How would one best describe Lieutenant Charles Taylor? Well, most would call him reckless, daring, and flying, "By the seat of his pants!" However, others would describe him as a capable officer, and one of the best fliers that the Navy had ever seen Post-WW2. Although Taylor had been a pilot all throughout his career with the Navy, he was best known as an instructor for new recruits. His primary plane that he both flew, and trained others with, was the TBF Avenger torpedo bomber.
This particular time, Taylor flew with a group of 7 planes. The group was called Flight 19. On that particular day, Taylor was leading them on a routing air patrol in the area around Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was a rather overcast December 5th, and there was a chance of storms in the area. Taylor briefed his squadron about this, and they all seemed to be ready. Ready that is, except for one man. Taylor's radio-gunner had unexpectedly fallen ill. There was no time to find a replacement, so the Squadron had no choice but to leave him with the medical staff at the airbase.
Their mission seemed to be going well. They made their torpedo drops on time, and the mission seemed to be going according to the plan that Taylor had drawn up for them the previous day. According to plan that is, until the somewhat expected winter storm that was forecasted earlier decided to blow up out of nowhere. It caught the hapless lieutenant almost unawares. He immediately radioed their base to inform them about the situation.
"Oh boy, this could be bad, I'm going to radio HQ about this." Taylor's right hand trembled a bit as he grabbed for his radio controls. "Lauderdale Base, this is Blue 1. We're caught in a storm out here, and it could get really nasty really fast. Requesting advice on how to proceed, over."
Taylor was rather concerned for the lives of the rest of his squadron. He began to silently pray that they would all make it safely back to base. Finally, a reply came.
"Blue 1, this is Lauderdale Base. What is your current position? over."
"Lauderdale Base, we're about 250 miles North by Northwest of the nearest safe landing zone. Should we try to return to base, or should we try and find a spot on another base to land? Over."
A reply came, but due to poor radio connection, it was rather garbled.
"Blue........You should.......on channel........Ware of B.....da Tr....gle! DO.......CEED!!!! I say again, ..........PROCEED!!!!!!"
What the lieutenant did not catch in this message was that the base had been trying to warn him to not to try and cross the infamous "Bermuda Triangle" in that kind of weather, but to instead try and find a way around the storm before they ran out of fuel.
"What did the base say to do Lieutenant?" One of his wingmen asked.
"I think that they said that we should fly right through the Triangle and make it back to base before we run out of gas!" Taylor radioed back.
"But sir!" His torpedoman protested, his voice beginning to show his true fear, "That place is cursed! We'll never make it out of there alive!" Just think about what could be lurking in there in this kind of weather!"
Lt. Taylor was getting rather annoyed with the torpedoman's carrying on about the Triangle. He had always been rather paranoid, and had always been scared by stories he'd heard about those who ventured inside the region, and had never been seen, or heard from again. Taylor knew that his torpedoman's paranoia came from his service in the Pacific War, but it still bothered him nonetheless. It became especially bothersome now that he had the lives of his entire squadron riding on his shoulders.
"Look Ensign James", Taylor groaned, "I'm getting rather tired of your carrying on about the Triangle. It's just a couple of flaws in the Earth's magnetic field playing around with our radios and compasses. Absolutely nothing to be afraid of. However", he continued, his knuckles beginning to turn white from gripping the control stick, "If we don't get moving through there very soon, we'll all be sleeping in Davy Jones's locker if we run out of gas!"
And so, while being out of contact with their base, and options being rather minimal, and with rain continuing to beat against the somewhat aging planes as they flew along, Taylor made the fateful decision to fly through the Bermuda Triangle to try and make it back to their base in Fort Laderdale.
(This however is also where the story gets rather complicated. Theories about what happened to Flight 19 are abound, but here's the story of what happened based on what Lt. Taylor himself said later.)