Crashed in Yalau Plantation-the Loss of B-25 #41-30516

An interactive map showing a possible location for the crash of B-25 #41-30516 on September 9, 1943.

After completing a tree-top raid on the Alexishafen area on September 9, 1943, twelve B-25s of the 499th Bomb Squadron continued on a barge sweep down the New Guinea coast to Finschhafen. Strafing a village, Captain Alden Thompson, piloting #41-30516, apparently did not pull out of his gun run in time to climb over the trees behind the village. His plane hit the tops of the trees, the tail assembly was torn off, and the fuselage crashed in a fiery explosion. The mission report approximates the crash location to be in Yula plantation while the Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) lists it as “near Saidor, New Guinea”.

Scouring several maps of the coast between Alexishafen and Finschhafen, I could not find any plantation or village named Yula. There is a village called Yaula approximately twelve miles inland from Bogadjim in the southwest corner of Astrolabe Bay, but there is no indication of a plantation there and it seems too far inland for a barge sweep target.

On the coast east of Bogadjim, near Pommern Bay, is Yalau Plantation. The plantation surrounds a coastal village. While there is no documentation to confirm that the crash occurred in Yalau Plantation, because of the similarity of the plantation name and the presence of the coastal village, I decided to place the crash site there.

The village of Yalau Tree on the Yalau Coconut Plantation. Part of a 1945 1:63,360 scale Australian Army Map, digitised by the Australian National University, Open Research Repository.

The village is labeled Yalau Tree on the 1945 map of the Pommern Bay area. I was wondering how it took on such a name, even though I am aware that there are places (such as Joshua Tree, California) that have Tree in their names. Zooming in on the village in satellite imagery ended my speculation. There is a massive tree there whose crown measures over sixty-five yards in diameter. That is an impressive tree, worthy of being immortalized in a name. Perhaps it was standing there in 1943.

The village of Yalau Tree and what would appear to be it’s namesake. Satellite imagery courtesy of Esri, GeoEye, Earthstar Geographics, and others.

Lost in the crash of B-25D #41-30516 were:

  • Capt Alden W. Thompson, Jr., pilot
  • 2Lt George W. Cagle, copilot
  • Capt Walter E. Bader, bombardier navigator
  • SSgt Norman J. Zinda
  • TSgt Walter A. Malone

Their remains were recovered at some point (perhaps as early as March 1944 when US Army troops came ashore at Yalau Plantation) and were interred individually in several private and national cemeteries.