Warbird Information Exchange

The Bomber Reef – pioneer underwater filmmaker takes us to Madang’s shores

A pioneer underwater filmmaker and owner of Seawest Productions is currently involved in a pre-production of “The Bomber Reef” – a documentary focusing on the diving wreck of the 1943’s B-25 in Madang’s waters. Accompanied by Mark Priest, Mr Deas, an award winner of several outstanding underwater documentaries from around the world, arrived in PNG on the 22nd of May to complete filming the depths of Madang reef and capture the desired outcome of the documentary he started two years ago.

Both Mr Deas and Mr Priest had booked in at the Jays Aben Resort in Madang and spent 12 days there looking for war wreckages and especially the B-25 wreck. Mr Deas visited PNG 2002 where he started filming the B-25 wreckages around Madang.

“There are a lot of war wrecks around Madang coast. War plane wrecks are evident in this area. There were a total of about 11 eleven wrecks and we went from Madang towards Hans Bay shooting the entire area for B-25 wrecks. The dive was awesome, we got what we wanted and the journey was satisfying,” Deas and Mark related their experience.

All of these events will be later featured in his documentary – The Bomber’s Reef.Below is the outline of the documentary by Walter Deas.

The Bomber Reef

A video production by Walter Deas

Set in the depths of the waters off Papua New Guinea, The Bomber Reef will take us on voyage of discovery, down to the sea bed to dive the wreckage of a WWII North American Mitchell bomber, which during sixty years in the deep, has evolved from a powerful weapon to a flourishing reef.

When war broke out in Europe in 1939, it seemed unlikely that the remote islands comprising the territories of Papua and New Guinea would have any part to play. But, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and the mighty USA took up the gauntlet, the battle boundaries shifted. Japanese forces took control of much of the Northern coast of the island, whilst US and Australian troops stationed themselves in the south west. By 1942 the area had been transformed into one of the most significant battlefields in the South Pacific war.

On August 4th, 1943, two squadrons of B-25 bombers and strafers were ordered to fly a sortie over the Madang area occupied by Japanese forces - their mission being to take out a fleet of supply barges. But the operation was partly doomed, when the lead plane, piloted by Captain Robert Herry, with Major Cox as command pilot was struck by ground fire, the left engine caught fire and was forced to crash-land in the sea. S/Sgt. Raymond Zimmerman was killed in the crash.

The five surviving crew members (Capt. Herry; Major Cox; T/Sgt. Hugh W. Anderson; 2nd Lt Robert J. Koscelnak and Lt. Louis Ritacco) swam to nearby Wongat Island where four of them were eventually picked up by the Japanese forces and taken back to the mainland for questioning. Determined not to be seized, Lt. Louis Ritacco hid on Wongat until nightfall, when he finally swam the nearby to Panutibon Island. Alerted to the fact that a man had survived the crash, Japanese forces combed the area until Ritacco was found and he was imprisoned with his fellow crewmen.

After several days of maltreatment at the hands of their captors, the B-25 crewmen were turned over to Intelligence Officers for further interrogation. After a matter of a few days, Cox and Herry were taken to a local airfield, but for some unknown reason Herry was returned to join his fellow prisoners. Cox was tied to a tree for days, and eventually shipped to Tokyo in a ship, where he remained a prisoner until the end of the war.

Herry’s fate was decided more quickly. On August 31st, 1943, five US airmen were murdered by the Japanese in retaliation for the death of a Japanese soldier. The dental charts of two of those killed (X17 & X14) matched those of Captain Herry’s and 2nd Lt. Robert Koscelnak.

While The Bomber Reef will focus on diving the wreck of the B-25, our underwater exploration will be interwoven with the history of how the bomber came to rest on the bottom of the ocean. We will use archive footage from the battles fought over New Guinea and personal testimony to tell the story. We are in contact with Captain Herry’s nephew, who is keen to dive the wreck himself, and Major Cox’s son, who has already done so. We also have access to a third pilot who was involved in the same mission and saw Herry’s plane go down, and to another pilot who lived in the same tent in New Guinea as Captain Robert Herry.

The B-25 wreck is diver’s dream. Lying on the ocean floor off the island of Wongat, its fuselage in 18 metres and the port wing in 12 metres, it has become an integrated part of the ecosystem, a haven for a myriad of smaller marine life, which in turn attract larger predators. Clouds of damselfish hover over above it, while schools of sweepers occasionally swarm through the fuselage. A field of red whip-corals adorn the starboard wing, while the port wing is often a home to butterfly cod. Although the visibility can vary, the waters are generally clear.

Walter C. Deas. 2004.
11 Platypus Avenue. Isle of Sorrento,
Queensland, 4217, Australia. walterdeas@broad.net.au