Washington orders military to develop hurricane-warning system. Navy crews back from Pacific chosen for task. Squadron 114 forms at Masters Field, Miami where they train and track storms from Barbados in the Eastern Caribbean to Honduras and Belize in the west. Then in September Hurricane # IX takes aim at Miami and the Hurricane Hunter’s base. The storm hits them with hurricane winds clocked at 139 mph. We also hear the drama, from island people, over short-wave radio, through panic-stricken voices as they describe their own doom. Lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Flight 19 made up of five TBM Avengers with fourteen airmen aboard take off from NAS Ft. Lauderdale at 2:00 pm on the afternoon of December 5, 1945. They are on a routine navigation, bombing and strafing exercise. Flight leader Lt. Charles Taylor takes a trailing position with one of the students in the lead. At 3:40 pm a muddled distress call is heard from the student leader. Lt. Taylor takes the lead, but is disoriented—believes they are over the Florida Keys, when in fact they are likely over the Bahamas Banks. We follow Flight 19 minute by minute as the tragedy unfolds.
Hi my name is Tom Barnes and I'm an actor, writer and hurricane hunter.
I was born in Ft. Myers, Florida, and brought up in central Georgia where I got hooked on Civil War stories. I dutifully wrote those stories into my war journal and got my first taste for writing.
At age 17 I joined the Navy, earned my Aircrew Wings and spent a season with the Hurricane Hunters.
Following my hitch in the Navy I returned to school, studied English literature at Middle Georgia College and drama at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. I did dozens of plays ranging from Our Town and Uncle Vanya to My Three Angels and The Tender Trap.
Then I moved to New York for Off Broadway, summer stock and worked with Bert Lahr in Harvey, Vera Miles in The Country Girl and June Lockhart in Forty Carats.
PBS hired me to do the TV Series, "Georgia's Heritage" - as writer and host, narrator.
During our last segment of Heritage I had my first brush with the legendary Doc Holliday.
Most of my writing has a touch of history, even my blogs where I write stories about everything from the Algonquin Round Table and the characters that gathhered there for lunch during the 1920's, to the growth of the movie industry and horse racing's Triple Crown. Then going back to my season with the Hurricane Hunters I blog about hurricanes and the Bermuda Triangle.
