Last changed 6 September 2021

1945-1974 B25 Mitchell

Forced landing of a B-25 Mitchell 60 miles west of Tennant Creek

B25 D-10 'Mitchell' #41-30222 Hawg-mouth forced landing Thursday 25/1/1945, around 1:50pm

Various locations reported:

1. 19°40'S 133°'E “near a road running east and west and about one mile south of the aircraft”
B25 estimate at time of forced landing: 60 mi west of Tennant Creek

2. approx 90mi west of Tennant Creek (Aircraft History, 3pp.)

3. 19°40'S 133°15'E 60 mi west of Tennant Creek
(i) 1/101/1024 Memo 12/4/45 from DG of CA
(ii) B24 VMZEON on sighting B25 and parachuting supplies
Note: Location 3 is 60.8 mi (97.5km) from Tennant Creek airfield, bearing 273°T.
However the east-west track is further north, around Latitude 19°20-25'S, approximately also the Latitude of the bore west of Warrego used as a base by the 1974 recovery group.

4. 80mi west of Tennant Creek
1945 Recovery Party, night of 25-26/1/1945:
Mr Williams, Shell Agent
A. Wilson, Groundsman

5. from John Elliston, then Geopeko geologist:

Rob Ryan, my Managing Geologist for Northern Australia, and I visited the site of the abandoned USAAF bomber about 60 miles north west of Tennant Creek about 1961–1962 shortly after we had received the colour aerial photographs of the first complete aerial survey of the Tennant Creek field that we (Geopeko) had commissioned. We were mapping for the first time all outcropping formations on the field including a low quartzite ridge that I think was Ashburton sandstone.
It runs for a long way north-south some 20 miles west of Warrego.
I remember we carefully plotted the position of the wrecked (and gutted) bomber on the aerial photos we had used to get to it. Unless the vegetation has been completely burnt off, it would be very difficult to locate without current or recent stereo images because it is way out in level country with turpentine scrub obscuring any horizontal vision for more than a few yards. We had to track to it virtually tree by tree.

Notes:
(a) 'Ashburton Sandstone' has been superseded by 'Tomkinson Creek beds', 'now part of Renner Group'. The reference is presumably to the ridge roughly along Longitude 133°37'E (although this is only about 20km west of Warrego).
(b) black & white aerial photography was acquired on 12–13 May 1962 covering the Green Swamp Well sheet and the western half of the Tennant Creek sheet https://aerialphotography-geoscience-au.hub.arcgis.com/

Discussion of location:
If the Longitude of llocation 3 is correct, where that meridian intersects the the east-west track (19°25+'S 133°15'E) is 62mi (54nm) from Tennant Creek airfield bearing 280°M. This point is now 71mi (114km) by road from Tennant Creek town, and would' have been a bit further before the village of Warrego was established (in the 1960s), not at much variance with location 4.

In 1965 BMR geologists photographed the aircraft near the east-west track made by Whitlock in 1941.

Another photograph on the same occasion is available here (Ralph Nichols has described his background on his Jersey Geology Trail home page.)

Aircraft recovered 3-7 June 1974 from "somewhere west? of bore 20mi west of Warrego", by Darwin Aviation Museum, restored over many years, and put on display. Photos of interior posted April 2008.

Personnel

crew of 5, incl Raymond E. Geer, USAF (Ret'd) Lt/Col.

References

1. Spiesser, Wolf. 1974. How to collect a bomber. Land Rover Owners' Club NT Newsletter June 1974,16-18; August 1974,13-14.

2. Restoration Project. [ca. 1988?] Flightpath, pp.56-58.

3. File held by Darwin Aviation Museum (Historian: Bob Alford)

4. 'Accident to B25 USAAF 222 near Tennant Creek 25.1.45' in envelope 'B25 Mitchell bomber', Dermoudy Collection listing, Peter Spillett Library, Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory. [not yet sighted]

5. John Elliston, email, 19 Oct 2004.

6. Peter Dunn's 'Australia @War' https://web.archive.org/web/20120420122552/http://home.st.net.au/%7Edunn/nt51.htm

7. Pacific Wrecks https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/b-25/41-30222.html

Karlantijpa page

URL http://www.anu.edu.au/linguistics/nash/kt/1945-B25.html