[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 106 Introduced in House (IH)]






109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. CON. RES. 106

  Expressing the sense of Congress that a site in Arlington National 
 Cemetery should be provided for a memorial marker to honor the memory 
 of the 40 members of the Armed Forces who lost their lives in the air 
          crash at Bakers Creek, Australia, on June 14, 1943.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 17, 2005

 Mrs. Capito submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was 
             referred to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                         CONCURRENT RESOLUTION


 
  Expressing the sense of Congress that a site in Arlington National 
 Cemetery should be provided for a memorial marker to honor the memory 
 of the 40 members of the Armed Forces who lost their lives in the air 
          crash at Bakers Creek, Australia, on June 14, 1943.

Whereas during the Second World War, the United States Army Air Corps 
        established rest and recreation facilities in Mackay, Queensland, 
        Australia;
Whereas from the end of January 1943 until early 1944, thousands of United 
        States servicemen were ferried from jungle battlefields in New Guinea to 
        Mackay;
Whereas these servicemen traveled by air transport to spend an average of 10 
        days on a rest and relaxation furlough;
Whereas they usually were carried by two B-17C Flying Fortresses converted for 
        transport duty;
Whereas on Monday, June 14, 1943, at about 6 a.m., a B-17C, Serial Number 40-
        2072, took off from Mackay Airport for Port Moresby;
Whereas there were 6 crew members and 35 passengers aboard;
Whereas the aircraft took off into fog and soon made two left turns at low 
        altitude;
Whereas a few minutes after takeoff, when it was five miles south of Mackay, the 
        plane crashed at Bakers Creek, killing everyone on board except Corporal 
        Foye Kenneth Roberts of Wichita Falls, Texas, the sole survivor of the 
        accident;
Whereas the cause of the crash remains a mystery, and the incident remains 
        relatively unknown outside of Australia;
Whereas United States officials, who were under orders not to reveal the 
        presence of Allied troops in Australia, kept the crash a military secret 
        during the war;
Whereas due to wartime censorship, the news media did not report the crash;
Whereas relatives of the victims received telegrams from the United States War 
        Department stating little more than that the serviceman had been killed 
        somewhere in the South West Pacific;
Whereas the remains of the 40 crash victims were flown to Townsville, 
        Queensland, where they were buried in the Belgian Gardens United States 
        military cemetery on June 19, 1943;
Whereas in early 1946, they were disinterred and shipped to Hawaii, where 13 
        were reburied in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, and the 
        remainder were returned to the United States mainland for reburial;
Whereas 15 years ago, Robert S. Cutler was reading his father's wartime journal 
        and found a reference to the tragic B-17C airplane accident;
Whereas this discovery inspired Mr. Cutler to embark upon a research project 
        that would consume more than a decade and take him to Australia;
Whereas retired United States Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Teddy W. Hanks, of 
        Wichita Falls, Texas, who lost four of his World War II buddies in the 
        crash, compiled a list of the casualties from United States archives in 
        1993 and began searching for their families;
Whereas the Bakers Creek Memorial Association, in conjunction with the 
        Washington Post and retired United States Army genealogy experts Charles 
        Gailey and Arvon Staats, located 23 additional families of victims of 
        the accident during the past two years;
Whereas Joy Shingleton, Donnie Tenney, Wendy Andrus, and Wilma Post, the family 
        of Army Air Corps Corporal Edward J. Tenney, of Buckhannon, West 
        Virginia, helped to bring this recently uncovered World War II tragedy 
        to light; and
Whereas as of February 24, 2005, the commander of the United States Fifth Air 
        Force officially has notified the relatives of 36 of the 40 victims: 
        Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),  
That it is the sense of Congress that an appropriate site in Arlington 
National Cemetery should be provided for a memorial marker to honor the 
memory of the 40 members of the Armed Forces of the United States who 
lost their lives in the air crash at Bakers Creek, Australia, on June 
14, 1943, provided that the Secretary of the Army have exclusive 
authority to approve the design and site for the memorial marker.
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