Ens Gay was the lone survivor of Torpedo 8 at Midway (Depicted well in "Midway" 1976) Right after WWII, Gay was stationed in Ft Lauderdale when Flt 19 went missing. He wrote in his Book, "Sole Survivor" , that when Flt 19 took off, there was a very large Wildfire in the Everglades with lots of smoke going over the Southern part of Florida and into the Ocean, making it hard to Navigate. He seems to think that Flt 19 is NOT in the Atlantic but that they UNDER shot Florida and flew into the Gulf Of Mexico and never knew it.
I go back to 1981...The first time my Dad took me Deep Sea fishing. We were only 30 miles out and when WE were out there, there were several wild fires buring in NE Fla. There was quite a bit of haze in some of the spots we went through. I can only imagine what it's be like with a large scale fire.
