A poignant and long overdue ceremony at the Australian War Memorial on Friday recognised the worst air disaster to occur on Australian territory.
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Just before 4.25am on September 7, 1943, the Pride of the Cornhuskers, a USAF B-24D Liberator bomber, took off from Port Moresby's Jackson landing strip.
Moments later the plane, which had a wing span of 33.5 metres and would have weighed just less than 30 tonnes with a full fuel and bomb load, crashed into a convoy of Studebaker trucks being used to ferry Australian soldiers from the 2/33 infantry Battalion to Dakotas to join the battle for Lae.
Casualty estimates vary. The court of inquiry, which handed down its findings on December 21, 1943, said 59 Australians died. Two were truck drivers (158 Transport Company) and the other 57 were members of the 2/33 Infantry Battalion. This figure is also quoted in the official war history. Both sources agree another 92 men were injured but survived. The Australian War Memorial says 60 Australians died while other sources say the digger death toll could have been as high as 62.
The confusion is understandable given the indescribable violence of the impact. The Liberator had been carrying four 500-pound bombs and was fuelled up with almost 12,000 litres of high-octane avgas.
Three of the bombs exploded in the blaze that erupted immediately after the impact. Machine-gun ammunition, mortar rounds and hand grenades being carried by the soldiers who were in full battle kit, rifle and Bren gun ammunition ''cooked off'' as the fires progressed.
''How do I remember it? It was hell on earth,'' survivor Ray Gibson said on Friday.
Those killed instantly were the most fortunate. Some took another 11 days to die from horrific and untreatable burns and infections that swamped Port Moresby's rudimentary military hospital facilities. The 11-man Liberator crew were killed on impact.
Military authorities ordered the survivors straight into battle and warned them of dire consequences should they talk.
The families of the dead received terse telegrams telling them their loved ones had been killed in an air crash in the south-west Pacific.
The news blackout was identical to that which had been imposed three months before when a B-17 carrying 41 people (including six crew) from New Guinea to Australia had crashed on takeoff at Baker's Creek near Mackay on June 14. Only one man survived that crash, making it the second-worst air disaster on Australian territory.
Swept under the carpet for propaganda reasons, the Port Moresby tragedy receives only the briefest of mentions in the AWM's official war histories.
Both accidents remain under a cloud. Mr Gibson said there were rumours the Pride of the Cornhuskers had been sabotaged by American Japanese serving with the USAF.
The Baker's Creek B-17 had been badly shot up some months before and questions were later asked about its fitness to fly.