21/08/2005: "UNDERWATER BOMB at Kapingamarangi Atoll"

Amongst the WW2 aircraft wreckage in the lagoon at Kapinga is this exploded bomb.

Questions: Was it from one of the RAAF Hudson bombers based at Rabaul who attacked the Japanese weather station in December 1941 and January 1942?

Could the surrounding underwater aircraft wreckage be that of a lost RAAF bomber?

This Japanese mandate island was, in late 1941, the nearest Japan held territory to Australia.

Eye witnesses saw anti-aircraft fire explode a bomb being dropped - which subsequently destroyed the attacking aircraft killing the entire crew.

Author David Vincent says:

Thank you very much for contacting me as I'm very interested in RAAF Hudson operations and all (or most of) my research is going in to a two volume coverage of the subject.

Book One has been out for a few years and at present I'm trying to complete Book Two but of the four main chapters that dealing with 'Operations North Eastern Area' (covering essentially the New Britain/New Guinea ops) is the one I'm trying to complete at present.

I can therefore tell you with certainty that no Hudsons were lost in the raids on Kap, so if the story is true about the bomb then it wasn't a Hudson that dropped it.

I have quite a lot of info on the Kap raids by Hudsons but nothing about what happened later. I feel that, by then, if anyone was still attacking the place it must have been the Yanks.

djvincent@chariot.com.au

21/08/2005: "UNDERWATER BOMB at Kapingamarangi Atoll"

Offsite links