WW2 Pacific Treasures: The sad story of B-25D-5 "Elusive Lizzie/Miss America"

The B-25D-5 "Elusive Lizzie/Miss America". Photo supplied by Rod Pearce

Wartime History

Assigned to the 5th Air Force, 38th Bombardment Group, 405th Bombardment Squadron. Nicknamed "Elusive Lizzie". Later, it was renamed "Miss America", then both nicknames were then completely covered by 38th Bombardment Group's "Green Dragon" nose art motif insignia.

Mission History

On August 5, 1943 took off from 17-Mile (Durand) near Port Moresby piloted by Cox on a barge sweep off Madang and a strike against Madang Airfield. Damaged by anti-aircraft fire, this B-25 ditched between Wongat Island and the coast of New Guinea. During the ditching, Zimmerman drowned in the aircraft

Fates of the Crew

Afterward, the rest of the crew swam to Wongat Island and were captured by the Japanese and became Prisoners Of War (POW). Together, they were transported to the Kempei Tai Headquarters at Amron where they were repeatedly beaten and interrogated over twelve days.

Around August 17, 1943 Major Cox was seporated and flown to Rabaul, and then transported aboard ship to Japan. He survived the war at Omori POW Camp in Tokyo.

On August 31, 1943, the other four crew members: Koscelnak, Louis. Ritacco and Hugh Anderson, were blindfolded and escorted down from Amron to an execution ground. Each was bayoneted then beheaded. Afterwards, Owen Salvage, the sole survivor of B-25D 41-30221 was also executed. Lastly, Robert Herry was tied between two posts and bayoneted to death.

Post war affidavit L/Cpl Yasukuni Tani. (clerk, Kempei Tai Amron) states:

“The actual execution was to be three prisoners by Kempei Tai and two by headquarters Sentry Guard Unit. However, 1st Lt. Matsumoto’s Kempei Tai members said, “We will execute the three prisoners for the revenge of the death of our comrade, Cpl Nakano. 

This Matsumoto’s Unit had a conflict several weeks ago at Kesa village, which is located at the head of the Ramu River. The three prisoners were blindfolded and escorted down the mountain to the execution ground by the Kempei Tai members and Sgt Major Kawawa, Cpl Ishikawa and S.Pvt Ozawa. 

After about 20 minutes had elapsed, Matsumoto’s Kempei Tai group came back and said, “The execution is over now, we will proceed back immediately” and walked towards Kempei Tai Headquarters."

Recovery of Remains

Postwar, New Guinea natives assisted US Army AGRS to locate and recover the remains of at least two members of the crew from the graves where they were buried at Amron. These remains were buried at Finschhafen Cemetery as unknowns.

On March 15, 1948, that dental charts for unknowns X-17 and X-14 compared favorably with those of Herry and Koscelneck, but awaited further medical evidence before making an identification. Later, these remains were positively identified.

Wreckage

On September 5, 1979, this B-25 was located by David Pennefather.

David Pennefather adds:

"I was a keen diver and lived in Madang at that time. I was snorkeling off Wongat looking for a reported sunken aircraft said to have crashed there. After hours in the water, I dived down for the last time and there on the seabed lay the B-25. 

I returned to Madang grabbed some scuba gear and with another diver headed back to explore and photograph the aircraft. Within a few days of the discovery, vandals removed the side guns and other artifacts."

Since then, this wreck has become a popular dive site.  It is fully intact except for the port engine which is missing (torn off during the ditching). The port wing tip is at 12-15 meters and the starboard wing is at 25 meters. 

The main body of the plane is at about 18 meters depth. The four machine guns are visible through the damaged nose section and ammunition hoppers visible. 

There is still a considerable number of 50 caliber rounds inside but they are cemented into place by sealife. Both cockpit hatches are open. Large sponges and fans cover the wreck.

Memorials

Zimmerman was officially delcared dead the day of the mission. He is memorialized on the tablets of the missing at Manila American Cemetery.

After the identification of the recovered remains, Koscelnak was buried at Manila American Cemetery at plot C row 16 grave 59. Anderson was buried in 1950 at Aspermont Cemetery in Aspermont, TX at block N.

Command Pilot  Major Williston M. Cox, O-426370 (POW, survived) TN

Pilot  Captain Robert L. Herry, O-421090 (POW, executed August 31, 1943) TX

Co-Pilot  2nd Lt Robert J. Koscelnak, O-732556 (POW, executed August 31, 1943) Orange, CA

Navigator  1st Lt Louis J. Rittaco, O-660907 (POW, executed August 31, 1943) NJ

Engineer  S/Sgt Raymond J. Zimmerman, 39304264 (MIA / KIA) OR

Radio  T/Sgt Hugh W. Anderson, 38069521 (POW, executed August 31, 1943) Aspermont TX

Ditched  August 5, 1943

MARC  16113

Aircraft History

Built by North American as a model D-5. Delivered to the U. S. Army. Ferried overseas via Hawaii to Australia.

SOURCE

The Odyssey of Jacob Bensoua, a World War II Greek soldier of Jewish descent

Jacob, far left, and servicemen work on a truck.

The Odyssey of Jacob Bensoua, a Greek of Jewish descent, during the turbulent times of WW2 and the ensuing Greek Civil War (1946-49), is published for the first time. 

Jacob told his story to his daughter Mattika Rosenthal and I personally wish to thank his son Joe for sharing it through my blog. 

NOTE: I have kept Mr. Bensoua's story exactly as it was written, with the exception of some Greek names, which I changed to their actual spelling. Every other detail remains exactly as it was written by Mattika Rosenthal, the daughter of Jacob Bensoua.

Portrait of Jacob as a corporal 

Jacob Bensoua, born the youngest of seven children in Macedonia, Greece, in 1920 to Joseph and Miriyam Ben-yeoshua, saw his share of World War II battles. 

Because of the continued hostilities between Greece and Turkey, in 1923 Jacob went to live with his oldest sister, Gentil, and her husband, Sabetay, in Paris, where he attended Le Israelite Academy de Rothchild, learning French, in addition to the Greek and Turkish he had learned at home. He was bar mitzvahed and finished school in Paris. 

Jacob on the right, with civilian friend on left, circa 1948

When the Germans invaded France, he returned to Greece to join the Greek Battalion of the British Army. After the Nazis invaded Crete in May 1941, he helped defend the island, where he was severely wounded. 

Young Jacob, far right, in a family portrait. From left is sister Gentil, her husband Sabetay and an unidentified teen, possibly another brother.

Dad was a paratrooper (alexiptotistis) and was sent behind enemy lines when the Germans invaded. He was wounded by a bullet on the side of his head. He also had two broken legs and a bayonet wound on his right forearm. These are the things he told me about being behind enemy lines.

He said some old women found him unconscious and took him to a barn where they set his legs and took care of his head wound. They took care of him for a few months until his legs healed and then he went and rejoined his group before being taken prisoner.

My Dad never ate chicken. I can't eat it either because I keep remembering the stories he told me about the conditions behind enemy lines. He told me that sometimes they would have raw eggs and raw chicken. 

He told me they did not carry guns, only knives and a garot wire. He said they had to forage for food, and that they could never light a fire for fear of giving away their position to the enemy.

He also told me that he was a prisoner of war in a German camp. He said he was very young and because he spoke French, he kind of struck up a friendship with one of the Germans, and that the German let him escape. Again, he found and rejoined his company. To hide being Jewish, he had papers with a Greek alias, Kyriakos Dimitrios.

The next battle that he talked about a lot, especially when the “Rat Patrol” (1966) TV series aired, was with a blended allied army in the North African fight for El Alemain under British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. 

He was assigned to a tank division, and volunteered to be the lead tank to make sure that the other tanks did not hit any landmines. He said that he did hit a landmine, but that he only injured his left foot. At the end of this battle  he was awarded a battlefield  promotion (corporal).

I asked him once if they ever ran out of water in the desert like on the TV show, he laughed and said that he would use the hot radiator water to shave with. So no, they didn't run out of water.

It was after the war that he learned many of his family members and relatives perished in the Holocaust.

When the war was over, he was still attached to the British army. This was the time of the Greek Civil War. He was a guard at the royal palace, and also at the nearby prison, Averoff.

Averoff Prison

I wondered how the prison had a Russian name since it was in Athens. It was named after a politician aligned with General Metaxas. This is the prison where “Rena” and our Mother (Eleanora Isaac) and several other Jewish women were being held. 

They let Mom go after her cousins came down and got her, because she was just hiding in the mountains. She never shot anybody or blew up a train or spied on anyone. She was just up there under the protection of the Andartes (resistance fighters or guerillas in Greek).

Smoke rises from the Averoff Prison in Athens as Bristol Beaufighters of No. 39 Squadron RAF attack prison buildings, December 1944

Some called them rebels, some freedom fighters. Since Rena was Mom’s cousin, it could have been guilt by association. But Rena and her then husband, Dinos Samaras, were leaders of the anti-government movement. Rena was the highest ranking female officer in the movement.

Now this gets interesting. Dad was assigned as a guard (evzone) at the palace. He said that Greece’s King Paul only wanted Jewish and British soldiers as guards. This is because they were afraid of an assassination attempt or the kidnapping of the children, two girls and a boy. King Paul didn't trust the Greeks to be guards. He would also joke and say that the Greeks were too short, because you had to be tall to be a guard.

(Paul had returned to Greece in 1946. He succeeded to the throne in 1947, on the death of his childless elder brother, King George II, during the Greek Civil War between Greek Communists and the non-communist Greek government.)

Averoff prison was attacked by the Andartes (communists) to rescue their jailed comrades. Some of the British soldiers that were assigned to the prison were shot and I believe some died.

Another view of the Averoff prison (pre-WW2 photo)

I recall Mom telling me that during the Greek Civil War Dad was at some reception attended by the rabbi of Athens, who took him aside and told him that because he was Jewish, he would appreciate it if he could look in on the Jewish women that were being held in the prison. 

They were not just being held there, they were being tortured as well. They were being held awaiting trials. The prison was right around the corner from the palace.

Street fighting in Athens, during the "Dekemvriana", the fighting between communist guerillas and British-backed government troops, in December 1944. The soldiers manning the Bren machine gun are British paratroopers, while the others running to take cover are Greek government gendarmes and troops. 

One of the women being held would be his future wife, Eleanora, whose husband, Shaul, was killed at Auschwitz.

They were married on Jan. 10, 1949. They waited for almost 2 years until they were allowed to emigrate to the U.S. They arrived in Ellis Island on Dec. 29, 1951. 

The expectant parents traveled to Los Angeles, and within a week delivered twins, Mattika and Joseph (named after his parents.) Gentil soon followed in 1953, and Esther arrived in 1957. 

He was the head of one of the first post-World War II refugee families from Greece to settle in Los Angeles in 1951. 

He and Eleanora would eventually divorce. He died peacefully in his home in Los Angeles, with his new wife, Theresa, at his side, on April 16, 2008. 

When thousands of Italian PoWs drowned: The forgotten tragedies of the Aegean and the Ionian during WW2

Italian POWs in Corfu Island, Greece, 1943. Unfortunately, most of the soldiers on this photo most probably drowned during their transportation to mainland Greece (Photo: Bundesarchiv)

A series of forgotten tragedies claimed the lives of more than 13,000 Italian Prisoners of War during their transportation from the Greek islands of the Aegean and the Ionian to the mainland.

A prewar advertisement for ARDENA, which sank with 779 Italian POW's drowned

Thousands of helpless souls drowned in shipwrecks in the Greek Seas, while the nazi Germans treated their former allies as traitors.

Among those shipwrecks, the Oria wreck (READ HERE THE SAD STORY OF ORIA and see my video of what remains of the wreck today) in Gaidouronissi Island (also known as Patroklos Island), close to Sounio, where the Ancient Temple of Poseidon is located, claimed the lives of over 4,000 Italians, making it the single deadliest shipwreck in the Mediterranean and among the worst maritime disasters of all time worldwide.

A series of shipwrecks accounted for the vast majority of drowned Italians, while the Germans summarily executed thousands more in Kefalonia Island (Acqui Division, their fate was portrayed in the Hollywood movie "Captain Corelli's Mandolin") and in the islands of the Dodecanese in the Aegean (mainly in Kos, Rodos and Leros).

The story of ORIA, the wreck, the casualties, the reports

Indicative list of Italian POW's shipwrecks in Greece

Donizetti, Sep. 23 1943, Rhodes, 1,796 killed.

Ardena, Sep. 27 1943, Kefalonia, 779 killed.

Marguerite, Oct. 13 1943, Kefalonia, 550 killed.

Mario Roselli, Oct. 11 1943, Corfu, 1,302 killed.

Sinfra, Oct. 20 1943, Crete, 2,098 killed.

Petrella, Feb. 8 1944, Crete, 2,670 killed.

Oria, Feb. 12 1944, Cape Sounion, 4,074 killed.

The Marguerite (former San Mames), which sank on October 13, 1943, with the loss of 549 souls (Photo: George Karelas)

Mr. George Karelas, a Greek researcher and scuba diver from Patras, Greece, dived at the wreck of the Marguerite and vividly describes his experience: 

"The wreck lies at a depth of 85 meters. The fact that this ship was lost with over 500 souls intensified the tightness I felt while I was descending to the wreck.

The wreck is situated in the middle of the sea. However, during my dive in August the visibility conditions were ideal. 

The wreck was beautiful and bright despite the depth of 85 meters and it is hard to imagine  the gloomy night of October 13, 1943 when the sinking took the lives of 549 people". 

Mr. Karelas researched the fate of the Italian POW's and highlighted the following two stories:

The lucky one: Giovanni Braganza 

Giovanni had boarded the Ardena which sank shortly after its departure from the port of Argostoli in Kefalonia on September 27, 1943 with approximately 1,000 Italian prisoners, out of which over 770 drowned. 

Having survived this tragedy Giovanni boarded the Marguerite. He described the dramatic moments when the prisoners fell into the sea after the explosion and the gradual sinking of the ship.

"I was in the water for 10 to 12 hours and  I saw groups of Italians, some trying to hang on to others and eventually disappearing under water. I felt despair, that my fate was to follow theirs, one by one lost beneath the terrible waves ...". 

Giovanni was lucky, he survived to tell the terrible tale of the Ardena and Marguerite shipwrecks. 

Memorial for the drowned and executed Italians in Kefalonia Island, Ionian Sea, Greece

The unlucky one: Pascale Vito

Mr. Karelas says: "I chose to mention this unknown Italian who died in the sinking of Marguerite and I learned about him by coincidence. 

Pascale, son of Pascale Giuseppe and Sollitti Angela was born in the village of Saint Archangelo on 10/13/1923 and on the day of the shipwreck, he would have celebrated his 20th birthday. 

The war was over for him and his mind was at home and the girl that was probably waiting for him. The fate played a very bad game. Pascale drowned on his birthday and his friend and compatriot Francesco De Luca, who survived the wreck, took on the difficult role to convey the bad news to the unlucky Pascale's family."

Italian Military Internees (Italienische MilitärInternierte, IMI)

Italian Military Internees (Italienische MilitärInternierte, IMI) was the official name given by the nazis to the Italian soldiers captured, rounded up and deported in the territories of Nazi Germany in Operation Achse in the days immediately following the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces (September 8, 1943).

After disarmament by the Germans, the Italian soldiers and officers were confronted with the choice to continue fighting as allies of the German army (either in the armed forces of the Italian Social Republic, the German puppet regime in northern Italy, or in Italian "volunteer" units in the German armed forces) or, otherwise, be sent to detention camps in Germany. 

Only 10 percent of the Italians agreed to enroll. The others were considered "prisoners of war". 

Later they were re-designated "military internees" by the Germans, so as to not recognize the rights granted prisoners of war by the Third Geneva Convention, and finally, in the autumn of 1944 until the end of the war, "civilian workers", so they could be subjected to hard labor without protection of the Red Cross.

The Nazis considered the Italians as traitors and not as prisoners of war. The former Italian soldiers were sent into forced labor in war industries (35.6%), heavy industry (7.1%), mining (28.5%), construction (5.9%) and agriculture (14.3%). 

The working conditions were very bad. The Italians were inadequately fed or clothed for the German winter. Many became sick.

Italians waving white flags and surrendering in 1943

Numbers of Italian prisoners and casualties

The Germans disarmed and captured 1,007,000 Italian soldiers, out of a total of approximately 2,000,000 actually in the army. 

Of these, 196,000 fled during the deportation. Of the remaining approximately 810,000 (of which 58,000 were caught in France, 321,000 in Italy and 430,000 in the Balkans),  and 94,000, including almost all of the Blackshirts of the MVSN, decided immediately to accept the offer to fight alongside the Germans. 

This left a total of approximately 710,000 Italian soldiers deported into German prison camps with the status of IMI. 

By the spring of 1944, some 103,000 had declared themselves ready to serve in Germany or the Italian Social Republic, as combatants or as auxiliary workers. In total, therefore, between 600,000 and 650,000 soldiers refused to continue the war alongside the Germans.

WW2 Pacific Treasures: Bob Halstead, the award-winning photographer

As a teenager in England, Bob became fascinated by the underwater adventures of Hans and Lotte Hass. In 1968, armed with an Honours degree from King’s College London University in Physics/Mathematics and a Post-Grad. Certificate in Education, Bob departed England for a teaching post as Head of the Physics Department at Queen’s College Nassau, Bahamas where he immediately learned to dive, fell in love with diving adventure, and bought an underwater camera.

In 1970 Bob became a NAUI instructor (# 2000) at Freeport, Grand Bahama. 

In 1973 he moved to Papua New Guinea and started a systematic exploration of its reefs and wrecks that continues to this day. Bob, with his diver wife Dinah, formed PNG’s first full time sport diving business in 1977 with a dive shop and school in Port Moresby and ran adventurous “Camp and Dive Safaris” in Milne Bay Province, from their dive boat Solatai, starting the promotion of organized dive tourism to PNG.

A celebrated underwater photographer, Bob has won many awards including the Australasian Underwater Photographer of the year award in 1983. In 1986, he started the first PNG live-aboard dive boat operation, Telita Cruises with the 20 meter dive charter vessel, Telita, a boat built in PNG to his specifications and under Bob’s personal supervision. This pioneering vessel, with Bob as Captain and Dinah as Hostess and cook, was the first to explore and promote many of the diving sites now popular with diving visitors to PNG.

The areas he loves best are those marked on the charts “Caution, Un-surveyed.” Bob has led sport diving, filming and scientific expeditions exploring underwater all the coastal regions of PNG, and made over 10,000 dives in the process including as consultant to the Cousteau Society, the BBC and National Geographic. Bob has discovered several marine species new to science. A Sand Diver fish, Trichonotus halstead, was named after Bob and Dinah in 1996, and Bob has a new species of Razor fish named after him, Xyrichtys halsteadi.

“Muck Diving”, now a diving genre, is a phrase coined by Bob to describe dives he led in less attractive environments searching for exotic creatures. He also introduced tourists to diving with living nautilus, when this was previously the sole realm of scientists. In 2004, already a NAUI instructor for more than 30 years, and more than twice the age of the next younger candidate, Bob successfully completed a full PADI Instructor Course.

Bob has published 8 books on diving and marine life, chapters in several other books, and hundreds of magazine stories on diving safety, marine life and PNG dive sites, characterized by fine photography, thoughtful messages and a sense of humor. His best known articles extol the difference between “Risk” and “Danger” and emphasize the importance of self-sufficiency in diving skills, knowledge and equipment.

Bob’s Coral Sea Reef Guide – a book which has achieved iconic status in the region – provides divers with a beautifully illustrated reference to most of the fishes and invertebrates that divers are likely to encounter in the Coral Sea region which includes the Great Barrier Reef, PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

In 2008 Bob was inducted into the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame.

He now lives in Cairns, Australia, spending his time writing about Scuba Diving and guiding special diving adventures to Papua New Guinea and the Coral Sea on private vessels and on the top Papua New Guinea dive vessels. 

His new dive partner and fiancee, Kirtley Leigh can be seen on the P38 wreck above and the old anchors. His favorite dives are still those that others have not yet dived.

Visit Bob's site to check his great work

Check Bob's Coral Sea Fish Guide on facebook

Check Bob's Coral Sea Fish Guide On iTunes

WW2 Pacific Treasures: The Hellcat of the Solomons, by Andrew Hamilton

The Hellcat Wreck is one of the most accessible airplane wrecks in the Solomons. The wreck is upright, intact and in just 9m of clear water.

The Grumman F6F Hellcat was a carrier-based fighter aircraft designed to replace the earlier F4F Wildcat.

The Hellcat became the Navy’s dominant fighter in the second part of World War II, a position it did not relinquish.

The Hellcat was best known for its role as a rugged, well-designed carrier fighter which was able to counter the Mitsubishi A6M Zero and help secure air superiority over the Pacific.

Such was the quality of the basic simple, straightforward design, that the Hellcat was the least modified fighter of the war, with a total of 12,200 being built in just over two years.

The wreck sits on the broken branching coral surrounded by fine branching coral. This means no silty sediment which means great visibility. One of the most accessible airplane wrecks in the Solomons.

1916-2016: Celebrations for the centenary of the sinking of HMHS Britannic and the S/S Burdigala

According to the event website http://100years-kea-shipwrecks.org/  a three day commemorative event in Kea Island, Cyclades, Greece during the weekend  of Friday 30th September to  Sunday 2nd October 2016, will celebrate the “100 Years from the sinkings of S/S BURDIGALA & HMHS BRITANNIC”.

According to the local organisers, a series of lectures and other events will highlight the history of those shipwrecks, out of which the "Britannic" obviously stands out, not only because of her relation to the famous "Titanic", but also because of her pristine condition.

The Titanic is a shipwreck that has attracted the interest of the audience for over 100 years, since its sinking back in 1912.

Few are aware though that her sister ship the Britannic, sunk during WW1 in the Aegean Sea, Greece, on November 21st, 1916, with the loss of 30 persons out of the 1065 people on board and is now resting on the seabed in almost perfect condition.

The strait between Makronissos and Kea islands, just a few miles from the Temple of Poseidon on the southern tip of Attica, is one of the busiest sea passages, since antiquity with a history of 2500 years of navigation. 

"Victim" of the First World War, the Britannic was retrofitted into a hospital ship and sank after hitting a German mine that had been laid in late October by the German submarine U 73 and stayed for decades forgotten until the famous French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau located and identified it in 1975. 

Since then, several diving and scientific expeditions have visited the wreck, which is of great interest, both because of its almost perfect condition, almost 100 years after the sinking, and because of its historical and archaeological significance. 

Unlike the "Titanic" that dragged more than 1,500 people at the bottom of the sea, the "Britannic" was more... merciful since just 30 people perished with her.

The "identity" of the Britannic

The "Britannic", one of three almost identical ocean liners of the shipping company "White Star", (the other two being the "Titanic" which sank in 1912 and the "Olympic" which was sold for scrap in the 1920s) is synonymous with luxury transatlantic voyages in the early 20th century.

It was launched in February 1914

Requisitioned in December 1915

Sank in November 1916

Registered length: 259.80 meters

Gross registered tonnage: 48,158

Cruising speed: 21 knots

UPDATE! The "Bat", an Italian SM81 bomber between Kas and Kastellorizo

The aircraft wreck close to the coast of Turkey, located at sea between the city of Kas and the Greek island of Kastellorizo is not a SM79 "Sparviero" (hawk), as previously thought, but a SM81 "Pipistrello" (bat), with the code 223-4.

Details emerged as to its identity from Italian historians who researched the archives and found out the fate of this specific aircraft wreck, which was documented photographically by Turkish scuba diver and underwater explorer Asım Karsçakar

According to Italian researcher Corrado Ferrari, who pointed out the details, on the night of 25 February 1941, a British commando unit invaded the island of Kastellorizo, held at the time by Italians. 

At 11:25 of the next morning, 4 SM81 "Pipistrello" bombers of 223a Squadriglia took off from Cattavia air base in Rodos Island, in order to bomb the commando and to provide air support to the Italian garrison. 

At 12:00 a lone SM81 took off from the same air base to check the results of the bombing. 

As it was flying at a very low altitude it was hit by ground fire and was forced to ditch at sea, just 1 mile west of Kastellorizo. 

The plane was coded 223-4 - m.m. 20452 or 20492.

The pilot was tenente Oscar Pegna from Livorno. 

All the crew was later rescued by a Cant Z506 after refusing help from a Turkish boat. 

For this mission tenente Pegna was awarded the Italian silver medal and this fact is described in the explanatory statement of the medal (you can read it in the website  www.istitutonastroazzurro.org).

With special thanks to Asım Karsçakar for the underwater photos  and Corrado Ferrari for the updated information on the identity of the aircraft wreck.