By Pentagram Staff
JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, Va. - Family and friends of 40 American servicemen killed in a World War II aviation crash in Mackay, Australia, gathered June 13 to honor the men whose lives were lost.
Fittingly, the granite Bakers Creek air crash monument is nestled close to Arlington National Cemetery; and close to the Lt. Thomas Selfridge Gate on the Fort Myer portion of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. Selfridge was an aviator who died at that spot at Fort Myer during the military’s first aircraft test flight Sept. 9, 1908. Orville Wright, air pioneer, was injured.
When the monument was dedicated in 2009, then-Secretary of the Army Pete Geren said the memorial marker not only stands to honor brave American Soldiers, but also celebrates the “enduring friendship between the United States and Australia.”
Air Commodore Gary Martin, assistant defense attaché, Australia, and Marine Lt. Col. John E. Orille, deputy joint base commander, JBM-HH, laid a wreath at the base of the monument. Other dignitaries included JBM-HH Command Sgt. Maj. Earlene Y. Lavender, American military personnel and joint base civilians who planned the ceremony.
The American servicemen were returning from R and R (rest and recreation) leave in Australia to the jungle battlefields of New Guinea. Their plane crashed shortly after takeoff at about 6 a.m., near Bakers Creek in Mackay, Queensland, Australia, killing all but one person. The event marked the sixth observance on the joint base of the 1940s-era crash. June 14, 2014 was the 71st anniversary of the crash.
Family members of the personnel killed represent 23 states across the United States; six family members are from Pennsylvania.
(Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service, contributed to this article.)
| Date Taken: |
06.13.2014 |
| Date Posted: |
06.20.2014 15:18 |
| Story ID: |
133870 |
| Location: |
JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: |
68 |
| Downloads: |
0 |
PUBLIC DOMAIN
This work, WWII crash victims honored at Bakers Creek memorial, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
