By Alhambra Resident Fame Rybicki

December 5, 1945, 2:15 p.m. The radio in the lead plane of Flight 19, consisting of six Navy Grumman TBM-3 Avenger torpedo bombers, crackled, "This is an emergency. We cannot see land. We are not sure of our position. We seem lost." The term "Bermuda Triangle," was named for Flight 19.

Among the five Flight 19 officers, one trainee pilot and eight enlisted crew members was Lt. Wayne Denning, a 1938 graduate of Alhambra High School.

At 4 p.m., the last words heard by the Ft. Lauderdale tower from Flight 19 were, "We are lost." Moments later, a Navy Martin Mariner rescue plane with a crew of 13 was dispatched to locate Flight 19. Minutes later, that plane, too, disappeared without a trace.

Because suppositions concerning enemy attacks loomed, one of the most intensive ground/sea operations during World War II was conducted. It involved 307 planes, four destroyers, several marines, 18 Coast Guard vessels, hundreds of private planes, yachts and boats. Yet, no life rafts, oil slicks or wreckage were ever recovered.

The area that became known as the Bermuda Triangle previously had claimed hundreds of lives as far back as 1800, with the loss of U.S. naval craft, a British frigate, a German ship, schooners, freighters, yachts, fishing boats, commercial ships, and one submarine.

Ironically, Flight 19's fate and the death of Lt. Denning fulfilled the legend that events occur in threes--two more of Denning's 1938 AHS classmates perished at sea during the war: Gerald Strinz, whose father was an Alhambra policeman, went down on the U.S.S. Utah; and Lt. J. C. England gave his life saving shipmates on the U.S.S. Oklahoma. {Another ship, the U.S.S. England was later named in his honor.}

Additional Website Information:
The Loss of Flight 19
Bermuda Triangle Fact Sheet