VisionAndPsychosis.Net©

In Wetumpka, AL

The Wayback Machine will show this site is an investigation of Subliminal Distraction begun in 2002.

If you wish to help in this project, send the Home page URL to your email list and encourage everyone to do the same.

Preventing Subliminal Distraction episodes, mistaken for mental illness, is simple and free.

 

Copyright 2003   Edit   March29, 2015

Copyright    Contact page    Demonstration of subliminal sight

If  you  reached this page from a search engine enter the site here,

or see other cases on the Disappearance and College Suicides pages.

 

 

Flight 19

Five Avenger torpedo bombers.

 

 

 

Scroll Down for the 2012 page on Flight 19.

 

If this is your first visit the explanation of  the "mental break causing design mistake,"

that has caused problems on space missions, the Mars project,

and on scientific explorations for over a 100 years,  begin with the first explanation page,

  Subliminal Distraction.

 

This explanation is the same given in first semester psychology lectures about,

how peripheral vision reflexes are created.

 

Other explanation pages are linked and include:

 

2) Mental Break Discovery 1964   3) Why they happen    4) Drugs   5) Spontaneous Remission

 

Pages which have examples of the design mistake are:

 

Home Computer Locations.  Site Outline  Mass Shootings The Jamison Family Disappearance    Joe Morse Georgia Tech suicide 

  Foxconn-France Telecom suicides  QiGong-Kundalini Mental Breaks  Connie Tucker hospital record

The College Suicides page has the explanation for Subliminal Distraction caused suicides.

Skeptical?

Perform my demonstration of subliminal sight and habituation in peripheral vision here.

 

 

The problem explained on this site is the only psychiatric symptom that has ever been correctly evaluated,

then PREVENTED, and without treatment !

 

But it was done by engineers, not doctors.

 

Flight 19

 

 

On December 5, 1945 five pilots and nine airmen disappeared off the coast of Florida. The disappearance began the modern myth of the Bermuda Triangle. Sixty years later little more is known about what happened to them. Much of the information in media accounts has been altered to support the myth.

 

This site is about a conflict of human physiology that has shaped history but was not discovered until the 1960's. Knowledge workers using the first production models of close-spaced office workstations began having mental breaks. The problem was quickly solved and the Cubicle became the industry standard to prevent those mental breaks.

 

The designers and psychologists who solved the problem thought they had caused the mental breaks for the first time and that it could only happen in a business office. The traffic of office staff  walking beside an unprotected knowledge worker triggered repeating peripheral vision reflexes.

 

But when you search history for strange occurrences a pattern begins to develop. Some of those strange events can  be explained if you can find a source of exposure to Subliminal Distraction for the victims.

 

Single-room living and working arrangements plus the use of unprotected office space would have exposed at-risk Navy personnel to Subliminal Distraction.

 

Today there are panic attacks aboard US Navy submarines. They are called "Screaming Seaman." Medical personnel are  taught to deal with this phenomenon. Authoritative sources cite an ax murder at a Russian Antarctic station in an argument over a chess game. There have been fist fights over chess games on Russian space stations.  Soyuz21's mission to Salut5 ended when one cosmonaut had a psychotic mental break. There have been psychiatric outcomes as a constant problem in polar expeditions. In 1898 the entire crew of the Belgica began to go insane when the ship was trapped in polar ice for a year. Most of the men recovered when they worked outside to chop the ship out of the ice. Only one man was permanently insane. All of these incidents happen where the "special circumstances" for  exposure to Subliminal Distraction are present.

 

An entire field called the Psychology of Isolation has developed to explain and deal with problems believed to be caused by these activities.

 

But it isn't being alone that causes the mental events. It's the subliminal detection of a roommate moving in your peripheral vision while you attempt to concentrate.

 

The problem on this site was discovered in the 1960's but so few people are aware of why the cubicle was created it is never mentioned when there is a sudden disappearance or unexplained college suicide.

 

The Virginia Tech shooter had created the "special circumstances" to have Subliminal Distraction exposure. He used his laptop and studied in the site common room while others walked by ignoring him as they came and went to class and other activities. His paranoid psychotic rant is one possible outcome of low -level long-term exposure. In two interviews on Cable TV news programs his roommates described his study habits and that he increased it in the month before the shooting. One teacher said she arranged for security outside the classroom out of fear of what he might do.

 

Virginia Tech Shooting page.

 

Most people who have short-term intense exposure have a harmless temporary episode. They have psychotic symptoms while the episode is ongoing but recover with no apparent negative after effects. This is true of ICU Psychosis  victims. Most of them recover when they leave the hospital intensive care unit.

 

ICU Psychosis

 

For Jason Weed the episode had a horrific effect. While in the psychotic episode he killed a mail carrier at his apartment in 2001. He recovered within one week but  was held in an institution until released to a halfway house in 2005. Unaware of Subliminal Distraction, two psychiatrists testified he might have latent mental illness. He had participated in a Landmark Education seminar known to cause mental breaks. Unlike Cho, Weed gave no warning.

 

No one else has solved the mystery of why this seminar causes mental breaks.

 

'est' ... Why it causes psychotic episodes.

 

It has appeared on at least three TV programs. The problem? No one can remember the title of the program they saw. I watched a few seconds of a program in the early 1990's. I thought it was 20/20 but the phenomenon does not appear in transcript records. One contact said she saw a "medical program" on Dish Network. She has only had the service three years.

 

 

 

If you were in Naval Aviation in this time period, WWII, and can supply pictures of offices email Researcher.  I can edit photos to disguise people who might not want their picture on the Internet. The Space Station page uses NASA press hand-out photos to illustrate the phenomenon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic  Information

 

 

 

The most reliable source of information is the Naval History Museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sea plane sent to search exploded shortly after take off. It was not lost in the Bermuda Triangle. The oil slick places that crash at 28.59 N; 80.25 W. There was more than one witness to the fireball just after takeoff.

 

 

 

Navigation Problem Number 1:

 

 

Depart US Naval Air Station, Fort Lauderdale,  on an advanced over water navigation training flight.

 

Depart 26'03'' N, 80'07''West at 091' for a distance of 56 miles to Hen and Chicken Shoals.

Conduct low level bombing practice.

Continue course of 091' for 67 miles;

Turn to course of 346' for 73 miles;

Turn to a course 241' for 120 miles;

Land at Ft. Lauderdale Air Station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why did the instructor believe they were above the Florida Keys?

 

 

The mystery of what happened to cause the disappearance of Flight 19 has been explained by UFO intervention, methane gas rising from the sea to stop their engines, and other strange occurrences. But the real reason may be much simpler.

The belief that they had over flown the Keys is important to understanding what happened. Equally as important is why there was a new flight leader? What would cause the experienced instructor to turn the flight over to the less experienced pilot he should have been training? While the navigation problem was intended to allow each training pilot to lead the formation for one leg of the mission control appeared to change after they made the first turn, approached the third land fall, Grand Bahama Island, and became disorientated.

 

This page does not offer a concrete solution because there is missing information on the flight leader, and true fuel consumption.  Instead I offer a new direction for investigation.

 

Other sites and accounts agree that..."something mental"...happened to the flight leader. But other investigators have been unaware of the "conflict of physiology."

 

Had that flight instructor been exposed to Subliminal Distraction through barracks living quarters and the use of unprotected office workspace?

 

The flight leader lost orientation to space and time. On one occasion he incorrectly stated his call sign as MT-28 rather than FT-28.

MT was the designation for a Torpedo Bomber from the Miami base and FT was the designation for Ft. Lauderdale. That mistake also indicates he was in an altered mental state. In that communication he did not answer when he was asked for his compass heading.

Radio transmissions reveal they completed the bombing practice.  A fisherman saw them fly east from that location. The time of the distress transmission indicated that they made the turn to the north and would have reached a point near the final turn toward Ft. Lauderdale. He could not have been "over the Keys" within that time frame. He was a combat veteran and had 2509.3 hours flying time.  How does someone with that experience make that mistake?

The only explanation is that he was in an altered mental state.

Remember that if the crews knew they were in the Atlantic, all that was necessary was to point the nose west. If there was no sun at their flight level they could have climbed to a point  where they could find the sun. (((Find Sunset time for those coordinates on that day.)))

 

((((Add a map of southern Florida here to demonstrate the  flight path and show relative distances.))))

 

 

Bermuda-Triangle.Org

"... It would take a major navigational mistake to be near the Keys, since they were about 150 to 175 miles away from the second leg of Prob Nav 1, the point where Taylor took over. It would, really, take following a major compass malfunction for over an hour. "

The cruising speed of an Avenger was about 150 miles per hour. The flight would have to turn around to get on a heading to reach even the upper Keys near Miami. (Miami is about twenty miles south of Ft. Lauderdale, their return destination.) Taylor had them fly north then east. He thought they had over-flown the keys and were in the Gulf of Mexico. That would not be possible near Miami. The Keys begin at Miami and string out from the east coast of Florida.

 

http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/html/bad_navigation_.html

 

Additional information from the Navy History Museum.

There had been a delay in the take off. The instructor didn't want to carry out this training mission. (This impacts fuel availability since the Avengers were cranked and left running for twenty minutes before the planned lift off time. They may have burned, at idle, thirty minutes of fuel. That would not translate to losing thirty minutes flight time at 150 miles per hour. 

"At 1315 he arrived and asked the aviation training duty officer to find another instructor to take his place. Giving no reason, he stated simply that he did not want to take this one out. His request was denied; he was told that no relief was available."
 

"At 1410 the flight was in the air, led by one of the students. The instructor, whose call sign was Fox Tare Two Eight (FT-28), flew the rear, in a tracking position. ETA was 1723 and the TBMs had enough fuel to remain aloft for five to five-and-a-half hours. Hens and Chickens Shoals, commonly called Chicken Rocks, the point at which they would conduct low level bombing, was only 56 miles away. If they cruised at 150 mph, they would arrive at the Rocks in about 20 minutes or so. Thirty minutes for bombing and then continue on the final 67 miles of the first leg. At Fort Lauderdale, the tower picked up conversation from Flight 19: "I've got one more bomb." "Go ahead and drop it" was the response. A fishing boat captain working near the target area remembers seeing three or four airplanes flying east at approximately 1500."
 

"...they would have been near Great Sale Cay by 1540...FT-74, the senior flight instructor at Fort Lauderdale...heard what he assumed were either some boats or aircraft in distress."

"One man was transmitting on 4805 to 'Powers' [the name of one of the students]." The voice asked Powers what his compass read a number of times and finally Powers said, "I don't know where we are. We must have got lost after that last turn."
 

"Minutes later, FT-28 called again: "We have just passed over a small island. We have no other land in sight." How could he have run out of islands? How could he have missed the Florida peninsula if he was in the Keys? FT-74 was beginning to have serious doubts. "

"FT-28 came back on the air. "Can you have Miami or someone turn on their radar gear and pick us up? We don't seem to be getting far. We were out on a navigation hop and on the second leg I thought they were going wrong, so I took over and was flying them back to the right position. But I'm sure, now, that neither one of my compasses is working." FT-74 replied: "You can't expect to get here in ten minutes. You have a 30- to 35-knot head or crosswind. Turn on your emergency IFF gear, or do you have it on?" FT-28 replied that he did not. "

"...his first transmission revealing that he was lost had occurred around 1600. I knew by this that the leader could not possibly have gone on more than one leg of his navigation problem and still gotten back to the Keys by 1600. . . ."

"At 1804, FT-28 called to his flight, "Holding course 270 degrees we didn't go far enough east . . .we may as well just turn around and go east again." The flight leader was apparently still vacillating between his idea that they were over the Gulf and his students' belief that they were over the Atlantic. "
 

The flight leader was disoriented as to place and time. He could not have been where he thought he was if the mistake was made on the second leg of the mission.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq15-2.htm

The phonetic alphabet in 1945 used Fox Tare for FT. Today that would be Fox Tango.

 

Second account from eyewitness, (disputed as hoax).

 "After take-off Taylor passed the flight lead to Capt. Powers (a normal training procedure). Taylor then assumed an aft trailing position behind his flight but at a somewhat higher altitude until arriving over the bombing target."
 

 "Getting no response from his last urgent demand for Taylor to turn around to a west heading, Joe radioed that he was turning to a heading of 270 degrees and “ - - - - - if anyone wants to go with me, join up."..."
 

This account says there were originally six planes(?) available but one failed to start and Joe Bossi took Calvin Shoemaker's plane since Shoemaker had already qualified on this "navigation problem". This account is disputed because records show Bossi signed out the plane he flew.

http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/html/shoemaker_s_claim.html

 

 "Bossi’s plane, T-3, the plane that he flew and vanished in, was checked out by him, signed in his own hand, timed at 1:45 p.m., the same time as all the other yellow sheets were filled out by the other pilots of Flight 19. T-3 had been checked out earlier by a pilot with the initials MJK but then the flight was canceled and a line was drawn through the flight details and his name erased. “No Flight” was scrawled on the bottom of the page (not in scan). The same thing happened to Gerber’s plane. This was not uncommon."
 

"Once you were assigned to a plane, that was your plane. You simply can’t play “musical planes.” Also, Avengers had no brakes. There was a holding brake. The pilot had to keep this depressed if he needed to switch crew, but if he let his foot off . . .obviously you could not switch pilots. The engine would have to be shut off to allow pilots to switch."
 

"Shoemaker’s claims go on and become even more bold. He usurps Robert F. Cox’s very documented position in the ground drama of Flight 19 by claiming it was he who approached the “Operations Officer” at sunset and requested to man the ready plane and search for the flight."
 

"Prob Nav 1 was divided into 4 legs in order to give each student in the squadron the opportunity to lead the flight while the instructor observed. It was not divided into five. A sixth plane would be in the way. All training was done according to syllabus. Three flights were required in this syllabus. If Shoemaker didn’t need this flight, he would not have been there to begin with."
 

http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/html/a_6th_avenger_.html

 

 

Time, Speed, Location

The flight lifted off at 1410 and traveled 56 miles in about 27 minutes to Hen and Chicken Shoals. . They were sighted leaving the bombing practice at 1500 hours. Then they traveled 67 miles to arrive at the second land fall, Great Stirrup Cay. If they made the turn north at 1527 hours, (67 miles at 150 mph is 26.5 minutes), then the first distress radio message at 1600 would put them 33 minutes away from that turn. One account from the Navy record puts the distress call at 1545 hours.  At 150 mph they would have traveled either 45 miles or 83 miles on that third northward leg. At 150 mph 15 minutes makes a big difference.

There are a small group of cays north and east of Great Sail Cay, the next land fall,  that they could have reached. A more drastic error toward the east might have placed them east of the large Abaco Island in the general area of Green Turtle Cay. Remember that they reported flying over small islands.

No matter which happened a north then east flight path would have taken them out into the Atlantic.

The final radio direction finder location placed them within a hundred mile radius of 29 degrees 15 minutes north and 79degrees 00 minutes west. They still had two hours fuel left at that point.

Those coordinates, the center of that circle, are about 100 miles off the coast at the level of Daytona and Ormond Beach. One of the guesses as to the final location of the crashed flight was just off New Smyrna Beach, a few miles further south.

 

 

{{{{{  Map to be posted soon.  }}}}}  The basic map is complete. It is correct in scale but some details are still to be added.

 

 

 

Radio Problems

 

Most detail pictures of the Avenger show the radio antenna strung between a short mast rising from the center of the cockpit to the rudder. (See the picture labeled "Radio Antenna" in the links section below.) The frequency they were using is in the low shortwave band. The correct resonant length for a dipole antenna would have been much longer. Dipoles antennas are fed in the center with equal lengths of wire on each side of the feed point. In the Avenger's situation one side is much shorter. A loading coil, shown at the linked photo, allows the transmitter to transfer energy to the tuned wire. But shortening that wire by this method reduces the functionality of the antenna. 

That means that the radio is not very effective. In addition the dipole has a horizontal radiation pattern that looks like a figure "8." This pattern is broadside to the air plane or perpendicular to the length of the dipole. The center of the radiation pattern,  where the two lobes meet, creates a null area in front and behind the plane. The plane's orientation to the base receiver would determine the strength of the received signal. (In three dimensions the radiation pattern is usually represented as a tear drop pattern on both sides of the long wire and perpendicular to the length of  that antenna. The full pattern would rotate that tear drop shape to form a torrid.  But the effect of energy radiated upward would not help the horizontal radiated pattern. We only have to take into account energy radiated toward the horizon.

The too-short length and unbalanced dipole would change the "idealized" radiation pattern. The metal of the plane too-close to the radiating element would also change the pattern. I doubt that there is any authoritative source for that information.

Putting the transmitter several thousand feet in the air makes up for those necessary adaptations of the antenna system.

There is nothing mysterious about the radio signals fading and dropping out. There were no strange forces at work.

Picture of Dipole antenna and off-center drive. http://www.maam.org/flightsim/news/DSCF0296.jpg

The formula to determine the resonate length for a wire dipole is 468 divided by the frequency in megahertz. That is 468 /4.805 = 97 feet. 'Tuning coils' in the transmitter would "match the output to the antenna" and allow the system to work but not very well. Everything done in engineering is a compromise.

What I suspect happened is that as the planes turned east they presented the worst possible angle for radio transmission and reception to the base at Ft. Lauderdale due to the propagation, radiation, pattern for that plane's antenna system. A westward direction of flight would have presented a slightly better radiation pattern for the base. During the third, northward leg of the mission the northward flight path presented the best radiation pattern toward Ft. Lauderdale.

As the planes flew north and then east they flew out of range of their transmitter to reach the Ft. Lauderdale base. The planes could talk to each other but not to the base.

The commercial radio stations in Cuba did not change position. But the weather and changes in the ionized layers that reflect transmissions would make them fade in and out. There are changes in reception every day as the sun heats the atmosphere and changes the shape of ionized layers in the stratosphere. That would have gotten worse just as the sun was setting. The Cuban stations would have appeared to increase power and interference due to the change in propagation.

The null effect would have been the same for the air plane receivers.  Ham Radio stations use this effect to drop the strength of an interfering station by rotating their Yagi antenna so they can receive a weak station being covered up by a strong station. At lower frequencies it is possible to do that with exotic long wire antennas or multiple, loaded vertical antennas, but nothing like that would have been installed at Ft. Lauderdale.

 

Radio Direction Finding

There are several current methods of radio finding but the system in use at that time would have been a rotating coil antenna. A tuned circuit is created with that coil for the frequencies in use and an additional separate turn of wire serves to couple the receiver to that coil. The coil can be rotated so that the incoming signal can be peaked or nulled. Directions are indicated remotely by mechanical or electrical methods.

The use of a tuned circuit, coil of wire, would make the direction finding  receiver 'super sensitive' to a single frequency but exclude other frequencies outside the band-pass of the tuned coil. Taylor was instructed to switch to the emergency frequency so they could be located. 

The use of shielding on the coil will cause it to be sensitive only to the magnetic component of the signal and that will reduce the 'static' that lightening would produce. There are other methods including phase shift coupling inside the receiver that can improve reception. These were used in 1945. But there is little detail about the radio equipment available at the base.

Taylor would not switch to the emergency frequency. The direction finding antenna may have been "tuned." or optimized to that frequency. I don't have that information. Some accounts refer to ZBX gear that would point the path back to Ft. Lauderdale. That same source refers to a transponder that would  make the airplane show up on radar. Taylor at first said he didn't have that but later is said to have found it and turned it on. All of this adds to the belief that he was in an altered mental state.

The problem is that this system only gives a single line of direction and the system cannot determine which side of the receiving coil the "lost transmitter" is on, nor how far along that line the transmitter is located. A second direction finding is needed so that the two compass headings can be compared to triangulate the position.

The final location placed the flight just south and east of Jacksonville Florida. That location is not in the Bermuda Triangle.

 

Compass Problems

One of the statements seized upon by the paranormal theorists is that "both compasses stopped working." Evaluation of transmissions indicate student's planes had working compasses. Taylor was heard to ask one of the other pilots about their current heading. It may be that Taylor was unable to read his compass and could not make sense of slightly different headings on the two types that were in the plane.

Quotes from the 'Official Investigation' testimony on other sites mention the necessity to frequently check mechanical and repeating compass settings.

Deposits of metal ore under the surface will deflect the Earth's magnetic field creating a false compass reading. Electromagnetic pulses from lightening will cause a magnetic compass to "bounce or spin." Flight 19 was traveling through small storms that day.

Simple small aircraft then and today have two different compass systems. They complement each other but they perform different jobs. A magnetic compass reads just like other hand held, military or Boy Scout, compass. The magnetic compass, usually liquid dampened, is used for normal navigation but on turns it may wobble and over run the correct heading before swinging back to a steady reading. The gyrocompass does not do that on turns. But the simple gyrocompass may drift off course, precess, over time. Pilots reset their gyro compass just before a turn then use it to find the outbound heading after the turn. The reports refer to mechanical and repeating compasses. It is not clear how the Avenger's compasses worked. But it is unlikely that these planes had advanced compass systems.

In situations where the magnetic compass spins or bounces the pilot refers to the gyrocompass. But he must have constantly reset it for it to have a true reading. If Taylor failed to do that his gyrocompass would have a vastly different reading from the magnetic compass. In an altered mental state he could not understand that.

Since the axis of rotation for the gyrocompass points north, high speed movement directly east or west will cause problems for this system. There is inertia for the spinning wheel. East or west movement in far northern latitudes would require rapid changes in the plane of rotation. Near the equator this effect would be lower since the rate of change per unit of distance traveled  is lower than at northern latitudes.

The gyrocompass is not effected by changes in the earth's magnetic field or electromagnetic pulses from lightning. Instead it uses the properties of a spinning weighted wheel to align its rotational axis with the north/south rotational axis of the earth. This happens because the Earth rotates and the lowest state of energy for a rotating disc near the rotating mass of the Earth is when the axis of rotation aligns with meridian lines. The gyrocompass was invented in the late 1800's.The German Buzz Bomb used a gyrocompass to maintain a heading.  Torpedoes used a gyrocompass to maintain a course.

Magnetic compasses do not read geographic directions. They repeat or indicate the magnetic field of the earth. That magnetic field is not always consistent with true or geographic north. The area known as the Bermuda Triangle is one place where this is true.

Some accounts of Taylor's service record say he had previous incidents becoming lost, running out of fuel, and ditching at sea. At this time I cannot verify this and it should not carry much weight until original records can be checked.

Today global positioning using satellites has become the  preferred method  to locate the positions of ships and planes.

Simple explanation of a gyrocompass.   http://travel.howstuffworks.com/compass3.htm

Precession explained from Yale University, robotics, 35 pages.   http://www.eng.yale.edu/ee-labs/morse/other/pos96ch2.pdf

 

 

 

Landfalls  of "Navigation Problem One"

 

Hen and Chicken Shoals ---- The shoals are too small to appear on maps other than navigational charts.

 

This first image is out of focus. I will have to re-shoot it.

 

Hen and Chicken shoals appears on the right border just below the latitude line. .

 

 

 

 

 

Great Stirrup Cay, northern most of the Berry Island group, centrally located in the Bahamas, is a private island owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines. It is a regular stop for that company. There is a lighthouse build in 1863 on the island.

Great Sale Cay was the northern most landfall. It is 370 acres and currently for sale. You can own this piece of aviation and maritime history for as little as $7.5 million.

Grand Bahama Island -- The flight should have over-flown Grand Bahama Island three times. They would have crossed over the center of the island on the northern third leg and then crossed two peninsulas on the north shore of Grand Bahama on the southwest leg, final bearing, back to Ft. Lauderdale. 

Great Stirrup Cay history.   http://arichman.cruisesinc.com/travel/cruises/destination.jsp?articletype=destination_info&name=private_islands_stirrup_cay

 

 

 

Final Position of FT-28 at 1800 Hours, 5 December 1945

An approximate location was determined  placing FT-28 within a one hundred mile radius of 29 degrees, 15 minutes north, 79 degrees, 00 minutes west, at 1750. At that point they had fuel for two more hours. From the map (to be posted soon) you can see they had traveled far enough north to be almost parallel and east of Jacksonville Florida. A two hundred mile diameter circle is a lot of ocean. If they continued in any single direction for two hours, their remaining flight time with the fuel they had,  they would have covered three hundred miles. That total possible area if they had been near the edge of the 100 mile circle would be a circle with a 800 mile diameter.

There was a radar sighting of a flight later that night but the Navy discounted it.

http://ftp.metalab.unc.edu/hyperwar/USN/rep/Flight19/index.html

 

 

Ditch At Sea

Exit problems for crash survivors.

The lower rear gunner entered and exited  the plane through a small hatch in the side of the fuselage There is access to the upper position from that interior gunner's seat. An old movie has solved the exit problem for the top gunner. The side of the turret bubble could be removed to exit the upper gun position.   Later versions of the plane did not have that bottom gun and crewman. The Avenger was used for submarine patrol and had many variations. One of those had increased the cockpit length and ferried passengers to aircraft carriers. The planes were used for water drop in forest fire work in Canada after the war.

In the link below labeled "Radio Antenna," you will note that there is no slide to pull back the rear canopy. You can see the pilot's canopy slide, bright metal strip, at the edge of the cockpit beside the pilot. That is a museum quality plane and that is probably the situation the Flight 19 crewman had.

 

 

Movie still

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Links

 

Interior view

For  a 360 degree rotational view of the inside of an empty museum display Avenger at several points, that included both rear gunner positions as well as the torpedo bay and pilot's seat, visit this site. It took a few extra seconds for the java files to load once you select the position you want to view.

http://i-ota.net/TBMAvenger/

 

Naval History Museum

Declassified specifications for the Avenger.

http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/hist-ac/tbf-1.pdf

 

War Eagles Air Museum 

Pictures of cockpit and radioman's station.

http://www.war-eagles-air-museum.com/tbm_1.html

Radio Antenna

This photo shows the radio antenna as an off center dipole with a loading coil on the short side of the dipole. That would have effected the radiation pattern but would have been of no consequence for plane to plane communications.

Note that in this photo there is no canopy slide for the rear position. The pilot could open his canopy but the turret gunner could not. Unless that canopy was broken in the sea landing both men in the rear of the plane had to exit through a small hatch near the bottom of the plane. As mentioned in an above paragraph the circle of Plexiglas on the rear turret comes out to allow the rear occupant to exit the plane. 

http://www.maam.org/flightsim/news/DSCF0296.jpg

 

Antennas

This file is more detailed that most readers will want to read. But it demonstrates how changes in the design and electronics change the radiation pattern.  It is heavy in the math involved.

http://www.amanogawa.com/archive/docs/antenna1.pdf