Searchers hope to solve mystery of lost Australian WWII airmen

For the families of 21 aircrew onboard two Australian aircraft lost in World War II, the long wait for answers might be nearly over.

The crew of the RAAF Catalina prior to its last mission. Sergeant James Robinson is pictured at bottom left. Picture: Supplied

For the families of 21 aircrew onboard two Australian aircraft lost in World War II, the long wait for answers might be nearly over.

Australian soldiers are to mount an expedition, possibly as early as this month, to a Philippines island to examine a crash site that could contain wreckage of one of the missing planes. Both were lost in the region in the latter years of the war.

Despite lengthy searches and investigations after the war, no trace was found of crews on the Liberator bomber and the Cata­lina flying boat. Generations have been left not knowing whether their relatives died in a crash or at the hands of the Japanese.

Nine airmen were on the Cata­lina A24-64, known as the Dabster, which was tasked with dropping mines into Manila Bay on December 14, 1944.

On the Liberator were 11 Australian aircrew and one British officer returning from a secret mission to drop Z Special Forces into Borneo on March 15, 1945.

Both aircraft failed to return to a base at Mindoro Island in The Philippines and extensive search efforts and investigations during and after the war found no clues.

Last year, a group of Aus­tralians associated with the embassy in Manila made a trek to a location on a mountain on the island rumoured to contain evidence of a World War II plane wreck.

On the site, high on the mountainside and blanketed in thick lantana and jungle vines, they found .303 ammunition and other material relating to a wreck, items that were provided to Defence, which then alerted relatives to say inquiries were under way.

This week, one of those relatives, Maree Oddy, whose mother’s first husband, James Henry Cox, was lost on the Dabster, confirmed she was contacted by air force history and heritage ­director-general Air Commodore John Meier.

“Firstly I am pleased to inform you the air force intends to send a small team to conduct a reconnaissance of the site, most likely in February 2019, to see if the wreckage can be positively identified,’’ he said in an email.

Ms Oddy has inquired for years about the plane’s fate after being told by a WWII airman who was on another Catalina that the Dabster was thought to have crashed into a mountain.

She said her mother was tormented by what had happened to Jim and finding a crash site would have given her some closure. “She died not knowing. She knew the plane had not gone back and she thought it was in the ocean.”

Also missing on Dabster are flight lieutenants Herbert Cunningham Roberts and Frank William Silvester; flying officers Robert Carlisle Barbour and Raymond Harold Bradstreet; and ­sergeants James Robert Robinson, David John Albert, John Charles MacDonald and Harold Goodchild.

Lost on the Liberator are Squadron Leader Pockley; Pilot Officer Charles Cox; flight officers Leonard Francis Day, David Prenton Gradwell and Ronald Roy Farmer; sergeants Eric Mileham Litchfield, Robert Roland Hale, Keith Mervyn Low, Charles Kevin Ponting, Leslie Ernest Tomkin and Kenneth Charles Wilmshurst; and British army officer Major HE Ellis.