Australia's Worst Air Crash: Bakers Creek, QLD (1943)

Bakers Creek, Australia, 14th June, 1943. For the men about to board “Miss Every Morning Fixin”, the pressures of the War had been eased by a period of rest and relaxation in Queensland, but they were about to return to war operations in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. They were never to return. The “Miss Every Morning Fixin”, a name derived from the amount of effort needed to keep it airworthy, was a beaten up old B-17 bomber that had been converted for transport use and had suffered a great deal of damage - including receiving over a thousand bullet holes - in a raid over the Philippines in 1941. Shortly after take-off the aircraft plunged into the ground killing everyone aboard - apart from one survivor, who would spend the rest of his life coping with the injuries he received that day. The death toll finally stood at 40 passengers and crew. This accident is still Australia’s worse ever plane crash and yet it was hushed up by the Australian and US governments until after the war had ended, with the relatives being told that those on board had perished in a crash over the South Pacific.