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Flight 19 consisted of five naval planes and 14 naval and marine corps aviators. The planes were Avengers--large, single-engined torpedo bombers used in World War II. The five planes took off from Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station shortly after 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 5, 1945, with enough fuel to say aloft for around six hours.

Before 4 p.m. distress calls were coming from Flight 19. The flight was somewhere near the Bahamas over the Atlantic Ocean, but instead of flying west, as would have been sensible and proper, the six planes followed a course which led them north and east and hence further and further away from land into the deepest ocean. The last radio transmissions from the doomed planes came shortly after 7 p.m.

Nothing more was heard from the planes. Neither the planes, their crews, nor any wreckage was ever located.