A Treasure Hunt Mystery Becomes History
In the early evening of November 16, 1942, six airmen boarded a B26 Marauder at a Fort Myers, Florida Army Air Base (now known as Page Field), for a training mission.
50 minutes after takeoff, the air base received a radio call from the aircraft saying the crew was bailing out. Then, nothing.
A Story of Lost Airmen of WWII:
A B26 Marauder Recovery
Ask Tom O’Brien what He Thinks Is More Valuable Than Gold.
HIS ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU.
Tom and his friends set out to locate billions of dollars in gold bullion that was supposedly smuggled out of Cuba on four B-26 bombers during the Castro revolution. Legend has it that one of the planes crashed in the Gulf of Mexico.
Tom and his crew found a B-26 alright, but what it carried was a much more valuable cargo than gold bullion.
It carried the hopes, dreams and aspirations of six brave, patriotic airmen who wanted to protect our American way of life during World War II. Unfortunately, before they would be sent overseas, the bomber they were training in, a B-26 Marauder, crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. With no trace of the aircraft having ever been found, and only two bodies recovered, the military eventually gave up the search and illogically labeled the crash “Pilot Charged with Accident”.
Instead of searching for gold, they now had a new priority:
To exonerate these men by proving that the crash was the result of a catastrophic mechanical failure common in the B-26’s. The Underwater Historical Explorations (UHA) was born.
It turned the former “treasure hunt” into a search for the truth, which would hopefully vindicate these airmen and eliminate 66 years of misinformation that was stamped on the military accident report.
UHE commissioned several expert researchers to identify the aircraft, them more researchers to forensically comb through the wreckage that was being captured on underwater, high definition video; all at a substantial cost to Tom and his team. They did it with no thought of reimbursement other than the satisfaction of clearing the names of the 6 airmen that lost their lives that frightful day.
“UHE Documentary Sound Track”. Released: 2009