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03 March

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

Right off the bat, lessons learned.

Lessons Learned

1. If you leave out the lessons learned in their entirety, you must be more than tired.
2. There are better words to describe Palauan familial relationships.
3. When in the jungle, and in Poison Tree country, here’s the number one rule: if it’s green, don’t touch it.
4. If you’re not at Bem Ermii, the burgers don’t compare.
5. When everyone is tuckered out, it’s a great day.
6. Getting home is the other half of the fun.

So yesterday, after a reasonable breakfast, we dashed to the U.S. Embassy. We had intended to make a courtesy call earlier (at least three years earlier) and finally got an appointment to see the Charge’ de Affairs. She replaced the person we knew from previous missions and her tour of duty will take her past our next mission. We’ll have some continuity with her. We made an invitation to her to dive with us on the B-24 we found last year. One of the crewmember’s sons will be joining us on the 7th. He wants to see his Dad’s final resting spot before JPAC begins their recovery mission in March. So he recently has become dive qualified and he will scuba dive his Dad’s airplane.

Unfortunately, Deborah, the Charge’ de Affairs will be off island. And she doesn’t scuba anyway. Something about going to learn once and the instructor never turned on the air valve. Events Occur. I have a T-shirt that says that. It’s even out here with me.

After the Charge’ de Affairs office visit, we went to the Ibedul’s office. The Ibedul is The Paramount Chief in Palau. We want to search one of his islands and we had to get a permit to do this. If not, we’d be in big trouble with the biggest chief and we don’t want to get kicked off this island. At least not until the end of the mission.

This is a great spot for my Survivor: Palau update. I did not see it last night. But I did get reports that the whole world wanted the crying, “I can’t believe this” woman kicked off. So she was. We also heard from a source that the canoe really did flip over on its own. It seems that both teams really suck at canoeing and tip these things over a lot. This guy was surprised they got as far as they did. He’s an insider. Of course that makes it suspect because he’s one of them trying to sell the story. Is this like professional wrestling years ago when they wanted us to believe it was for real?

And what about that rope in the water? And what about the cameraman being in the right spot at the right time? Coincidence? [I think not and I work in film in the Camera Dept. Ed.]

The Palau Tourist Board still says that Palauan canoes don’t just tip over on their own. So come on out and have a paddle in the beautiful tropical waters.

After the Ibedul, we headed to our boat and met up with Max. Max is Joe’s wife’s mother’s brother. We might say Uncle, but that would be incorrect. Lineage plays a very important part in the social fabric of Palau. Whereas I call all my Aunts and Uncles, on both sides of the family, Aunt or Uncle, those terms don’t apply across the Palauan board. Joe’s parents’ siblings might be his Aunts and Uncles if he chose to use those western terms. But his wife’s Aunts or Uncles would not be thought of that way. And the reverse when thinking of Joe’s Aunts and Uncles in relation to Esther, his wife. So it is not uncommon to hear someone say, “My sister’s husband’s brother’s wife’s Mother’s brother-in-law.”

And I have been incorrect over the past 4 years using the term tribal to describe the Chief system of native government. A better term is clan. That is closer to the true nature of the Chief selection process and implementation.

Max was a salvager after the war. We met up with him a few days ago and he agreed to take us to some stuff that recently became uncovered. This bit of stuff was seen 20 years ago, but a beach moved in and covered it all up. The sand has shifted and now it is exposed. Max said there used to be an entire airplane there. Now, just the wings can be seen. Joe drove the boat right up to it and there was a full set of Japanese wings. We don’t know from what kind of airplane yet, and we don’t know where the rest of the airplane is, but at least we found something.

Okay all you airplane people I know. Try to help us with an identification of this airplane. The 1st photo is of a wing attach point. Holds the outer wing to the inner wing section. The 2nd photo we think is of what remains of the wheel well on the right motor/landing gear area. Okay, go!


We headed south towards Peleliu and stopped at a shallow reef area. Max remembers seeing either a sunken boat or airplane in this area. That’s a little nebulous but 3 American airplanes were known to go down in this area. We snorkeled with Max and we could not find a thing. Max is a go getter. He snorkels fast, walks fast and is a great talker as you are about to find out.

We headed to the Ibedul’s island because Roddy said there were parts on the top of it. Roddy, you may remember from last year, lead us up to The German Lighthouse 3 times trying to find an airplane with bones in it. We never found that airplane and Roddy was with us. However, we believed that he once saw it, but just can’t find it now. So we believed him again. But this time, not only did we not find any parts, we’re not even sure we were on the correct island. Only this time Roddy did not come with us. We’re going to have to talk with him again.

It was tough going on this island. It wasn’t very high, and we had a breeze the whole time. However, very thick underbrush, very jagged coral outcroppings and we had an hour time limit due to the tide going out.

We got our search done and did not get trapped by the low tide. We asked Joe to take us to a good lunch spot. We passed up 3-4 brilliant beaches, which had a covey of dive boats on them and came to one that was half way back to base. And it only had one boat on it. We took our cooler ashore and everyone had something to eat.

And Max held court. He told fishing stories, work stories, Palau stories, war stories, people stories, business stories and travel stories (L.A. is too big. Too many people. Too noisy. Drives him crazy.). It was wonderful to listen to Uncle Max. I can get away with that since I am a foreigner.

He’s incredulous that people won’t use smaller outboard motors when they are commercial fishermen. “100 horsepower uses too much gas. How can you make money with 100 horses? 50 horse, that’s all you need.” He entertained us for a couple of hours.

But then the real gems started showing up. We showed him a map and asked where he did his salvaging. Right around the areas we are most interested in on the AK Causeway and the seaplane ramps on Arakabesan. And what did he salvage? Airplanes. It seems that he pulled up 10-20 aircraft from our areas of interest.

In a very short period of time, Max made our future tasking much easier. We really do not need to expend effort in an area that was heavily salvaged. However, it probably means that 1 Hellcat, 1 Corsair and 2 Avengers that we are looking for will never be found. That means those airmen will remain MIAs forever. There is a chance that he and any other salvagers only got to Japanese aircraft. But I wouldn’t bet that way. The low hanging fruit really has been picked. We have much more detective work to do now.

We took max home and we headed over to Sam’s for sunset and sashimi. They had the sunset, but no sashimi. We went to Kraemer’s which always has sashimi. And they did! But the chef wouldn’t be in until 1830. So we waited. We got what we wanted: beautiful sunset with sashimi at some point in the process. We had our team dinner and headed back to the hotel.

However, we did forget one little detail that day. We forgot to go grocery shopping. Our supplies, especially lunch fixin’s, are running low. And I just did not feel like heading to the store this late (8pm). But the mini-mart was open across from the hotel. They’ll have some lunch meat.

We checked all the coolers and the freezer and I can report they had no lunch meat: no bologna, no salami, no turkey, no roast beef, no chicken, no anything that comes in a re-sealable package nor one that doesn’t.

But, I can always make something from Spam. So we got two tins and I was happy. The rest of the team was something less. I think they are getting spoiled. But not as spoiled as when Val was here. We were really spoiled then.

Went to bed very late as I was checking seat availability for my rides back home. Buying those tickets as I told you to is a great thing to do. However, I have very few seat choices for getting home. My alternate route through Nagoya, instead of Tokyo, is more oversold than the Tokyo departures. I may have an interesting update on just my return trip. Right now, I will be leaving 4 days early and having to fly 5 legs to get home. But that’s my problem. Let’s get to today’s fun.

04 March

We got up extra early today. Thank goodness I turned my light out at 0100. Wolfed down breakfast and headed out on the boat to Peleliu. About 45 minutes south by boat. We are going to pick up a friend of Joe’s who is a hunter/fisherman. Seems he knows where an airplane is on Flip-Flip Island. This is the first island I ever hiked here in Palau and where I took a tumble down the coral hill and got a road rash on my butt that look like a map of The Palaus. The team did briefings off my well endowed behind. Saved wear and tear on the paper charts.

Well, Johnny has never actually seen the aircraft crash site. It was his brother. But his brother died a number of years ago. His brother lived on the island and hunted and fished all over it. He brought out some identification plates and even found a set of dog tags. Of course all that stuff is long gone since he died. But Johnny said he could get us to the site since his brother told him where it was.

We hiked up an extremely steep ridge of coral and down into a mangrove. You might remember my description of mangroves from earlier missions: boot sucking mud, dirty up to your underarms, wet to the skin. Of course we all forgot our booties and duct tape. Even Pat and he briefed us to bring them. They were on the boat so we could always go back. We didn’t.

Down into the mangrove we went and it was almost bone dry. I knew immediately we would not find this crash site here. We’ll only find it once the mud has claimed some of our footwear.

We hiked around a bit, found nothing and then started hiking back out to a second mangrove. We knew ahead of time there were two to search. Well, we hiked over hill and dale and worked our way a bit north of our let in point. Quite a bit north. Johnny could not find the trail to the second mangrove. We did find Jelly Fish Lake which is a huge attraction in Palau. A marine lake with gazillions of jelly fish that don’t sting. A unique aquaculture that I still haven’t actually visited yet. Just like yesterday at the Ibedul’s island. Our clue was to go to the first island past the Big Drop-Off scuba site. A pretty famous site in the scuba world. Have I dived there? Nope.

But we could not find the right trail. So we slithered down a steep incline to the island’s edge to figure out where the boat was. Nowhere in sight. We were in a little bend in the island that bent inwards. Couldn’t see around the corner to see the boat. Joe used a branch to drop the final 10 feet to the beach, stripped off his jungle gear and said for us to wait and he would bring the boat around.

Joe actually planned this out well. The plan just wasn’t working as well once it got off paper. He had an assistant on the boat and they both had cell phones. The plan was for Joe to call and the boat would come and get us no matter where we were. One problem. The cell phone did not work at this spot on the island. So Joe started swimming.

And he and the boat came back over an hour later. Seems we traveled quite a bit north and Joe had to swim an hour just to get to the boat. Yea, Joe!

While Joe was away, Johnny worked his way down the cliff so he could cool off in the ocean. The team planned on staying on the island in case Joe wanted us to move for pickup. You might remember that all these coral islands look like an ice cream cone. Wind and wave have eaten away at the coral and there is a great degree of undercut at the water’s edge. We wanted to make sure we could move on island if we needed to. And I for one did not want to risk getting my boots wet.

Mark put his pack down and started examining the rock face to see if there was an easier way down. Just then, his backpack rolled into the ocean. That was the pack with the Nikon in it. So down went Mark and rapidly scooped up his satchel. Camera was fine and now Mark was committed to a pickup right there.

Then Johnny’s betel nut bag went in the drink. Mark recovered that too.

Pat pulled out his climbing rope for something to play with and we knew someone was going to use it.

As I said, Joe swam an hour and came back. We all made our most gracious rock climbing moves to get down and then timed the waves to jump into the boat. Didn’t want to get those boots wet.

Then we slowly moved out as the tide was out and there was a small reef close by. We motored north and found the other entry point. Decided not to do the other hike today since we were running out of time and did not want to rush it. And we couldn’t get in anyway as a reef was blocking this entrance too due to the tide.

So we called it a day and took Johnny back to Peleliu. The ride to Peleliu in the morning and this afternoon were great. I rode the front of the boat and soaked up some rays and took in the ocean viewing.

On the way out from Peleliu, a vote was taken and 3 of our 5 trekkers wanted to skip lunch. I wasn’t about to let the Spam go unused so out it came: honey wheat bread, Spam, mustard (yellow or spicy) cheese and Doritos. Yes, Doritos on a sandwich. With appropriate fruits, (grapes) veggies (little carrots) and drinks (water). 4 of our 5 troopers said yes to the Spam. One said he’d rather eat a goat that has been dead for 3 weeks rotting in the sun.

So I pulled out a surprise for Mike: leftovers! Mark had some extra Thai BBQ ribs and chicken last night and had me take them to our ‘fridge. I knew that they would not be consumed for breakfast and would be put to good use at lunch. Mike’s Spam induced frown was turned into a smile. And the goat is safe.

Back to Koror on the west side. Rougher than a cob. Lots of sea spray. Lots of bumps. Lots of wind. A little rain. But we made it.

We are all so dirty and tired that we headed back to the ‘ranch’ and talked about dinner for five minutes in the lobby of the hotel. It was decided that we would head back to the dive shop and have sashimi and burgers there. We feel pretty loyal to the Bem Ermii truckstop burger joint, but wanted to try our dive shop’s new restaurant.

No sashimi here. Well, they had 3 day old fish, but I think I’d rather eat a rotting goat before I get to the 3 day old fish for sashimi.

And unfortunately, the burgers are not as good as Bem Ermii’s. So it’s back to the truckstop for us in the future.

And that leads to tomorrow.

Lazarus, or as I like to call him Chucky from the movie Child’s Play, is going to take us to a plane that has it’s landing gear down, it’s upside down, and it’s only in 10 feet of water. And Laz saw this airplane the day he talked to us. But I speak Lazarus now. He actually said he went by it that day. He did not use the words “I saw it.”

Lazarus took us into the mangroves a few years ago without much success. And he hadn’t tried to locate the wreck in the year we were gone. But he “knew where it was.” That is when I took a course on how to interpret The Language of Lazarus.

Now to be fair, Laz has taken Pat to real aircraft finds in the past. I guess he just is having a run of bad luck. It is especially unlucky to take people to a site with a 4 hour walk-in, when a trail only 1,000 meters long exists. Hmmmmm?

Then two mangrove crab hunters will take us to a wreck in a real honest to goodness boot sucking mangrove. Tomorrow should be a fun day.

And I hope you have a fun day too. Thanks for reading this stuff. I’ll try and take more pictures over the next few days.

Okay, back at ya.

Blue Skies, Flip