely associated with the founding and growth of the city. 

  

Fort Lauderdale pioneer Tom M. Bryan bought a radio station in 1937 and used the call letters WFTL. After he operated WFTL for a year and a half, Bryan sold the station to Ralph Horton, who, in turn, sold it to Miami investors. The station became known as WGBS.

Fort Lauderdale was without its own radio station throughout World War II and until 1946, when it went back on the air with new owners Martin E. Dwyer of Chicago and U.S Rep. Dwight L. Rogers of Fort Lauderdale.  They first operated the station across the street from the Governors Club Hotel. Then they moved it to a houseboat on SE 15th Street, along the New River, and advertised with the appropriate slogan, "Afloat in the Venice of America."

During the fall of 1948, R.H. Gore, owner of the Fort Lauderdale Daily News, The Governors Club Hotel, and Sea Ranch Cabana Club, bought the station. At that time he also launched its sister station, WGOR-FM. Gore’s mission for both radio properties was to place “community interest above all other considerations.” The station, then an NBC affiliate, operated at 100 E. Broward Boulevard, where news was read from a desk at the Fort Lauderdale Daily News.

Gore sold the station a few years after acquiring it to Joseph C. Amaturo under whom WFTL reached stability and success. Since then, WFTL has had a long, convoluted string of owners.

In 2013, 850 WFTL, "Florida's Talk Leader," was a 50,000-watt station owned by the James Crystal Radio Group, the largest (according to their website) locally owned and operated radio station group in South Florida. The James Crystal Radio Group also owned and operated WMEN-AM 640, WFLL-AM 1400, and KBXD in Dallas. It filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

Today the station is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting and licensed in West Palm Beach with a reach that includes Broward County. As mentioned, WFTL ownership has been a complicated tale.

Copyright © 2013, 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Gore, Paul A., Past the Edge of Poverty.  Fort Lauderdale: R.H. Gore Company, 1990.

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 9, 1948.

850WFTL.com

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, radio in Fort Lauderdale, historical researcher, film researcher, RH Gore

Swank Marie Antoinette, a Fort Lauderdale beach landmark

Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

The “swank” Marie Antoinette apartment-hotel located at 2222 N. Atlantic Boulevard opened the last week in January, 1948. The 27-unit building was lauded as being one of the few in Fort Lauderdale offering complete hotel service—and an elevator.

Of French Colonial design, the Marie Antoinette was distinctive for its two large picture windows, 13 feet by nine feet. The windows provided an ocean view from two “studio apartments” each with a two-story living room and a bedroom with a balcony. All units in the hotel boasted wall-to-wall carpeting, one papered wall, jalousie windows—and a fire place.  Imported marble graced the stairways and handrails. Apartment refrigerators stocked with food greeted guests as well as stationary printed with their names.

Designed by Upton C. Ewing of Coral Gables and C. Dale Dykema of Fort Lauderdale, the terra cotta block and concrete structure was 100 percent fireproof. The Marie Antoinette was built by Caldwell Scott Construction Company. Kay Kellogg served as its interior decorator. It was the fifth project in the area owned and operated by Fred C. Snedden.

The Marie Antoinette was beautifully maintained throughout all the years I remember, elegant in its coat of beige paint and white trim. The picture windows drew in passing eyes to an interior of a bygone era. It was probably part of the land parcels bought to make way for the Palm condominium, near the old Mark 2100 Hotel. Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 29. 1948 

Tags: Old Fort Lauderdale hotels, Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, historical researcher for films, Fort Lauderdale history

Look up in the sky! It's flashing, it's news. Fort Lauderdale 1948

Goodyear blimp, a common sight above
Fort Lauderdale beach today

By Jane Feehan

For three days in January and three in February 1948, residents of Fort Lauderdale, Dania and Hollywood could look up to the sky to read local, state, and national headlines. The Goodyear blimp* flashed news in five or six line bites each day from 6 to 9 p.m.

The blimpcasting event, a public relations initiative, was sponsored by Robert H. Gore’s Fort Lauderdale Daily News.  Most of us today probably have seen blimp messaging from one of the tire company’s airships but it was not a common sight in the 1940s. Many residents called the newspaper to express congratulations and to ask if the flashing news was the product of post-war technology. It was not; blimpcasting was first developed by Goodyear airship operations in 1930.

Incandescent signs were adapted for use on the curved sides of a blimp through the development of special light-weight equipment. Early signs, according to the Fort Lauderdale Daily News (Feb 8, 1948), were “boxed-in letters of tubing.” By 1948, eight by six feet frames “were a universal composite type of sign containing all the letters of the alphabet and numerals in one frame.” Equipment was simple: “a typewriter-style tape punch and a translator.”  (People then would be amazed by the simplicity of today’s digitized banners!**)

The Daily News phoned in headlines to the airship, the Mayflower based at Watson Island in Miami, where it was translated for broadcast. Ten letters  were posted in five or six lines at a time but there were no breaks while reading. It took between seven and eight minutes to go through the news that could be viewed 1,000 feet below and as far as a half mile away.

Robert H. Gore bought the newspaper in 1929 and sold it to the Tribune Company of Chicago in 1963. Once governor of Puerto Rico, Gore helped shape the political landscape of Fort Lauderdale for decades. 

Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

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*Rides on the Goodyear blimps are available at the invitation of the company only. Most of the lucky riders are Goodyear customers, winners of local charity auctions, local dignitaries, or members of the press.

** After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, a Goodyear Blimp flashed emergency messages to disaster survivors. It may be a viable way of communicating in the aftermath of another disaster when/if conventional methods of communication are unavailable. Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

For more on RH Gore, see index

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Jan. 28, 1948

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Jan. 29, 1948

Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Feb. 8, 1948

Gore, Paul A. Past the Edge of Poverty: A biography of Robert Hayes Gore, Sr. Fort Lauderdale: R.H. Gore Co. (1990)

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, R.H. Gore, Fort Lauderdale historian, Fort Lauderdale history, history of Fort Lauderdale

Bob Gill's Escape Hotel and his other Fort Lauderdale landmarks ...

Fort Lauderdale Beach 1949
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory

By Jane Feehan

News that the long-closed Escape Hotel  opened as the Gale Hotel, later the Kimpton,  sparked memories about the remarkable man who founded a hotel chain that stretched from the Bahamas to Tampa.

Chicago-born George “Bob” Gill came to Fort Lauderdale after World War II. He started out with his father building houses. A post-war dearth of hotel rooms in the growing city probably informed his decision to venture into the hotel business.

It proved to be an endeavor with significant impact on Fort Lauderdale history and one that unleashed Gill’s marketing genius. The Escape Hotel, the first on Fort Lauderdale beach to feature a pool and to remain operating year-round, opened its doors on New Year’s Eve 1949.   

By 1960, Gill had built the Jolly Roger, the iconic Yankee Clipper (with a bar facing the pool interior that features underwater shows today) and the Yankee Trader. Then he bought the historic British Colonial Hotel (built 1901) in Nassau, Bahamas. During spring 1960, the Gill Hotel chain purchased the 400-room Hillsboro Hotel in downtown Tampa. 

Gill had a knack for marketing. He brought travel agents from around the nation to visit his hotels in Fort Lauderdale. He also knew how to court Floridians. Gill hosted a well-publicized junket from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa in June, 1961.  He chartered a Mackey Airlines DC-3 to bring 25 Fort Lauderdale movers and shakers to participate in the debut of the new Gaslight Room at the Hillsboro Hotel. His guest list included Yankee Clipper manager Tom Brown, attorney Bill Leonard, and WFTL sales manager Bob Peggs. On the plane, they were entertained by a guitarist and served a champagne breakfast by seven “modern-day Floradora girls.”  The partiers returned 24 hours later decked out with dark glasses and more baggage under their eyes than they carried in hand.

Bob Gill died at 93 in 2009. His hotels were sold and became properties of Sheraton, the Hilton and other hotel companies. He probably would have been happy to hear that another chapter, though bittersweet, lies ahead for the Escape Hotel. Operating as the Tiffany House, an assisted living facility in the 1980s, the Escape property lay vacant for years under several owners. Some plans included a large condo to replace the historic hotel, but  it was renovated opened as the Gale Hotel, adjacent to the Gale Residences.  It is now a Kimpton property, the Kimpton Shoreland. 

Renovated as the Kimpton Hotel

Copyright © 2013, 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

For more on the Yankee Clipper, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/11/yankee-clipper-hotel-still-sails-in.html

For more on the Jolly Roger, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2020/07/trailblazing-jolly-roger-hotel-jaynes.html

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Sources:

Ocala Star Banner, April 3, 1960

Miami News, June 25, 1961

Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 26, 2009

Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 22, 2013

Tags: Fort Lauderdale hotels, Fort Lauderdale history, historical researcher, 

A carload of plaster and a bit of screen: Dark days for South Florida builders during WWII

Fort Lauderdale 1948
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

One carload of plaster, and screening for five houses was available in Florida to build houses in 1945 when the U.S. was still at war with Japan. Supplies were few throughout the nation but the problem was acute in South Florida, which was fast becoming a tourist destination in need of hotels. It was also growing in year-round population looking for permanent homes.

At a chamber of commerce meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Aug. 1, 1945, the North Florida director of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), M.M. Parrish, told an anxious crowd of 200 prospective home builders that it was going to be tough to get a “priority” (a word of war time ration culture) for permits to build until the war was over.  It was impossible to guarantee enough materials.

He warned the builders that one should not buy a lot or hire an architect until assured of obtaining one of the 100 priorities available.

Families of permanent citizenship status with several children would be given priority if they used masonry construction and planned to live in the homes themselves.  Parrish dictated other rules for builders: 

• They could not spend less than $3,500 on construction;
• Houses could not be sold for more than $7,500, even if $15,000 was spent on construction;
• FHA would have final say over types of materials, rental, sale and even the layout of a home;
• FHA would maintain control until the end of the war.

The FHA was formed in the 1930s during the Great Depression with the purpose of providing lenders sufficient insurance. During World War II they kept strict control over home building. Today, the FHA assists those who cannot afford a down payment on a home.

By August of 1945, the City of Fort Lauderdale collected the highest taxes of its history: $656,000. U.S. unemployment rate was 1.9 percent. Japan surrendered August 14, 1945.

By 1948, construction picked up; more supplies were available. Estimated Fort Lauderdale building costs on permits in July topped $1,5 million. Permits increased that year in communities throughout South Florida,

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Sources:

Miami News, Aug. 2 1945

Fort Lauderdale News, July 31, 1948

Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale during World War II, Florida during WWII, Fort Lauderdale during the 1940s, historical researcher