Five US torpedo bombers were lost in the Bermuda Triangle* on this day.

'Flight 19' set off at 2:10 pm on a routine 3 hour training flight from Ft Lauderdale Naval Air Station in Florida. They would never return.

Two hours into the flight the squadron leader radioed back that his compass had failed and that he didn't know his coordinates. The other planes in the group also reported compass failures.

After two hours, base command heard the squadron leader give a message to his men to ditch simultaneously into the water as fuel was running out.

It was quickly determined that Flight 19 were north of the Bahamas and east of the Florida coast. A search and rescue crew of 13 men were sent to find them in a Mariner aircraft. The Mariner radioed back that the mission was underway, and then they were never heard of again. There were reports that an explosion had been seen in the general area where the Mariner would have been.

The loss of 27 men prompted a thorough search and rescue attempt, but nothing was ever found. This could be explained by the fact that stormy weather would have broken up any wreckage.

*The Bermuda Triangle is said to stretch from the southern USA, across to Bermuda, down to the Atlantic coast of Cuba and Santo Domingo.