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ERIC WIBERG – Palowna & Orestes, 1826 Spanish slavers wrecked in The Bahamas

MANY slave ships met their end in the Bahamas, but not many know of an awkward period between when Britain outlawed the trade in slaves in 1807, and slavery itself, in 1834.

The wreck of the HMS Lowstoffe

GREAT Inagua and Little Inagua boast some of the oldest and most enigmatic shipwrecks in The Bahamas, as they sit across the entrance to the Windward Passage.

Eric Wiberg – Sunk in Nassau harbour: The Fancy and the Pilot Boat

TWO vessels were lost in Nassau harbour – one of them huge and famous, the other a tiny nameless rowboat whose loss is commemorated with a 20-foot stone tower on the country’s busiest street.

Eric Wiberg – The 1657 shipwreck of the Madema do Brasil near Gorda Cay, Abaco

GORDA Cay was named because of its round shape – in Spanish it means simply ‘fat’ – the only village, occupied by itinerant farmers from nearby Sandy Point, Abaco, was named Pumpkin Harbour. J

ERIC WIBERG: The Eleutheran Adventurers and William Sayle’s early days

THE story of the Eleutheran Adventurers is woven deeply into the fabric of national identity. The general themes are of escaping religious prosecution to take great risks by sailing to unknown shores – so far that is like the Puritan’s voyage in the Mayflower from England to New England’s Plymouth Rock.

ERIC WIBERG: Shipwrecks of The Bahamas – Highbourne Cay Shipwreck, Exumas, 1513 Iberian, Diego Miruelo, Ponce de Leon

THE night of Tuesday, September 23, 1513, was another boisterous one for a fleet of four heavily armed Spanish vessels returning from a mission to find Florida.

Eric Wiberg – A budget and a dream that became a passion

Bomber on a budget. That’s what I chose to name my pyric missions to find the metal and scraps of old World War II aircraft in our country.

Eric Wiberg – PBM Mariner seaplane sinks near Royal Island

ON the night of Wednesday, July 19, 1944, at Royal Island, North Eleuthera, Lt (jg) HL Hayes crashed while landing in a turbulent sea. No injuries to the personnel occurred, but both wing floats were torn off the plane and the starboard wing tip bounced on the bottom and finally sank in 20 feet of water. The plane was damaged beyond repair and was later surveyed.

ERIC WIBERG: Stranded US aviators rescued by Bahamian fishermen and a dream

INAGUA has many aviation mysteries to parse; the East coast of this 650-square-mile-island has no roads or airstrip and is very rarely visited. Three American aviators who were without food for 17 days were rescued by fishermen in Little and taken to Great Inagua. Then there was a tragic engine fire and crash from which a US Mail pouch washed up, but not a plane or bodies. Then a mystery plane with parachute and body was found by park warden Henry Nixon. Remains of the plane still there, and were found over a decade ago by a Bahamian sleuth in a seaplane.

Eric Wiberg – Taxied to beach, hit trees and sank

TAXIED to beach, hit trees, and sank: these seven words encapsulate a bad day for a dozen men.

ERIC WIBERG: B-25 ditched in the sea two miles north of Tarpum Bay

JUST before noon on Tuesday, June 6, 1944, the operational record book of base OTU 111 records that “B-25 FW-154 FR was airborne at 11.16am upon A/S [anti-submarine] patrol No 2. No W/T [radio] contact was made with this aircraft after 11.50am, when a long dash [Mayday] was received. At 1.50pm, a signal was received from the pilot, via government channels, that the aircraft had ditched in the sea two miles north of Tarpum Bay, Eleuthera, at 11.48 am.

ERIC WIBERG: 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.

Eric Wiberg – 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.

Eric Wiberg – 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 resident commissioner, Chauncy Tynes.

Eric Wiberg: A beacon that saved lives of pilots

WHEN the 112-foot Castle Island Light off Acklins was operational, it was a critically important beacon that three World War Two bombers crash-landed near in order to be rescued.

ERIC WIBERG: The last flight of a Marauder

On October 17, 1944, five years into World War II, a B-26 Marauder aircraft assigned to the Royal Air Force Transport Command took off from the Windsor Field.

Eric Wiberg – 20 accidents at sea off New Providence

NEW Providence saw over 20 World War II aircraft ditch, crash, and explode into its adjacent waters. Most of these were to the south of the island, east, and north, and depended on direction of the winds, which air field was used, and complex night-time exercises using extremely bright Leigh Lights, and flying in formation. Mechanical failures from aircraft just delivered from American factories played a role as well.

Eric Wiberg – New Providence: 60 land accidents

WHETHER planes touched wingtips, men walked into propellers, bombers collided, planes were lost in microbursts, or had training gunnery mishaps, Nassau, Windsor and Oakes air fields and adjacent waters claimed many lives. More than half of all accidents in the colony – 80 of 150 – took place at or near the air fields and New Providence. This article deals with the 55 accidents that happened or ended up on land. In the three years from January 1943 131 aviators and a Bahamian family of three were killed by military aircraft in New Providence and its waters, with 83 rescued, and those fatalities recovered buried on Farrington Road. Pre-existing Oakes Field, used for training, saw nine crashes and most of the 25 unallocated, and Windsor Field, still in use, had 21.

Eric Wiberg: Wives and bases

THE build-up of New Providence into the hub of all South Atlantic air deliveries to the Allies in Africa, the Mediterranean, Middle and Far East was sudden, yet the nation’s air hub was built as Windsor Field for the RAF Ferry Command, and to support the RAF Transport Command, the No 113 Transport Wing instructors who trained over 7,000 students for the front, and to deliver over 9,000 aircraft to Africa.

The story of the aircraft lost in The Bahamas

TRIBUNE readers may recall fifteen articles about Mailboats of the Bahamas in 2016. This new series about World War Two aircraft discoveries in our archipelago is similar, except the history is less static and more tactile.

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