News Letter 1941 Jul-Dec - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Air Forees Seareh
Oeean Flight Ended In Newfoundland
A
five-man party from the Forty-first Reconnaissance
Squadron, stationed at the Newfoundland
Air Base, last month located and
searched the wreckage of civilian flyer Tom
Smith's Aeronca -Baby Clipper- which crashed in
t he rocky wastes of Newfoundland more than two
and a half years ago.
Smith, a pilot from Clarksburg, W. Va. " was
headed for London when he took off from Old Orchard
Beach, Me., on May 28, 1939. He was never
heard from again, and, until recently his fate was
not known. Then the wreckage of his Baht plane
was sighted by an aircraft of the Royal Canadian
Air Force. Search of the site was ordered accomplished
by personnel of the Newfowdland Base Command.
Flying an 0A-9. Lieuts. P.A. Sykes, pilot; R.W.
Boggs, co-pilot; J.H. Shaw, navigator, and F, R,
Amend, observer, and Cpl. R.H. Hubsch, engineer,
set out to locate the plane, reported at approximately
47 0 47' Latitude aOO 57 0 38' Longitwe.
Wreck On Barren Ridge
The search party found the wreck atop a rocky
ridge about 15 mi les north of the south-coast NewfouOOland
town of Burgeo, and three miles east of
a mountain stream named Grandy.Brook. The terrain
was described as mountainous, rocky aOO barren and
with very few trees.
Landing on a small lake at the foot of the
ridge, the men anchored the