Brett

But it wasn't actually a patrol.

These weren't guys out...

you know, looking for enemies or anything like that.

This was a training exercise and it was about the simplest training exercise you could imagine.

Five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, collectively known as Flight 19, were scheduled to complete a two hour and 40 minute exercise known as Navigation Problem Number One.

A couple of things about that.

It's flight 19 because there are 18 flights before it that had completed this same problem.

Number two, it's navigation problem number one.

It is as simple a navigation exercise as you can imagine.

Only a two hour and 40 minute flight to complete the entire thing.

The sort of exercise that no one could have imagined would turn into a tragedy.

That's a really good point and some nice foreshadowing to what might have happened here.

For those of you who don't know, so the Avenger torpedo bomber, this is a World War II era plane.

This is all happening in December of 1945.

So these are planes that had taken off of carriers during World War II in the Pacific Ocean.

Specifically, they were used to sink carriers and other naval ships.

Basically, they had a massive torpedo underneath them.

They would dive low, fly right over the ocean, get as close as they could while these ships are firing everything they have at them and then drop their torpedo.

And then the torpedo would take off and hit the ship.

And these are the kind of planes that won all the great battles of the Pacific Ocean.