A chunk of metal pulled from Johns Pond in Mashpee rests on the grass. Boston-based historian Eric Wiberg, who found the piece last Friday, believes it is from the wreck of a fighter jet that crashed into the pond in 1949.
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Historic Plane Falls Short of Ambitious Goal in Exuma
IN 1930, two significant historical aircraft, one with a life-long crippled man as radio operator, the other with a single-handing Australian aviatrix, crashed in The Bahamas, in Andros and Exuma. #Because the woman quickly retrieved her aircraft and the pilot of the Exuma wreck was burned after it flipped and caught fire in a swamp […]
WATCH: Searching for History in Cedar Swamp
In June, HopNews published an article on a mid-air plane crash above Hopkinton that occurred in 1943, written by guest author Jim Nash. Mr. Nash described a terrible accident involving two P-43 Thunderbolt fighter planes that had been flying in formation and collided, resulting in the death of one of the pilots and the eventual […]
Clifton Bay, Lyford Cay, B-26 All KIA
FOUR RAF pilots, from the UK, Canada, and South Africa, came within 100 feet of a smooth water landing yards off Lyford Cay one fall evening when things suddenly went horribly wrong. #The plane, one of its engines ablaze, smashed into the reef between Goulding Cay and Clifton Bay, Lyford Cay and even though help […]
Confirming a Family Story: Able Seaman W.A. Hood
Information passed down through our friend Amber’s family was that Walter A. Hood was a merchant sailor who died after his ship was torpedoed in WWII. In fact, it was his son (and Amber’s great grandfather) Augustus William Hood—who went by William Augustus Hood or W.A. Hood— born 19 November 1900 in Belize, who […]
The story of the aircraft lost in The Bahamas – Moore’s Island, Abaco: FM-2 Wildcat Fighter
Nylon stockings, parachutes and wreckage found on Acklins of a B-26 Bomber
Women who donated her nylon stockings to the US war effort might not know they often became parachutes, four of which floated to earth and sea over Acklins. After Ralph Stevens rolled out of a doomed bomber, spraining ankle and knee, it was given to a family of six children in Pompey Bay, by the […]
Book Review: The Black Joke: The True Story of One Ship’s Battle Against the Slave Trade by A. E. Rooks
A. E. Rooks. The Black Joke: The True Story of One Ship’s Battle against the Slave Trade. New York, NY: Scribner, www.simonandschuster.com, 2022. 382 pp., illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. US $29.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-98212-826-5. (E-book available.)Prepare to encounter more than you may have bargained for: Rooks wields her quill like a scalpel, keeping us up […]