Percy Webb tells film crew about our worst aviation disaster

OVER the front timber fence of a neat Mackay home, 87-year-old Percy Webb sat telling his story to a British film crew.

Definition Media director James Fowler and interviewer Garth Barnard film Percy Webb for a Yesterday Channel documentary on the Bakers Creek air crash. Picture: Lee Constable

OVER the front timber fence of a neat Mackay home, 87-year-old Percy Webb sat telling his story to a British film crew.

He recalled the terrible day when, as a strapping 16-year-old, he rode his bike to the horrific scene of a US military aircraft crash that killed 40 American military service personnel.

The crash of the B-17 transport aircraft at Bakers Creek on June 14, 1943, remains Australia's worst aviation disaster but under the cloak of secrecy during the Second World War, the tragedy was censored and details did not emerge until the war was over.

It has been well documented by RSL vice-president and historian Col Benson. He put the independent British documentary makers in touch with Mr Webb.

Watched by his wife Joy, daughter Lesley and grandson Joshua Smith, a sometimes emotional Mr Webb recounted to the interviewer how he heard and saw the B-17 noisily "backfiring" on the runway before taking off.

The butcher shop delivery rider had been on Bridge Rd and watched the B-17 turn and bank.

Realising it had crashed about 8km away he rode as fast as he could to the scene.

There was only one survivor in the wreckage of the 46th Troop Carrier Squadron, nick-named Miss Every Morning Fixin, that took off in foggy weather to fly to Port Moresby.

Mr Webb teared-up, saying "I'm very, very sorry" when he told British interviewer Garth Barnard of the bodies he saw in the wreckage and his feelings about the crash victims.

With the segment filmed by James Fowler, it is part of a Definition Media and Like a Shot documentary filmed for Yesterday Channel UK.

The series of six episodes documents air crashes of military aircraft that were not combat related.

Originally published as Percy Webb tells film crew about our worst aviation disaster