BentProp Supporters

BentProp Supporters Blog Moving

2006-02-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone!

I'm moving! My blog will now he hosted at www.bentstarproject.org. If you want to keep up to speed with the goings on of all the searches in Palau, head to this new website. Of course you can always go to www.bentprop.org and www.michaelolds.com for this years field reports.

Blue SKies, Flip

BentProp Supporters Update #2

2006-01-29T17:25:00.000-05:00

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The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

I’m up at 11,600 meters in a Thai Airways Airbus 330, enroute from Tokyo Narita International Airport (NRT) to Bangkok, Thailand (BKK). Sounds fairly simple: leave Detroit (DTW), arrive in BKK. But if you remember my past experiences traveling the globe, you know I’ll have story to tell.

We got on the Northwest flight (remember, the only airline you’re supposed to fly) in DTW. The plan was to get to NRT and an hour and a half later, go to BKK. The loads were quite full. As a back up, we had some passes on Thai Airways for the next day’s flight. Northwest only has one flight a day to BKK. Thai Airways has three. But that was for "just in case."

The flight from DTW was quite enjoyable. When we got into the greater Tokyo area, we had to hold. A snow storm was affecting the arrival flow into NRT. The Captain said we would only hold for about 10-15 minutes. Good to his word, we commenced the approach within that window. When we broke out of the clouds, we saw a beautiful snow covered Japanese landscape. Quite pretty. We cleared the runway and taxied to a spot pretty close to our gate.

Then we were told we would have to hold for a gate. Seems NRT isn’t used to a lot of snow and they were getting a lot now. Deicing was delayed for a number of airplanes due to the volume of airplanes that needed to deice. And in Tokyo, it’s mostly big airplanes such as 747s and A340s. And lots of them. Almost every airline had planes at their gates that would normally be empty for the arrival aircraft. Airplanes that were supposed to leave at 1400 were still there at 1700. And planes kept coming into NRT. That is until the airport tarmac filled up and they had to divert to other Japanese cities. Every parking space was filled in NRT.

What should have been 20 minutes turned into five plus hours to get to the gate. Our connecting flight to BKK was still at its gate so we ran to it only to be told that there would be no seats available for us. I could ride the jumpseat, but Rebecca would be left behind. Not a good plan.

Our choice was to go to Thai Airways and see if they still had a flight holding for BKK, go to the hotel or hang at the gate area. We chose the hotel. After all, I had a back up plan for Thai Airways the next day, and a bed, shower and some sleep sounded really good. However, we would have to pass through immigration in order to enter Japan. Well, at least Rebecca could see Japan this time. Last time, you should check my story from two years ago, I left Rebecca in a transit lounge while I had to deal with a ticketing issue. She never got to see Japan. And we had to go through Manila to get to Palau and she did not get to see that country either.

There was easily an hour wait just to get our passports stamped. Seems everyone else was heading out too.

Went to see about baggage. I had checked one bag. Not my skydiving gear, but all my clothes. I had checked it to BKK on NWA. To make a long story a little shorter, our agent said, trust me, I’ll transfer the bag to Thai Airways. That burned up another hour. It’s pretty close to midnight now.

Went to the area for the crew bus to the hotel, where I had a reservation. Ran into a Northwest crewmember who said they were in line for a taxi as the bus stopped running at 10pm. There were easily 1,000 people in line for a cab. All the airlines were sending people to hotels. And all the hotels were said to be full in the area around the airport. I had a reservation, but if we couldn’t get there, what good was it?

Okay, let’s go back inside to the gate area and wait for tomorrow’s flights. Nope, security closed and they kicked everyone out of the gate areas. Headed to the other terminal where Thai Airways is located. It’s a 20 minute bus ride. No Thai Airways staff personnel were around. The terminal closes for business around 11pm. Even during weather problems such as this one. Walked around a bit and found the only thing open was a McDonald’s. Not that desperate yet for food.

Found an Australian woman with her child. They were supposed to fly out and had left her hubby in a downtown hotel. He was coming out in a taxi to get her and take her back to downtown Tokyo. She offered to drop us at our hotel. She even loaned us a phone card to check and see if we still had our room. We couldn’t get in touch with the hotel, so we elected to stay. Gave our new friend some raisins and nuts and off they went to the Aeroflot sign to meet her hubby, in about 1½ hours if it all worked out for them.

So, we can’t get to the hotel, can’t get to a gate, can’t make arrangements for tomorrow and 1000’s of our new bestest friends are in the same boat: we’re camping on a linoleum floor of an airport!

We got a spot right where the line for Thai Airways will start the next day. JAL was handing out emergency sleeping bags so we grabbed two and nested. JAL was handing out these gems to anyone who needed them. It was a nice gesture. And we’re keeping ours "just in case." Went to McDonald’s to get something to eat. It just closed.

Found an Internet machine so I could try to find a way out of Japan the next day. Thankfully, I got some Japanese Yen the day prior. Only this thing only took coins. But, Japanese vending machines are plentiful and smart. Bought a can of coffee and got 90 minutes of coins as change. Figured out we’ll get out on NWA late tomorrow if not on Thai Airways. Seems the weather forced some mainland flights to cancel coming to Japan, which opened up seats for us to BKK. But, we’ll get to BKK much earlier if we stick with Thai. So we camped out on our number one spot.

Rebecca was able to sleep a bit, but I was up all night. Kept buying cans of coffee so I could surf the net. Talked with our neighbors and found many people trying to fly Quantas to various spots in Australia.

At about 6am, the airport started to wake up. One group of Australians was trying to get home. We watched them for hours being shuffled from one ticket counter to another, and back again as the Japanese system doesn’t assign counter space on a permanent basis. Each time they stopped at a counter, it looked as if they had solved their problems. They hadn’t. Saw a news report in Bangkok today about a group of Australians stranded between two ticket counters in Narita.

The Thai Airways folks started setting up their counter space and I felt much better. There is a bag security screening that is done before you get to the ticket counters. I had hoped my ID badge would get us through that early. Nope. Wait until your airline is called. At about 8am, Thai was open for business. We were first in line and first to the counter. They put us on standby and said at 9am go to counter 21 for your boarding pass. Sounds good to me. They also put a note in to grab my checked bag from NWA.

In the next hour I saw way more folks at the ticket counter than an Airbus 330 can hold. But, we had faith.

I went to ticket counter 21 and asked a little early how it looked. They said poor. We stayed the course.

At 9am, the supervisor said go to counter 16, get a boarding pass and don’t be late at the gate or we’ll leave you. 45 minutes, no problem.

Got our boarding coupon with 15 minutes to go. Problem. Had to pass through immigration and the line was at least 45 minutes long. Went to the crew line and asked if we could be granted a one time good deal to use the crew line (no waiting there). The immigration officer said to go to the head of a line. We did and got through with 8 minutes to spare. Ran to the gate and found it was delayed.

Saw a number of faces I recognized from our waiting in the terminal the night before. With all that went on, it was amazing in hindsight that no one complained while we were stuck in the airplane and we only saw two upset people the rest of the time we were loitering in the airport.

We boarded and found out we got the last two seats on the airplane.

Another pleasant flight. The Thai Airways staff was excellent.

Got to BKK and found my bag was not there. But, Thai Airways said they would get it to me. They sent a message to NWA, who put it on a flight that night and by noon today, it was delivered to my hotel. Now I can go shopping for wants, rather than needs.

So what does this have to do with looking for MIAs in Palau? Well, if there’s a story to be told enroute to Palau, I may as well tell it. And, technically, I am enroute to Palau, just with a 19 day stop in Thailand.

Hopefully, my traveling travails are over. The next update should be from Palau itself.

P_MAN VIII Update #1

2006-01-20T07:43:00.000-05:00

P-MAN VIII, Update #1
www.bentprop.org

Hello Everyone!

It’s that time of the year again when a group of volunteers starts heading towards the wide open Pacific. The annual BentProp Project mission to Palau is afoot.
P-MANVIII (Palau- Marine, Army, Navy, eighth mission) is going to be a great adventure this year. We have some leads for the potential execution site/s of some POWs, a few new sightings for aircraft debris and of course interviewing the elders who lived through the war years.

And just so you don’t think spookiness has departed from our midst, we had a couple of events happen that some would say are coincidences. As you know, the BentProp Project doesn’t believe in coincidences anymore.

Pat Scannon (Founder of The BentProp Project, SMF#1) and I were driving from my home Chelsea, MI up to Traverse City in Northern MI. We were enroute to a World War Two, Marine Corps Corsair Squadron reunion. Pat attends many of these reunions so he can to update the Old Codgers and their families about the findings of our searches. It’s also a way to let them know that their efforts way back when are not forgotten.

We were talking about another trip to the National Archives (NARA) and how more aerial photography would be beneficial to our efforts. We have been very fortunate to locate an extensive collection of bomb run photography at NARA as well as many photos from other sources. Although from long ago, these photos have helped us in our searches.

Just at that moment, Pat’s Blackberry announced an incoming email. To paraphrase what Pat read to me, ‘this guy was a photo processor and photographer on B-24s operating off of Anguar in Palau and would we be interested in seeing his collection of photos some day?’ Pat looked at me and asked where Cadillac, MI was. Not only was it near, we had to go through it to get to Traverse City!

Pat called this gentleman back and we set up a meeting that would take place within 2 hours. This man and his wife, Phil and Clara Boucher, hadn’t even left the BentProp webpage by the time Pat made his call. The power of technology.

We got to his house and he showed us his stuff. He had a few boxes of photos that all were treasures. There were no ‘smoking gun’ photos that would show us where to find an airplane, but one photo really got our attention.

It seems that on one mission, a Marine Corsair flew under the B-24. Phil timed it just right and shot a photo. This was taken with one of those really big cameras that you don’t get to look through. He just hit the shutter release when he thought that this ‘under flying Corsair’ would be ‘just right’.

Of all the Corsairs in the Pacific, and of all the Marine Corsairs in this particular theater of war, and of the 3 squadrons operating off of Peleliu, this one Marine is quite well known to us: Major Jack Conger.

Photo by Phil Boucher

Pat has a longstanding relationship with this warrior and if you’ve gone to the website, you may have seen his 8mm color film he shot from his plane. It was quite a thrill to see this photo of someone we know. And think of the coincidence of this photo, plus 60 years for us to get it.

But there was one more coincidence. As we were driving back to Southern MI, Pat and I were talking about our interactions with JPAC (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command). Within a mile of where we received the email from Phil, when we were northbound, we received an email from JPAC while heading southbound. And within a few minutes, a phone call. Again, the wonders of technology. But coincidence? We don’t think so.

In late May, The BentProp Project was able to participate in a Repatriation Ceremony at Hickham AFB. Whenever someone is recovered, they are brought to CILHI (Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii, part of JPAC) for identification. They are welcomed home each time by official military personnel from all commands, as well as many Veterans groups. It is a simple and stunning ceremony. No one makes any speeches. It’s all about the returnee/s.

In this ceremony, there were four men coming home. Including the possibility of one of the airmen we had been looking for.

Photo by Flip Colmer

Photo by Flip Colmer

Photo by Flip Colmer

Photo by Flip Colmer

This ceremony is done every time someone comes home. And the crowds are always there: every branch of the military, many veterans organizations, civilians and tourists.

Photo by Flip Colmer

No trip to honor our warriors is complete without a trip to Punchbowl National Cemetery.

Rebecca and I stayed at an Air Force recreation area that has some cottages by the ocean. It was tranquil, idyllic and beautiful. On the weekends, one bit of the area is open to the public and campers flock there to enjoy the beach. But the Marines technically own that section of the area and they have other uses for it Monday through Friday. On Monday morning, we found this out our back door:

Photo by Flip Colmer

Followed by the sound of freedom:

Photo by Flip Colmer, Landings by your United States Marine Corps.

This year’s mission participants are Pat Scannon, Reid Joyce, Dan O’brien, Mike Olds and me. We have lots planned for the jungle and lots planned for the water. Now it’s just a matter of getting over there and getting started. The actual mission dates are 15 February through 15 March. I’m heading out a little early for one more skydiving adventure in Thailand.

As always, if you’re tired of having your inbox cluttered with my musings, please feel free to opt out. Otherwise, it’s another season of missives from afar!

Blue SKies, Flip

Update #12 — Get a Day Off, Go Home

2005-03-15T01:20:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #12

The BentProp Project

10 March

Great breakfast. I didn’t cook and ate at the café downstairs. It is a day off after all.

Sam’s Tours picked us up to go diving. Normally we would have gone with Neco Marine since they take such good care of us. But they did not have a boat going to Peleliu and Sam’s had two. I assumed my normal position at the bow of the boat and had a lovely ride down to Peleliu. We cruised past many of the landing beaches from the invasion days, enroute to the dive site. It was great viewing from my perch.

One of the landing beaches today. Photo by Mike Olds

There were 8 of us today. Three people from Germany with serious camera set ups, a recently graduated lawyer from Poland who now resides in New Jersey, a former flight attendant who lives in Seattle, a man from Palm Springs who gets violently seasick but loves the sport so much he guts through it, and me and Mike. I had some compliments paid to me on the way out. They all thought Mike was my son. I sure hope he does well in law school. Do you know how much tuition is? Make us proud, Mike.

We suited up and Keith, our guide, led the way. The Peleliu wall is a reef fairly close to the west side of Peleliu. The top is at about 35 feet and the bottom is well beyond visual range. I’m told there is a shelf at about 250 feet and then it drops off to a couple of thousand feet. We went down to about 70 feet and allowed the current to carry us along the wall. Very little effort is required to move. You just get to see the world as you go by. The world of fish all around you: in the open, along the wall, in the cracks, above you and behind you. Lots of corals, colors and shapes

And sharks.

All underwater photos courtesy of Dive Palau Website.

We did not see any for awhile and then we saw a wall of them. That’s when I realized that I was last in line. You know what happens to the last person in the movies whether it is a teen horror movie or a military movie?

We moved along at a good clip and got to an area known as The Cut. This is a spot where you can hook into the reef and watch the show. It also has a tendency to have a very strong current. So strong that it took two hands to hold on at times. Thank goodness I found two hand holds. Keith hadn’t planned on us getting that far on the first dive so we did not have our reef hooks to help out. But we all hung on and watched the show.

The current isn’t steady. It comes and goes like the varying of the wind. When you are anchored to the reef, you can really feel it pulsing. When you let go, that feeling goes away and you drift with the current. That feels like the last guy in line in a space movie who lets go of his anchor and drifts away from the space station never to be seen again.

We drifted a bit to look at the top of the reef and do our safety stop at the same time. Keith let go an orange buoy and the boat started to come to our position. After all the divers were on the boat, we headed to the South Dock of Peleliu for lunch. Something about it being rough out there and the effect it would have on one individual of our group.

Lunch is a long, drawn out affair. Not that we have anything more than a box lunch to eat. We have to spend time on the surface in order to get rid of nitrogen build up in our bodies. Time is really the only way to do that.

After a sufficient amount of time, back on the boat and away we went back to the wall. We repeated the dive, but with a slightly different jump in point and slightly different depth. So it was all new. This time we had our reef hooks. So when we got to the cut again, we were ready. Again, another wall of fish, sharks and sea life. We also saw a huge tuna, a bat ray, Dorie and many other things. Another great dive. And a great day off. Sort of a tease having the day off the day before you leave. But I’ll take it. Seeing pretty fish is a great way to end the trip.

The boat ride back was wonderful too. The captain found a herd of dolphin and they wanted to play. They rode the bow wave for quite some time and put on a good show for us. We also encountered a few rain showers. I, being prepared from my BentProp training, had my rain gear and stayed in my bow position. The pointy ends of the drops don’t hurt as much when you have a good L.L.Bean yellow rain slicker. Knee length. I always wanted one of those and I got it this past summer just for this reason.

At one point I remembered that I had a box of Oreos to share with my diving partners. Had to stop the boat to get the captain off the dry box lid. Everyone was happy with an Oreo in the hand and rain pelting their faces.

Back at port, Keith gave us some leads to some folks to chat with. We’ll follow up with them later.

Got cleaned up and headed to Joe and Esther’s house. Esther has been planning a dinner party for us for months. She wanted to fix us a banquet of just Palauan delicacies. And she did just that. Fresh coconut milk in the coconut, lemonade from Palauan lemons, taro leaf soup, clam chowder in coconut milk, many forms of taro, fried fish, BBQ crocodile fish, sweet taro, sweet pumpkin, some sort of nut that grows wild in Palau and I’m sure I’ve left something out. The only thing not from Palau was the rice.

And we had second servings of everything. It was all wonderful. As some might say, “Full as a tick.”

We rolled out to the cars and rolled on home.

I slept a long and sound sleep.

11 March

Slept in and then made one last breakfast for everyone. One last good cup of coffee before I start this road trip home. This is the only part of the adventure I really do not like. Tonight’s flight leaves at 0150 in the morning on the 12th. It’s convenient that it connects to all the departing flights out of Guam. But that time. 0150. Arggggggg.

So, time to get some errands out of the way. But first, a few final interviews. We interviewed one old gent who worked in the water department under the Japanese occupation. He told us some more facts about the new Avenger site we found. When he left Koror for Babelthuap, he was a hunter. His air gun broke and then his buddies told him where this airplane was and that he could get the parts from the plane that could fix his gun. So he disassembled a .50 cal machine gun to get a few parts. Turns out he could not fix his gun. But he did say there was more of the airplane there then what we have found so far. Seems like we have our work cut out for us on this one. And by process of elimination, we think we know who might have been in that plane. So we are motivated to find it. But that will have to wait until next year.

My last interviewee. Photo by Flip

He did not have information about other crash sites. So we went off to find two other folks. One went to Hawaii last night. That sounds familiar. And another, we just could not find their house. It’s interesting to hear Joe speak when we ask if he knows where someone lives. We might say something like, “I know where they live” or “I know the address.” Joe always says “I know/do not know that house.”

My errands were to the post office to ship my stuff home, barber shop so I would look less rough around the edges for Rebecca, pick up a few more goodies for her, check loads for my ride home, and try to trade some challenge coins for some challenge coins.

64 pounds, 11 ounces enroute to Chelsea, MI. They asked me if I knew why there was no guaranteed delivery anymore to Micronesia. I think they know my story of free shipping.

Found a great barber. A Filipina who massaged my head and shoulders after the haircut just like I remembered when I lived in the Philippines. Even the price was right.

Found a few more goodies for Rebecca.

Checked loads out of Guam. I’m doomed. More on that when I get to Guam.

Headed to The Vice President’s office. I heard he liked trading coins so I went to see him. He was off island but his secretary said, “Of course I’ll get one for you. Almost as good as if it was coming from his hands.”

Caught up with Reid and Mike and we tracked down some language books that we were looking for. We had to go to the Ministry of Education to find them.

Cleaned up and headed to Sam’s for one more presentation. This one would be unique. This would be an update of what we did this year, but it was going to be filmed for local Palauan television with Joe doing the translation into the Palauan language. It went great. Lots of people in attendance. Lots of interest in what we’re doing.

Traded with the O.I.C. of the Air Force for a couple of coins. And scored a DET CAT T-shirt too. Must be some guilt feelings driving a Navy boat by an Air Force crew. Okay, she has a good heart and wanted to improve my style of dress.

Gathered up the BentProp Team and headed to Carp Restaurant which is close to the hotel. In case it took too long to get through dinner, I could make an escape and stay on time. Which is what happened. After a great meal, I dashed out of The Carp to the hotel. In my room, as I was emptying my pockets, I noticed one problem. I still had the car keys for the rest of the group. Had to go back and take them the keys.

Back to the hotel, quick shower, fast pack, goodbyes to all and P-MAN VII was over for me. Now it’s just adventures in non-reving.

Got to the airport and went through the check in process in less than 5 minutes. Now what? It’s just after midnight and the flight doesn’t leave until 0150. Wait. Call Rebecca. Wait some more. Finally got through immigration and security.

Got a seat and it was an emergency exit row. Well, at least I could stretch out. With all that extra legroom, and the seat all the way back, snoozing shouldn’t be a problem.

Except for the window seat. They don’t recline. Did you know that? I did, but it didn’t dawn on me until I got to the seat. Keep in mind I’ve been up since 0700 and it’s now almost 2 in the morning.

Bagged an hour of sleep on the plane and we arrived in Guam. Passed through immigration, out to the real world and back through security. Went to the gate and had two hours until my flight to Narita, Japan. So, I’ve been typing away trying to get caught up with this update. After all, you’ve probably been thinking “Now why don’t he write?” Quote courtesy of Dances With Wolves.

Norman the gate agent showed up so I checked in with him. He said it didn’t look good since coach was full.

But I had a business class pass.

You’re not listed that way he responded.

I should be.

This is a problem he said.

Can you fix it?

Sure.

30 minutes later, with no word from Norman and the boarding process in full swing, I asked him if I needed to call Continental Reservations back. He said yes.

Walked to the far away pay phones as the close ones in sight of the podium were on the other side of a security barrier. I talked with Judy and she fixed everything.

Went back to Norman. He thanked me for doing that. Then he said wait.

At the bitter end, he said I wasn’t listed at all. And that there was nothing he could do and it was too late to do anything anyway. “Sorry.”

I of course raced to the near pay phones, jumping over the security barrier. Called Judy back and she said in no uncertain terms that I was listed. Then she did a very sweet thing. She said to put the receiver down and go to the podium and see what they say now. She wasn’t going to give up on me and make me dial again if I needed it.

Again Norman said I wasn’t listed. I told him that the reservations agent, on hold at the pay phone said otherwise. Norman’s supervisor realized I had never been checked in and was listed the whole time. A handwritten boarding pass was issued, I raced back to the phone to say thank you to Judy and raced back to the gate and got on. Good karma begets good karma.

In Narita, where I did very little of this writing, I kept checking loads on the various NWA flights that could get me home. We’re very full on every flight. The only flight out of NRT today that had any appreciable number of seats open was to Portland, OR. But, we don’t have flights to DTW on the weekends from PDX which means going through MSP and not getting home until close to 7pm. If I ride the jumpseat home from NRT, I’ll get back by 12 noon. I think I’ll go for speed of return versus having a beer in the back.

One last e-mail sweep, a shower in the bathhouse they have here and off I went to my gate. The bathhouse is probably the best deal in Japan. Use of a complete shower facility in the airport for only 500 yen [$4.77 US, Ed.]. I felt like a new man. Well, not exactly. I just didn’t feel as tarnished as I did prior.

I was up in the cockpit jumpseat for the entire ride back. Best seat in the house. Especially when there are no others. An NWA friend and his son were trying to get out of NRT. They want to eventually end up in Atlanta but as I said, the loads are tight here. The son got the last seat on the airplane and my friend rode the last remaining jumpseat.

And that brings me back home. Arrived, got through customs and immigration and jumped into Rebecca’s arms. I’m really home. But the rest of the lads are still there. If anything special happens, I’ll have another update for you. Until then, take care.

Blue Skies, Flip

Update #11 — Tommy and His Dad

2005-03-15T01:15:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #11

More lots of March

The BentProp Project

09 March

Had to set the alarm in order to get up and fix breakfast for everyone. I volunteered to make food happen for us this year and keep track of expenses. Val has done that in the past and last year, when Val didn’t come due to injuries, ‘da Boys’ failed miserably on both tasks. Well, the truth be known, I volunteered to cook so I wouldn’t go hungry. Everyone else, well, I made enough for them too.

Today I cooked enough for the Doyles as well. Might as well let them join us for the whole day, not just the cool and groovy parts. Out the door at 0730, over to Neco and Tommy started his check-in process. Tommy is a brand new scuba diver. Just got certified just so he could dive to his Dad’s airplane. But he had never been deeper than 25 feet and never in open ocean. We thought it would be prudent that his first dive not be to his Dad’s airplane. So we hooked him up with Bert.

Tommy working with Bert. Photo by Flip

Tommy’s first post student status dive. Photo by Reid Joyce

Bert was going to film the dive on the B-24 and he is an instructor so it seemed a natural confluence. We loaded all the gear and headed out no more than 500 yards to a spot that would work for a new diver. In the meantime, us more current divers paddled over and dropped down on the Helmet Wreck.

The Helmet Wreck is a Japanese armed freighter that was sunk during the war. It was carrying lots of war materials including, now this is a stretch, helmets. But in the hold are countless depth charges. Still intact, still live. So nobody sneeze. Lots of different things to look at: machine gun, deck gun, ammunition, mast, wheel house and more. The stern is the highest in the water at about 60 feet and the top of the bow is at about 90. And this wreck went undiscovered until the 70s. And the area is in sight of Neco’s dock. It’s amazing that the salvagers missed this one.

And we were very lucky. The visibility was great. There is a lot of silt down there and normally with the tide shifts, the water gets kind of murky. Not for us this day. However, as much as we wanted to stay on the wreck, we timed our ascent to be on deck when Tommy came up from his dive. We wanted to go back to Neco and clean up since we would be meeting the President [of Palau, Tommy Remengesau, Jr., Ed.] in a little while.

So clean up we did. I got some advice from my cohorts that flowered Hawaiian shirts and shorts, that are different in color, pattern and no ability to go with each other, probably would not be right for any occasion, let alone meeting the President of Palau. I put on the same shirt I wore for Major QB Nelson’s memorial we conducted during my first mission to Palau. My green shorts coordinated perfectly. People are looking out for me.

Everyone boarded and off we went. First stop, pick up the AirBees. Since the U.S. Air Force has a presence in Palau this year as The Civic Action Team, we enlisted their help with our ceremony. We asked their OIC (Officer in Charge), 1LT Megan Poyant, to say a few words from the Air Force perspective. (We call them the AirBees as they don’t really have a nickname of their own, and this used to be SeaBees territory.)

El Jefé and L.T. Photo by Flip

With them was the Acting Charge’ de Affaires for the U.S. Embassy: Michelle Solinski. The regular Charge’ was off island at a conference and her replacement came in from the Philippines. Imagine her surprise when we walked in a few days ago and said, “Guess what you’re doing with the President of Palau on the 9th?” She and her husband rode out with the AirBees in their boat. Yes, I did say their boat. It used to be a SeaBee boat, but for this detachment it is an Air Force boat. Okay, here’s a trivia question. Which Uniformed Service has the most ships? The Army. Which Service has the most aircraft? The Army. Just thought you’d want to know. And the Charge’ is not a scuba diver so when we wanted to go under, she bagged a ride back to shore on the President’s ride.

We led them out and anchored over the B-24 and lashed the two boats together. Introductions were made as there were Tommy and Nancy, Bert the videographer, 7 BentPropers including Joe our boat captain, 7 AirBees and The Charge’ and her husband. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor…………

AirBees’ Doc. Photo by Flip

As Pat started to give a little background info of why we were all there, the President showed up with his contingent: Henny, his dive guide, his bodyguard (with earpiece and wire hanging out of his ear), a photographer and two boat handlers and a police officer or two. They lashed up on the other side of us. We were quite a crowd over this spot.

Ding Ding. Ding Ding. Ding Ding.
The President of Palau arriving.
Photo by Flip

And it started. The Air Force unfurled the American and Palauan flags at the stern of our boat.

Color Guard. Photo by Flip

The President spoke first and talked about freedom and democracy and how due to the sacrifices of people such as the Doyles, Palau was able to regain its freedom and take its rightful place as an independent country and a member of the United Nations. He thanked Tommy Doyle for all the people of Palau.

The President of Palau, the U.S. Charge’ de Affairs, the Media and Security. Photo by Flip

The Charge’ spoke next and was equally eloquent. She seemed to get it that this is not about looking for airplanes to salvage. It’s about the people, and here was a couple that came all the way from Snyder, Texas, to stand on the water to make some sort of contact with this man’s Dad. And she made that more personal by representing our country at the ceremony.

Next came The Air Force. I think we gave LT Poyant 24 hours notice that The President of Palau was going to be there. She spoke eloquently about how she felt as a young Air Force officer thinking about the loss of the crew of this B-24. She ended by quoting a part of the Air Force hymn. Most of us know “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder…” But she quoted a much more personal section:

Here’s a toast to the host of those who
__Love the vastness of the sky.
To a friend we send this message
__Of his brother men who fly.
We drink to those who gave their all of old
__Then down we roar to score the rainbow’s pot of gold.
A toast to the host of men we boast
__The United States Air Force.

The national flags were folded and presented to Tommy Doyle on behalf of two very grateful nations. Tommy had a chance to speak and it was evident that so much more than a simple visit to his Dad’s final resting spot had occurred. There were a few misty sets of eyes on all the boats.

Photos by Flip

A natural moment of silence ensued and then someone broke the ice and said, “Let’s go diving.”

President’s flippers

Henny

The Presdent of Palau. Photos by Flip

The President went down first to lead the way. Tommy followed him down. Each had their own entourage: The President had Henny, and Tommy had Pat, Joe, Megan and Bert was filming the whole thing.

Megan, Pat, Joe and Tommy. Photo by Flip

The rest of us stayed on the surface. The wreck is on two sides of a coral head. The plan was when Tommy and the President moved off the forward fuselage, wings and propeller section towards the tail and fuselage section, our second group of divers would hit the first section. I would lead the way with the rest of the BentProp team and the AirBees.

While Tommy was holding on to a piece of the airplane with his bare hand, The President took off his glove and handed it to Tommy to use. It was related as quite a touching moment by all those who witnessed it.

They moved off and I jumped in. When our gaggle was all together, we went down.

The Second Dive Group. Photo by Jennifer Noah

Joe, as always, put the boat right over the wreck. It was a simple swim down to the first pieces of the airplane. Then moving to the north, we got to the rest of the first section. The airplane is pretty much the way we left it. It doesn’t seem as if anyone else has been down there since last year. Or if they were, they were not intrusive.

We spent a few minutes there and then headed south towards the second section. This is a great part of the dive. You swim with the reef on your left and at the base of it. You go past some wonderful sea fans and fish. Just when you think you’ve missed it, out of the silty water looms the tail section. The rudder fabric is all gone so it looks like the ribs of some large creature, until you get close enough to see the rest of the vertical and horizontal stabilizers, and above that on the sloping reef, the aft fuselage.

One of the vertical stabilizers

Jennifer and the first prop. Photos by Reid Joyce from P-MAN VI

You can get your head inside some of the holes in the airplane and look around. One of the waist gunner’s doors is fully open giving great views. Again, this part of the wreck seems undisturbed.

Meanwhile, back on the boat, our heroes… Tommy talked about the impact of the dive. I wasn’t there, but I’m told the President gave him some more kind words.

We went back to the first section, looked around some more and then surfaced. A great dive.

And a great dive for Tommy Doyle. His second dive off student status is with The President of Palau, on his Father’s airplane. How’s that for cool factor?

The President departed for land to take care of affairs of state. The AirBees hung out a bit longer and they too departed. That left just us BentPropers and The Doyles. We ate some lunch, schmoozed a little and then Tommy went down for his second dive on the B-24. He looked at both sections again, and went back to the boat. Then he spoke for the camera and with no one on the boat but his lovely bride, Pat, Joe and Bert. The rest of us were still underwater. I have not seen the footage but I’m told he opened up a bit and it was quite heartwarming. You’ll have to wait and see the documentary that DOB and Jennifer are making. Wait a minute! Should that have been a shameless marketing alert? No. I think not. That was a public service announcement.

We hung over the site for quite some time. No one wanted to leave. When it felt right, we did. Back to Neco and back to our hotels to clean up prior to dinner.

I needed to go shopping for Rebecca. It seems it’s still snowing in Michigan and hasn’t started yet in Palau. So a few more warming gifts are in order. And I felt I had to go right now to a specific art gallery. Coincidence? By now you should know it was not.

Rebecca asked me to look for something with oranges and purples. I’m not sure if that was together or separate, but I did not find any. But, at the art gallery, there is a Pacific Rim Crafts shop. I found a few things there and started talking to the owner. We talked about what we were doing in Palau and about our trip around the island interviewing the elders. Coincidentally, she works in the Ministry of Cultural Affairs as the Senior Center Coordinator. She loved our idea of interviewing the old folks. Neither of us recognized each other but when business cards were exchanged, we realized we did know each other. I was speaking with Lillian, the owner of Lehn’s Motel. We stayed there last year. She thought coming to the Senior’s Center might bear fruit for us. Pat will call her after I’m gone and set up something for next year. We’re getting a little tight on time for this year’s mission.

Out to a large group dinner with The Doyles and a lot of the players from the day. This was held at The Reef which is located in the Etpison Museum. A beautiful museum dedicated to the cultural history of Palau.

I handed my camera to the person on my left and said, “Take a photo of something, and then pass it to the next person.” Here’s a sampling of what I found in my camera.

Bert’s shot

L.T.’s shot

Reid’s shot

A grand time had by all, but this dinner dashed one of our accomplishments from earlier in the trip. The Reef still had VB! It was in cans, not bottles, but it was VB. And they still had some when the night was over. So, we did not drink the island dry. Skipper, you were right!

Back home and into bed for a great night’s rest. I had to sleep well because tomorrow was going to be a tough day. Our first day off. Mike and I are going to blow bubbles down at Peleliu. It is supposed to be a wonderful drift dive. Time will tell. So good night, I’ll chat a bit more tomorrow after our dive.

Blue SKies, Flip

P.S. It is amazing how the stories of the people involved resonate with everyone. Who would think that after 60 years, these stories would still move folks. I have found that I keep coming back to Palau for the opportunity to meet people who have a close connection with the events of 1944/45. Finding airplanes is enjoyable. Interacting with the cast of players is rewarding.

Update #10 — Honored Guests

2005-03-14T04:42:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #10

Lots of March

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

07 March.

Today was an uneventful day. We had a meeting scheduled with the Ibedul at 11am. So we had a morning of making phone calls, running errands and doing some busy work. All in preparation for March 9th. Did I tell you we have special guests coming in? But, unfortunately, the Ibedul could not meet with us and we did not find out until lunch time. So we went and had lunch.

Went back to the office of the Ibedul and it was still locked for the lunch hour break. So, being the patient people we are, we went down to the dock and out to go find airplane parts.

We headed back to the mangrove where we found the Avenger wing. We were told where to look for another flat surfaced part. We went into the mangrove, found the wing and then headed west. We climbed over root and trunk and mucked our way to the shoreline.

Where’s Waldo? Photo by Flip

We encountered many pongee stakes, one rain shower and only a little bit of sun. We were going to make another pass through, but time was of the issue as we had to get the boat back and get ready for an interview at 6pm. Then after dinner, head to the airport and pickup Tommy and Nancy Doyle. Did I tell you we have some special guests coming in?

We got out and floated back to the boat. Our plan is to return tomorrow when the tide is coming in. In these mangrove areas, silt and debris really move with an outgoing tide. So if the tide is coming in, we should have better viewing. That’s what we’ll do.

Got to the hotel and did a quick change. Headed out to do another interview. This time with Einstein’s Father.

Past President of Palau Community College and
Micronesia Occupational College. Photo by Flip

He was a teenager during the war and was training to be a carpenter at the vocational training center under the Japanese Administration. He went on to become an educator and was President of Micronesia Occupational College that later became the Palau Community College.

He said he and a number of people in Koror moved to the Rock Islands and stayed there until the war was over. His parents were on the big island. He said he never saw an airplane get shot down, nor did he ever see a parachute or an American. But after the war, he did see a number of airplanes in the waters around Koror. And he said most were salvaged. The ones that he says are still out there, we already know about.

We asked about the ship running aground on the eastside of Babelthuap and he said he did know of that story. Did our ears perk up! Only he thought it was after the war and on the Westside. And it was a surface ship and not a submarine. Oh well. Maybe later.

One thing that is a constant with all these interviews is that the Palauans were confined to certain areas of each island. There were definite areas the Japanese did not want them to see.

Out to dinner with the whole crew. Then out to the airport to pick up Tommy and Nancy Doyle. They are from Snyder, Texas. They are coming in to see the B-24 that we found last year. Tommy’s dad was on that airplane.

But when the customs agents retired for the night, we realized that Tommy and Nancy were not in Palau. We checked with the Continental rep and they did not make it to GUM from HNL in time. Their airplane had a mechanical in HNL and it took a while to fix it. They would be coming the next night. We had planned a traditional BentProp Palauan welcome for them: milkshake at the “truckstop.” And since that was such a good idea no matter what, we went to the truckstop without them.

Of course when we finally got back to the hotel, there was an e-mail saying not to go to the airport as Tommy and Nancy’s airplane had a mechanical and they would be a day late.

So, tired as we were, we all retired.

08 March

Today was a hiking day. Joe found a piece of aircraft aluminum near The German Lighthouse while he was working the Survivor show. There are a few reports that an airplane with “bones” in it is just below the lighthouse, close to a very high cliff. The Survivor: Palau tribal meetings, where someone gets the axe, were held on or near the jetty that we use to get onto this island. You have to go by boat. And I must compliment the Survivor producers. Everyone we’ve talked to says they were great to work with. And they paid their bills on time and kept some accountants on the island after everyone else departed to make sure everything was squared away financially.

In addition, they greatly improved the trail leading up to the lighthouse, without sacrificing the look of a jungle road that has not been used for 60 years. This was an old Japanese Road, or maybe German, and there was a headquarters area for the naval gun batteries that were located there. It was a very nice touch to fill in the holes with gravel and gap the empty space between roots and earth with a log or two. Nicely done. And the eco-toilet that was left behind was greatly appreciated by us. But just so you know, I’m told that none of the contestants ever knew the toilet was there. It was up the trail and around a corner.

Me on improved road. Photo by Mike Olds

And more Survivor trivia. They got used to sleeping in the jungle. Hardly flinched by the end of the ordeal even when rats would crawl over them at night. Just so you know, this isn’t just a nature hike for them.

But back to us. It’s a 45 minute walk up this steep incline to get to the lighthouse. There is still a ton of war debris in the jungle and on the trail are two Japanese Naval Guns that were used to protect Malakal Harbor. Well, they would have been except the Marines took them out with their Corsairs, and we never tried to force our way into the harbor. These guns were supposedly captured from the British when the Japanese took Singapore. There were a lot of guns at Singapore to defend against the invasion that was expected from the sea. One problem. No one had the back door covered. And darned if those Japanese didn’t come from that direction.

We got to the lighthouse and were rewarded with great views and a little breeze. We’re hiking in steamy jungle and the air temp is in the 90s outside of the jungle. We then fanned out and found nothing. Joe knows he saw it and kept looking far and wide. You can’t travel very far towards the east due to that big cliff I told you about: 300 feet down to water and/or rocks. But Joe did find an impression in the jungle floor of where his piece of aluminum was. So, if any of you Survivor workerbees or producers took that, please let me know. We just want to make an identification of it, not take it away from you. Of course if HPO, NHC, AFHC, USN, USAF or USMC find out you have it, they will try to take it away from you. Just wanted to let you know.

Being skunked at the lighthouse, we thought we should go get skunked again. We went back to look for Einstein’s wing. The tides were in our favor and so was the light, wind and visibility. As we expected, skunked again.

Well, we wanted to see something today and since we were on the boat, we headed to a submerged dumping ground that a local ex-pat by the name of Dennis lead us to a few years ago. There were a couple of aircraft pieces there, including a really big wing that I kept calling a B-29 wing. That no B-29s were based here did not dissuade me from my delusion. This year, with Mark in tow, we determined that it was a Japanese Betty Bomber. In addition, there is a fuselage of some single engine aircraft down there as well as a horizontal stabilizer. Then there is a ton, more like a gazillion tons, of dumped steel. From steam shovels to trucks, landing craft to who knows what. At the end of the war, we suspect they picked an untraveled cove, and dumped stuff there. Sure wish it really had been a B-29 wing.

Got to the airport in plenty of time to pick up our honored guests. And they were fresh as daisies since they had a day in Guam to recuperate from their long day of travel.

Nancy, Pat and Tommy prior to milkshakes. Photo by Flip

We bundled them off and stopped short of their hotel to get the BentProp welcome to Palau drink: milkshakes at the truckstop. And they are so good.

Tucked them in at their hotel and we all retired to ours to plan the next day. And it is going to be a full one. Full of lots of things to do, and full of emotion. But, that is another day.

Blue SKies, Flip

Update #9 — Success and Not Successful

2005-03-07T18:00:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #9

[Preface

Hello Pat!

I spent 30 minutes of internet time today to send a 398 kb email. And it did not go out. So you'll get number 9 later tonight, but here is your update for today.

WE went mangrove walking again to look for more parts to that Avenger wing. NO luck. Yes, it has been a traveled area with crab hunters, fishermen, growing mangrove and of course the Japanese who probably looked it over way back when. All we have is a wing. No one has reported the fuselage, but we did get some intel on another wing and that is why we went back in.

At least mangrove mud is medicinal.

We're heading out to interview an elder, eat dinner and then go to the airport to pick up the son of one of the crewmen from the B24 we found last year. We're going to take him to it.

Bye, got to go.

Preface sent to the Editor on: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 3:41:45 AM EST

End Preface]

05 March

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

Today was a great day. We found a new crash site to work. But first, lessons learned.

Lessons Learned

1. Finding a new site takes the sting out of being stood up.
2. If it looks like Chucky, acts like Chucky and talks like Chucky, it might just be Chucky.
3. Letting your camera get chilled by ice cold water doesn’t do to much to improve your photographs. But the batteries do last longer.
4. Seeing pretty fishes isn’t as good as finding airplanes, but it sure is close.
5. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when we practice to get through a mangrove.”
6. If you forget to bring spare batteries for your camera, just borrow someone else’s.
7. Three strikes and you’re still in the ballpark since you might have info we want that can help us find our lost heroes even though you have stood us up three times including forgetting you’re supposed to go to Hawaii.
8. Did you know Romulus and Remus nursed on a she-wolf and that’s how Rome was founded? Sounds a bit iffy to me. Are my BentProp friends pulling my leg?
9. Tomorrow we’re going to find something big!

Today started off just like any other day. A hearty breakfast, good brief, load up the car and head down to Neco Marine. 2 minutes later, unload the car, grab our scuba gear, load the boat and wait.

We’re waiting (happily mind you) for Mark and his scuba instructor Greg to get all their stuff down to the boat. Mark has only two more dives to complete and to get his certification card. We want him to do this so he can enjoy diving on the B-24 with Tommy Doyle. That will be the best day of this whole mission. However, Neco is quite busy and the only day the instructor can work with him is today. However, we have 2 possible sites to explore and Mark doesn’t want to miss that. One option is to drag the instructor along with us, drop them in the water and get them after they complete their dive and we complete our survey of a possible wreck site. Assuming they don’t drift off into the Philippine Sea, this should not be a problem. Just so you know, we did not leave them. But it was tempting.

They gathered up all their stuff, loaded the boat and off we went. Our first appointment, and I mean appointment, was with Lazarus. Lazarus has guided Pat to wrecks before: 2 Corsairs. He has also led us on a few exercise romps when he could not re-find something. And he never has stood us up before, so long as you don’t count Pat waiting 5 hours for him to show up.

I call Laz Chucky. Chucky from the movie Child’s Play. If you don’t know the movie, it’s probably your good fortune. It’s a great, silly Hollywood horror movie. In any case, a few years ago when he was about to take us to a crash site, he smiled a smile that looked just like the devilish smile Chucky has. Then he took us into a nasty mangrove.

We were with him a few days ago when we set up the appointment for today. (I did mention that we had an appointment didn’t I? And why didn’t Laz check his planner?) He had just come back from fishing. Since I first met him, I have undergone an intensive course of instruction in how to speak Lazarus. For example, when we were setting the appointment, he was asked, “When did you last see it?” His response was “I just went by it today. 20-30 minutes ago.” The casual observer might think that this was a good response. But did you notice he did not exactly say he saw it. So it was not a surprise that when we got to the dock, there was no Lazarus. Disappointing, but not a surprise.

A rare foggy day in Palau. Photo by Flip

The same day when not shot by Flip with condensation on the lens. Image by Ed.

We drove up his inlet and his boat was gone.

Lazarus’s canal. Photo by Flip

Joe hopped out and ran up to his house. No Chucky. Made a few phone calls. They think he went to his house in another State. Well that’s not good for us. So we headed out to the approximate area we thought Laz meant. Laz had shown us on a chart where he thought this plane might be. And it was an interesting description: upside down with the landing gear extended. Could be a Japanese fixed gear airplane, or one of ours that for some reason had its gear down before crashing. We had seen a post war photo of the outer reef that clearly showed an airplane like artifact in the water. But there is a lot of reef area out there. And the shallows behind the reef are huge.

While we were waiting for Joe to figure out how badly we had been stood up, Einstein, Joe’s First Mate for the day, piped up that he knew where a wing in the water was. He also said his father knew a lot about things in the water. He talked more about it and we decided to add his wing to our list of things to do today, and talking to his father a priority for our next round of interviews. That makes three potential finds possible for today.

Einstein telling us we had been played. Photo by Flip

Joe thought he might have seen Laz’s boat in our target area on the way in, but it was gone when we got back out into open water. So we looked around the area and of course we did not find anything. So we found the right spot for Mark and Greg and they plopped in to do Mark’s second to last instructional dive. I flopped in to snorkel and look at pretty fish. Everyone else stayed on the boat.

Mark and his instructor Greg. Photo by Flip

Student helping instructor? Photo by Flip

After a little bit, we all surfaced and headed to our second appointment. We had met a Chief and Paramount Chief during our round the island tour for old folks. They thought enough of us that when they found a contact, they tracked us down up at North Beach Cottages. We set an appointment to meet some mangrove crab hunters, Jason and Pat (known as Pat2) who knew where something was located. We were told to give them a call when we got to the dock by the power plant and they would come by. This sounds tenuous at best so we figured that they would stand us up too.

2 minutes after Joe made the call, they showed up. They led us to a small beach that belongs to some local Palauans. There was a complete house there with summer house, nice stone walls, stone steps, garden and picnic area. And a sign that basically said that ‘this was private property, but that if the owners were not there, feel free to use it. Just behave yourselves.’ Now why can’t those people move to a ski area in Colorado?

They led us up a couple of steep hills, down some steep hills, and into a mangrove area.

This wasn’t like our dry one from yesterday. This was an old mangrove with lots of roots, about 6 inches of water and many pongee stakes (broken off roots). Our total walk in was maybe 30 minutes. And there it was.

Can you see it? Photo by Reid Joyce

The real deal.

Leading edge slot. Photos by Flip

An Avenger wing. Still with the star and bar on it. With some other writing on an electrical panel door. And nothing else. We looked around a little bit but saw nothing but mangrove. Jason, one of the crab hunters, said another friend knows where another flat piece is, but that it is flat in the water. We could have walked right by it and not known it. Jason is going to have his friend show us this piece on another day.

Jason our guide, high in the mangrove roots. Photo by Flip

Pat2 is happy. Photo by Flip on Mark’s Nikon. Hasn’t he lost that yet?

This aircraft is a mystery. We don’t know of any aircraft shot down in this area. So we do not know the whos, the whys or the how comes. We just know one of the wheres. And this is how each of these searches starts. Someone, or something gives us a good solid clue and we delve in and try to solve the mystery and find out who are the fallen heroes from this particular aircraft.

The bad news is that undoubtedly this crew perished. They either perished in the crash, or if they survived, they were executed by the Japanese. This crash site would have been right smack dab in the backyard of bad guy territory.

Greg the scuba instructor came along with us. I think this might have been his first hike in the mangroves and he definitely got a taste for what we do. And he thought he was only going out for a ?“three hour cruise. A three hour cruise”?.

We held a flag ceremony photo op for the still cameras.

Almost all of the faces can almost all be seen. Mark’s camera but Photo by Flip

We’ll do one on video, with an audio track, when we remember to bring the video camera. We included our new Palauan best friends and they held the Palauan National Flag side by side with the U.S. Flag. By then I was shooting photos with Marks digital camera. I had finally exhausted my batteries. And guess where my spare set was hiding? Yep, right next to the video camera. But bringing the video camera was not my assignment. Batteries were and I failed. Thank goodness Mark had his camera. A really nice Nikon. I almost told him I dropped it in the mangrove. But, integrity prevailed.

We took a shortcut out of the mangrove and we were back at the boat. Einstein hadn’t gone with us. He hung back to have lunch, eat a betel nut and strum his guitar.

We dropped Jason and Pat2 at the dock and headed to the second dive site so Mark could finish his scuba qual. And of course we had to have lunch. And another wonderful Spam lunch it was. I had warned everyone that we were down to that again as I did not get to the grocery store the previous night. I tried to help my Spam challenged teammates by making an extra large, well filled omelet for breakfast and warned them to get to-go food from the café downstairs. Mark joined Mike in the anti-Spam faction but Reid, Pat and Joe hung with me. They’re better men for it.

After lunch, Mark and Greg plopped in to finish Mark’s course and I grabbed a tank to look at pretty fishes. And it was pretty. I saw a giant grouper, many brightly colored reef fish and lots of good eating fish. This coral head is almost identical to the one where we found the B-24 last year. It starts at about 15 feet, the reef slopes down to about 70 feet and then the sand continues out and down to wherever it goes to. Just a nice restful dive. I stayed out of the class’s way as Einstein warned me not to do anything that would send me to the principal’s office for a whupping.

When that was all done, we had celebratory Oreo cookies for the new diver and headed to the area that Einstein said a wing resides in. We searched some very shallow water with a number of handicaps keeping us from finding the wing: poor sun angle, outgoing tide making it very murky and a time crunch to get the boat back. But we all thought that maybe, just maybe, this was part of the Avenger we just found. Or maybe the other wing of the B-24 that isn’t too far away. But it will have to wait until Einstein finds it again.

Got back to Neco, quick change and out for some maintenance. I had a sashimi low level light on so we had to take care of that during happy hour. Then we went to The Taj again for some great Indian food. And I am proud to say, we drank the island dry of VB.

VB, Victoria Bitter is a great Australian beer and about the only one we really like here. Unfortunately, no one has any. For real. I’ve asked everywhere and no one has any. Except The Taj. We had some last time and were looking forward to more. We were really looking forward to going there tonight. We ordered five VBs and one Guiness. The Guiness was for me.

Now I know what you’re thinking: didn’t he say in a previous update that the island was out of VB? I did. I’m not mixing up stories. But between you and me, some people here in Palau are reading these updates. I didn’t want to give away our supplier of the best beer in the islands.

The owner came back and said that there were only 3 VBs left. We took them all and three Guinness’s and now there is not a single bottle left on the island. Not anywhere! We drank the island dry. And I had a commanding officer say once that that was impossible to do, so don’t try. Show’s him.

One last task for the day: grocery shopping. Our grocery stocks are up again and the lads don’t have to fear me bringing out the Spam. I wonder what will be on the table tomorrow?

So it was a great day. One out of three, when it’s a new crash site, is a great day. Hopefully we can find out which airplane this is and therefore who flew it. That will even be a better day.

So, I sign off, tired and ready to re-charge so we can do this again tomorrow. Once again, we have some leads with people who want to show us the way. The odds are in our favor that way. More later as I know it.

Blue Skies, Flip

06 March

I am whipped. We just hiked the steepest, most treacherous island yet. It had the most crumbly coral, the most pitch, the most numerous poison trees and the least success for our efforts. My knees and ankles are talking to me. I need some vitamin Aleve.

Joshua has been a source of information for Pat for a number of years and we made it a point to go out into the field with him. At his convenience of course. We met at the dock at 0930, loaded the boat and went off to meet Bena.

Bena was back from Hawaii and was ready to show us what he found. Bena was a salvager after the war. His father founded Micro-Metals that Bena dived for and Max from the other day worked for. Bena said he would take his boat and meet us at the proper island. We got to the island on time, lapped the island and realized we had been stood up again. But, Bena has some info we do want. His memories of salvaging the Palaus. Specifically what he did with regards to aircraft, where he did it and did he keep any records. Pat will give him a shout and see if an interview is possible. Ah, the island lifestyle.

So we continued to Joshua’s island, found the entry point that he liked and put in.

Map by USGS. Stick by Reid Joyce. Photo by Reid Joyce. Black arrow by Flip

To be more accurate, we put up. The first 10-15 feet were pretty vertical. Thank goodness the tide was in or I would not have been able to make the move necessary to get on the island. Then we climbed up the little valley. And up, and up we went. Joshua went the highest, Joe the lowest and us gringos spread out in between. Then after 5 minutes of movement across the ridge, we knew we were on independent duty. Joshua and Joe took off, being the good jungle men that they are and left us, planned mind you, in their…….Dust isn’t the right term for a coral island shrouded in jungle. They easily covered twice the distance that we did. Thank goodness or else we’d still be out there.

Our goal was to traverse the island to the next valley, up to the ridge, and return to our starting point. Then do the same thing in the other direction, once again returning to our starting point. We saw nothing except jungle. Lots of it. The most poison trees we’ve ever seen. Our watchword, “If it’s green, don’t touch it” really meant something today. So we went down to the boat. And started to slowly cruise around the island.

Joe drove so Joshua could just look at the island. He knows he saw the airplane, but it was 15 years ago. It’s just a matter of finding the correct let-in location. He found another familiar spot and off we went again. Only this time, Joshua was on his own from the start and we were to do a search pattern, return to the boat, and return to the first put-in location and he would meet us there when he was finished trekking.

Much easier entry. A ladder! Photo by Reid Joyce.

We did our search and got back in the boat. A quick swim call was in order and I took advantage of that. We were stanky, to say the least. Then we headed to the rendezvous spot. No Joshua. We had lunch. No Joshua. We had dessert (Girl Scout Cookies. Thanks Val). Still no Joshua. Pat was beginning to get worried. Joe said a Palauan would never get lost. That left closed head injuries, death, impalement or ravenous poison trees running amok in Pat’s imagination. Pat wanted to mount a search mission. However, Joe counseled patience and after awhile, a very tuckered out Joshua returned. We fed him and headed back to port.

I wasn’t going to make the second climb. I felt that Joshua had made his best effort on the first climb as to his memories of where this airplane really was. Anything else was a guess and I figured he was going to say, ‘let’s search this area over here.’ Something chosen at random, but with a look of really knowing. If I’m going to risk life and limb it better be with a firm conviction that we might mind something. Well, when he said he wanted us to search a small section and he would jungle man his way around a much larger section, that convinced me to keep faith with our hunter friend. I made the second climb. Damn, because the water was so inviting. Crystal blue with a large amount of visibility. I’m glad I did because I’ll sleep like a baby tonight. Hopefully my joints don’t talk to me all night long.

We dropped Joshua off and he said he would talk with his brothers again. It seems that they still hunt the island. Maybe they can help us find it.

We still had a bit of time on the boat say we cruised the couple of hundred yards to QB Nelson’s site so that we could see how it changed since JPAC had worked there. And it was a chance for ‘the new guys’ to see this site. I teamed up with Mark, our newly certified diver and he did great. Now that his ears are not causing him any problems, he’s consuming less air and enjoying the experience a lot more. I was going to lead him to all the cool and groovy parts that are lying on the bottom. We had planned a 40 minute dive and in the first 35 minutes, I couldn’t find my own flippers let alone a Corsair at the bottom of the harbor. Then I found one part the was like a road sign and I could show Mark the tail assembly of the airplane: tail wheel, tailhook, springs, empennage and more. Mark was happy and I was happy that Mark was happy.

The rest of the crew didn’t have much success either in finding all the parts we discovered a few years ago. Seems as if time has taken its toll on our memories. So I guess I really will give Joshua another chance. I’ll willingly follow him into the jungle again. I just hope Mark will splash with me again.

Back to shore. Back to the hotel. Back to Sam’s and then over to the Italian Place. It has a real name, but we just call it The Italian Place. A great meal, some leftover lasagna for Mark to consume tomorrow and some decent red wine. And a painting on the wall of an animal that somewhat looked like a cross between a lion and a wolf. With two Palauan infants almost nursing on her (After all, this is a family restaurant.) I spoke up about how silly the painting appeared when I was informed that this was a serious legend of how Rome was founded. I guess I better go back over my notes from high school. Did you know there were Palauan children in Italy back then?

Now I’m back to writing to you. I need to add some pictures to this and find a way to send this to you. Our Internet account ran out of time and the office is closed. And we can’t seem to make the broadband computer in the lobby take any of our input devices. So, I’ll finish this tonight, but I have no idea when you might actually get this. Enjoy when you do.

The mission is one week from being over. We have some exciting things happening over the next few days and you’re not going to want to miss a thing. I’ll keep you informed. Until the next time, don’t forget the Ides of March.

Blue Skies, Flip

Update #8 — Still Skunked, But Loving It

2005-03-04T08:35:00.000-05:00

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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.

Max is quite happy. Photo by Flip

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!

Photos by Flip

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

The images are finally here!

2005-03-04T00:16:00.000-05:00

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All of the images for updates 5-7 finally made it from Palau to Grand Turk and have just been integrated into their respective update so please reread them (remember: no picture, no proof). Of course they have Flip's breathless prose to accompany them.

Such as it is...

Be that as it may under normal circumstances (i.e., no Flip) this wouldn't be any big deal but Steve Fossett was able to fly around-the-world non-stop without refueling—solo!—in less time than it took Flip to send me 36 dinky images from only 10 time zones (but 14 hours ahead of me because of the International Date Line, what's up with that?) and almost half a world away.

High-speed broadband Internet access technology, don't leave home without it.

SHAMELESS MARKETING ALERT

Please fly Northwest Airlines or Flip will kick my butt for dissing him from the other side of the planet and knowing full well I can get away with it.

END OF SHAMELESS MARKETING ALERT

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Pat
Cheeseball Blog Editor and Tech Guru™

Update #7 — It's The People

2005-03-03T08:50:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #7

02 March

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

It was a great two days traveling abound Babelthuap. I’m back in my room on Malakal Island getting caught up with all this typing. We ran out of minutes for the ISP right as I was about to send you the last update two days ago. I had to send it when I got back this evening. Then I realized that I only sent it to Rebecca and not to any of you. Then I realized I did the same thing with the previous update. So you should be getting three updates all at the same time. That is if we don’t run out of minutes again.

Speaking of Rebecca, SHAMELESS MARKETING ALERT!

Rebecca has four, count them four, Senior’s Guide books out in print. You need to buy the whole set: The Senior’s Guide To Easy Computing; Senior's Guide To Digital Photography: Shoot, Edit, Print, Or E-mail Pictures, The Senior's Guide To Ebay: Browsing, Buying, And Selling and The Senior's Guide Dating (Again): Traditional And Online. And she has more on the way. Get yours now while they are still available. Send them as gifts. Keep them for yourself. You don’t have to actually read them. Just buy them. End of Shameless marketing alert. Thank you.

We headed out of town in our borrowed 4x4 from Sam’s Tours. The contingent thinned a little for this excursion. Mark stayed behind with Jennifer. Mike stayed behind as he had a bad encounter the night before with something he ate. So the hearty band of travelers were me, Pat, Reid and Joe. The 4x4 was a lot more comfortable with only 4 in it instead of the 6 we had before.

I was the designated driver again which gave Pat a chance to think about what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. And the first decision Pat made, unilaterally by the way, was to have Reid and I do the interviews instead of him. This would allow him to observe more and think of questions to fill in the gaps. We all liked this idea a lot. I was going to be first up. Now we had to go find an elder.

But before we left Koror, we stopped to talk with Joe’s Uncle. He was a salvager after the war and he saw lots of things. One airplane got covered up by sand many years ago. But recently, it has become uncovered. And he knows where it is. Tomorrow, he’s going to take us there. And he knows of another one that is on an island close by the German Lighthouse. He’ll take us there too.

I said that Uncle Max was a salvager. He worked for a metals company and unfortunately, he said they salvaged many airplanes for their aluminum. We are also going to take him to some of the sites where we thought we would find aircraft and see if he remembers working the area. We know they did not keep records of what they found.

After we left Max, we went to the U.S. Embassy to see the Charge’ de Affairs. We have wanted to make a courtesy call there and we thought this was as fine a day to do it. We are going to have a memorial ceremony at the B-24 site we found later in the month. Tommy, the 60 year old son of one of the crewmen from that particular B-24 is coming to Palau to dive his Father’s last resting spot. And he’s doing this just weeks before JPAC does the recovery operation. It should be quite a story to tell. But we wanted to see if the Charge’ would be interested in attending. She did not have time to see us but we do have an appointment for tomorrow at 0900.

We had a name to contact in one of the southern states of Babelthuap. (I’ve decided not to use the Palauan State names as I can’t spell them. And if I could, you couldn’t pronounce them anyway. There are a lot of silent letters in the Palauan language. Why? Sorry, I don’t know that.) We went to the State office and asked and they had never heard of him. So we turned up the road and saw a guy working on his boat. Joe asked in his best Palauan, “Hey. You got any old guys around here?”

“Why yes we do. As a matter of fact, just got a fresh shipment in today. You want to try one out?” Okay, you know that only the first sentence really happened. But by total luck, we were talking to the Chief of the village and his Father was a Paramount Chief. It would be the Paramount Chief that lived through the war. We got out of the car and walked up to the summer house where there was a flurry of activity. As we would find out later, the woman who translated for us lost her son earlier in the month. She lives in South Carolina, but wanted to have her son home with family. They were having a Palauan wake. Lots of food and family for a couple of weeks. When we found this out we thought that we were intruding way too much. But it turns out that doing things is what this time is all about for them and helping us was doing something good. And the Mother’s daughter who came back with her had been given an assignment by one of her professors back in South Carolina to, get this, interview elder Palauans about the war. Were we the Cliff Notes for her or what?

Our interview procedure is to introduce ourselves, let them know what the BentProp Project goals are, and reassure them that we are not interested in gathering up aircraft or aircraft pars. If they have them as yard art, we want to examine them for any identifying marks. But if they think we want to take the airplane or parts away, then they won’t let us examine them at all. We also want to assure them that we are not looking to find anyone other than the MIAs. Some Palauans worked for the Japanese during the war. Some were forced to and others were volunteers. Again, if they think we’re trying to get them punished for their past history, then we won’t find out what they know.

We also use a technique of asking the same question in a variety of ways. This tests the answers to see if they change, but can also get an answer where there wasn’t one before because the different words bring back a memory that the previous words did not. We also don’t try to lead them to an answer. For example, we ask “Have you heard any stories of an American ship running aground on the eastern side of the island?” What we are looking for is a particular submarine, the USS Tullibee, in a particular area Melokeok, in a certain timeframe, prior to June 1944.

Since I was first on deck to do the interview, I stepped up to the batter’s box. Even though I have watched Pat for four years interview people, I was still a little nervous. Here was an old man, I did not speak his language and I did not know his customs and traditions. I thought it would be hard to connect.

As it turns out, the Palauans are easy people to interview. They want to help and want to share their memories. They are quite happy that someone shows enough interest to try and find their fellow countrymen’s bones and take them home. Especially after so many years. We were never turned down for an interview. And all of these interviews were unannounced. We just showed up, knocked on their door, if someone had given us a lead, and asked for the interview. Again, if we had no tip, we just went to the village square, and with our best Monty Python voices started shouting “Bring out your elderly. Bring out your elderly.”

The only other Americans that we know of who did this (probably without Monty Python voiceovers) came through in 1945-1947. They were from the G.R.U.: Graves Registration Unit. This is a part of the U.S. Army Quarter Master Corp. They were tasked, and still are today, with bringing home our fallen heroes. If that means doing some field work to go find them, they do that. But they come through right after combat operations. If much time has gone by, then JPAC does the field work.

This Paramount Chief actually saw a few airplanes go down in the bay. One was the B-24 that we found last year. He saw it go down and saw the Japanese boat go out to pick up the crewman who parachuted down. (An interesting side note here. Pat has found airplanes mostly by talking with fishermen and hunters who have found these wrecks over the years. During our interviews, we’ve found Palauans who saw some of these planes go down. We are finding the eyewitnesses.)

Paramount Chief and some of his family. Photo by Flip

He gave us a couple of more leads to airplanes that we will chase down this week. From this little two day excursion, we have 6 more leads to track down. Some are a little shaky, but none seem very hard to test.

The road system on Babelthuap is in a state of transition. They are still trying to complete the highway around the island. The roads range from really great, smooth asphalt (around the newly constructed capitol) to Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom lumps and bumps. Our rental van would not have made it to the first village we went to, let alone complete a lap around Babelthuap. Every village and hamlet has a small stretch of pristine concrete with nice landscaping and 5 mph warning signs. This represents a drop of 7/8ths of the maximum speed in Palau. The best roads right now are on Peleliu. The worst in Koror. Construction is everywhere. Except in Koror. And there is housing and building construction going on everywhere, on every island. The economy must be coming back here even though it is based on tourism.

The roads may need work, but the scenery doesn’t. Photo by Flip

We worked our way up the west side of the island, making our inquiries everywhere we could. One stop took us to one of the State offices in the middle of the island.

Yes, we’re at the State Office. Photo by Flip

There are lots of States on Babelthuap. Joe asked the State worker if she had any elders around. She stopped work and led us to one. It turned out to be her 95 year old Mother. During the introductions, she let us know that she had a western last name even though her Mother did not. Her Father was an American sailor stationed here after the war. She was born in early 1948. She never knew her Dad as he had to ship out to Indonesia a few months before that. And she believes something happened to him over there because they never heard from him again. Yes, we all were thinking the same thing.

Daughter and 95-year-young Mother. Photo by Flip

This interview changed slightly the way I conducted mine. Up until then, I mainly focused on our mission questions. After that, I added some questions pertaining to the Palauans’ experiences with the war. During the times I did this, I learned that the war for the Palauans did not start until March 1944 when the first Fast Carrier Attacks took place. Up until then, the Japanese were just there as they had been for the previous 20-30 years. Palauans were killed by both Japanese and American armed forces. Retributions under the Japanese intensified as the war went on. Max’s grandfather was beheaded for having traded for some food with the Americans on Peleliu. Survival for the Palauans meant staying in caves in the day time when the American airplanes were out and about. The Japanese kept the Palauans in designated areas. In fact, they emptied the southern islands of Anguar and Peleliu of all Palauans prior to the invasion. After a period of time, The Navy used the Northern Palau anchorage of Kossol Passage. You can see that from Babelthuap. The Palauans remember seeing Kossol Passage lit up with lights at night as Koror is today. Our Navy was there for about a year prior to the end of the war. It was a fairly safe harbor for us even though there were 25,000 Japanese troops on the island next to the passage.

And there were a lot more personal stories.

We ended the first day up on the northeast side of the island at North Beach Cottages. If I ever can take Rebecca there, I will. It was perfect. Except for the two old bearded guys sharing a cottage with me instead of Rebecca. Beautiful landscaping. Longest sand beach in Palau. Beautiful surf sounds. Unlimited star gazing. Excellent food. Superb staff. Owned by Joe’s cousin. Few people. There are only 4 cottages right now and that night, only 5 clients there. And we three were the only ones in for dinner.

If you ever want to get away from it all, this is it. I’ve talked about Palau being on the far end of the skinny wires of the Internet. North Beach Cottages is just beyond that: no phones, no TV, no email, no need for a car once there. Perfect place to get away from it all. I was a little apprehensive as we approached the place. The driveway started out like the Temple of Doom bumps and lumps. But 100 yards later, smooth concrete led us into picture perfect, except for those two old guys, paradise.

Cute beyond belief. Photo by Flip

We chatted with Joe and his cousin who took off on their own when we went in for dinner. Joe mentioned that we had seen a lot of Palauan sunsets, but never a sunrise. Well, were all early risers so we all planned on watching the sun come up at about 0615. We scheduled breakfast for 0730. We all were asleep by 2100. And we all slept until about 0715. It’s the earliest we had gone to bed in Palau and it’s the latest we’ve ever slept here. At least we didn’t have to figure out what to do between sunrise and food.

None of us wanted to move up the road to complete our journey, but we were on a mission. We said goodbye to North Beach Cottages and vowed to do all our searches from here in the future. There are no airplanes this far up but we figure it’s such a nice place, who cares. The streetlight and lost car keys theorem.

Down the road to some folks who we heard about yesterday, but could not get to. So this morning, we backtracked slightly to their village. Here was another man who witnessed one of the shoot downs. It’s almost as if he wrote the after action report of The Judge’s story. The Judge was flying a Corsair and got shot down over the western reef. His wingman circled around and started strafing the airplane so the Japanese couldn’t salvage anything from it. The Judge to this day yells at this guy that he was raining hot shell casings directly on him. The Judge got past the reef and picked up by our forces and is a retired Judge. Our Palauan friend wanted me to take a picture of him and send it to The Judge and tell him that this is the guy who saw him get shot down. We promised him a picture of The Judge as soon as we could get one.

Judge’s Eyewitness. Photo by Flip

Here are some more of our friends we met along the way.

And here is our last interviewee of the day. In the small world category, Mark told us of wandering around on his first days here and coming across a driveway with a Japanese anti-aircraft gun holding up a sign for the house. Well, our lead took us to that very same house and we were welcomed in.

Photo by Flip

While we were on the east side of Babelthuap, we came across a traditional Palauan structure with a non-traditional paint job. Do you think a Navy man did the painting?

Photo by Flip

And that catches you up to what we’ve been doing.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be telling you how many airplanes we’re found. The next 3 days are all supposed to be days where someone is going to lead us to a new find. We sure hope so. Especially Friday. That is when we go to an island where maybe, just maybe, a B-24 is resting.

More later as I know it.

Blue Skies, Flip

P.S. Here is a Survivor: Palau update. The losers were sequestered in a secluded location for the duration of the filming of the show. They had a number of weeks of idle leisure: swinging in hammocks by the ocean; kayaking in protected waters, eating local seafood prepared with marvelous sauces; unlimited stargazing all while living at the wonderful North Beach Cottages. There was a guest book in our cottage and the pages were ripped out from the appropriate date range. That’s not proof positive, but all our sources say it’s so. And that doesn’t include the staff of the hotel. The were silent on the topic. Another clue. So you heard it here first.

Update #6 — Three Nights on Peleiu

2005-03-03T08:46:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #6

28 February

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

We spent the 24th through the 27th on the beautiful island of Peleliu. Peleliu is one of the most famous of Marine Corps battles. It was supposed to take 3 weeks, it took 3 months, and the last holdouts came out of the caves 2 years after the war was over. There are all sorts of revisionist histories that talk about whether or not Peleliu was necessary to the prosecution of the war. Specifically, whether or not Peleliu needed to happen at all in order to protect Macarthur’s flank during his attack on the Philippines. Let’s not get into that argument. After all, you just want to know what the heck we found out in the field. But not yet. First, lessons learned.

Lessons Learned:
1. Instant gratification is for those who can’t wait for delayed gratification.
2. Water defends against dogs and flies.
3. Unexpended ordnance really can blow up after 60 years. (This occurred before we got to Peleliu so we’re okay. But there is a bit of irony in who did get hurt.)
4. The beer might not be the coldest, and the Oreos not the freshest, but they were the best we’ve ever had.
5. When you see the waves breaking on an island 6 miles away, you are quite thankful you did not go snorkeling there.
6. Trolling is a very efficient way to find where airplanes are not located.
7. There are some lawyers out there who ‘get it.’
8. Survivor: Palau. The newest comedy on Peleliu.
9. Take a notebook along so you do not confuse which events took place on which day. Trying to memorize 4 days worth of updates could cause the brain cell that controls spontaneous breathing to have a melt down.

Let’s all agree that Peleliu was one of the costliest battles the Marines ever faced. The casualties were horrific on both sides with the Japanese losing close to 10,000 troops. And they only had 10,000 troops on the island.

Photo by Flip

The tactics the Japanese used were not seen before, but would be seen again in other famous Marine locations: Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Okinawa….. They used defense in depth, no mass banzai charges, interlocking fields of fire on the beach, and extensive cave structures buried in the hard coral. It was going to be a tough nut to crack, but everyone believed otherwise.

The Navy conducted gunfire barrage from the big guns for many days prior to the invasion. One Admiral was quoted as saying something to the effect of ‘There are no more targets on Peleliu to hit.’ Aircraft from Navy aircraft carriers and USAAF B-24s conducted bombing missions in support of the pre-invasion softening up. Altogether, they did not do much damage to the combat capabilities of the Japanese.

There are plenty of histories written about the battle. It was fierce and sometimes hand to hand for every yard. Once the Marines secured the beaches, they had to fight their way through all the valleys and hills that were interlaced with caves, spider holes, tunnels, etc. etc. There are movies of Marine Corsairs taking off from Peleliu, getting over the end of the airfield, dropping their bombs and turning back into the landing pattern without ever raising their landing gear.

If you are a tourist, taking the guided tourist trips, you will see a lot of unexploded ordnance. Ours and theirs.

Full box of mortar rounds. Photo by Flip

Yard art. Photo by Flip

At the Japanese War Memorial. Photo by Flip

Everything from 155 howitzer rounds to hand grenades. If you are part of a group of crazy Americans who go where no one has gone since the late 1940s, you see a ton of it. Joe, our Captain and Master Guide told us that he took a group out to Peleliu earlier in the year. They were going to swim, snorkel and have a BBQ. They said they didn’t need any help with the BBQ so Joe went into a local’s house to catch a nap. A little later, he heard a large explosion and went out to see all his folks laying about the BBQ pit. It seems that after they found some rocks for the perimeter of the BBQ pit, they found some metal to act as a center post of their BBQ grill. The center post was an unexpended Japanese artillery round. Warhead and shell casing. An all up round as we used to say. They built up their fire and after a sufficient amount of time (you’re going to love this pun), their round cooked off. They all suffered some injuries but all recovered. How lucky they were to have the gods on their side that day.

I promised you some irony. The BBQ masters were Japanese sailors from a Japanese Naval vessel making a port call to Palau 60 years after the American invasion of Peleliu was successful.

Peleliu is a strange place. It is amazingly beautiful. The lush tropical jungle, beautiful blue skies, open ocean views that look like an oil painting are contrasted with a place marked by death and destruction that is evident to the most casual observer. We all have a bizarre feeling about the place. I would use magical to describe it, but to me that provokes a positive image. Eerie to me promotes a slightly negative image. My feeling was of a powerful non-negative, non-positive gut feeling. I know that sounds like neutral which should be no feeling at all, but it wasn’t like that and it’s truly hard to describe what I felt. We also all felt as if we were being watched the entire time we were in the bush. Not a hostile feeling at all. One of being watched by an interested observer. Like your big brother or sister watching you trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle on the living room floor. As I said, bizarre feelings.

I truly like the jungle. After my third visit to Peleliu, I feel comfortable walking around the lush valley floors and craggy coral hills. I can even manage to avoid all the ordnance with grace and style. And the jungle doesn’t seem as dense and the coral not as dangerous this time around. So I promptly slipped the first day and ripped my brand new, high tech jungle pants. Rebecca emailed “Not the cute ones?!” I would have preferred rugged or manly as a description considering I’m walking in a harsh jungle environment. But, since they ripped, I guess they’re just cute. But maybe cuter with a patch on the butt?

Shhhhhh. (sotto voce) Okay, here is DOB’s hidden message. Everybody pull out your Captain Marvel secret decoder ring and decipher this message. D-O-B. T-h-i-s i-s y-o-u-r t-w-o d-a-y n-o-t-i-c-e t-h-a-t w-e-‘-r-e g-o-i-n-g t-o f-i-n-d s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g-!

So, we head to Neco Marine for our ride to Peleliu. On board, besides us are three other people. Strap hanging on our ride. One is a crewmember of one of the live aboard dive boats that roam Palau: The Palau Aggressor. She had some business in town and was heading back to the boat. She brought back a case of milk and a case of soda. They must have been running low.

Our other two guests were tourists from San Jose, CA. A lawyer and his wife. They were out vacationing and were spending time in Palau, and then on to Guam. From what I gathered, she lived in Guam many years ago when her father was stationed there. They were going to meet up with them in Guam when their time was done in Palau. Today, they were touring the battlefields of Peleliu.

They brought the conversation around to what we were doing on the island and Pat told them the story of The BentProp Project. They loved the story. They loved it so much that they made the first cash donation we’ve ever received to help fund the project. We do not solicit funding, although there is a California Non-Profit Corporation (the BentStar Project) set up to do so. But it was heart warming to see someone get touched by this who was, moments ago, a total stranger. We made good use of the funds during our stay on Peleliu. Back on Koror, we went to their hotel to give them some T-shirts, but they had already checked out. So, if you kind benefactors are reading this, then there are some T-shirts on the way to you. Thanks for your contribution.

After we dropped off the strap hangers, we detoured to Snake Island. We went there when we thought it was Carlson Island. Now we are told it is Snake Island (for real) because it is infested with Coral Snakes: the only poisonous snakes in Palau. If I had known that a few years ago, I think I would have stayed off the island. In any case, Joe recently spotted a propeller out on the reef to the left of the island. For whatever reason, we missed it a few years ago. We did find a Betty bomber and two Frances bombers to the right of the island. Both those types are Japanese planes. The propeller, which was attached to an engine, is probably from the Betty. We found a picture at the National Archives of a Betty sitting in that location while the war was raging on the island. Over time, the airframe got shoved onto the island, but the dense motor stayed put.

Off of Snake Island. Photo by Flip

After that was done, on to Peleliu. We checked into the hotel, got into our jungles clothes and headed out to Pope’s Ridge. It was known earlier as Walt’s Ridge and had a hill number assigned to it. But now it’s known as Pope’s Ridge.

We have a few targets that we are hunting here. There is one Avenger down on Pope’s Ridge that we have found previously. We have also found some of its parts scattered on the floor of Horseshoe Valley. We’d like to find more parts of it. There is another Avenger down on the island and we would like to find any part of it. There are two Hellcats from the same squadron that went down within minutes of each other and there is a Helldiver that we are looking for. And a couple of Kingfisher observation airplanes. These all are associated with MIAs. That’s why we’re looking for them.

Joe Maldangasang, our Boat Captain is also our master guide in the jungle and is with us every day whether we are on the water or in the jungle.

Joe Maldangasang. Photo by Flip

We went to an area of Pope’s Ridge that we hadn’t searched before: the eastern edge that has a precipitous drop off. We walked the entire length of the ridge. Nothing. We walked into Horseshoe Valley and into Wildcat Bowl. We found a few more pieces that lined up with our known Avenger’s reported final flight path.

Mark does our analysis. Photo by Flip

The reason we are searching for more wreckage, even though we know which airplane this is, is because JPAC, Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, is mounting a recovery operation this March/April on this site. So this is really our last time to look at the debris field in this state. We wish JPAC the best of luck and hope through their hard work that they can bring all the fallen heroes home.

We missed the sun actually going below the horizon the first night, but we did get to a beach to watch the changing colors. San Miguel beers and vitamin O: Oreo cookies. It doesn’t get any better than that. We had saved the Oreos for when we found something special. Well, we did. The end of a good day. However, the next two nights we had beautiful sunsets. One on White Beach and one on Orange Beach. Big landing areas from the war and big battle grounds. But serene and beautiful now.

Sunset on Orange Beach. Mike’s grandfather probably landed on this
beach and acted as a rifleman until his squadron flew onto the
island and then he returned to being a mechanic. Photos by Flip

Personal reflection of events of long ago.

Although Tangie Jesus, our tour guide extraordinaire from past visits, wasn’t on island for our trip, we stayed at his Auntie’s motel and ate at his Auntie’s restaurant. Best food in the Palau Islands. Native delicacies all expertly cooked. It’s held in a communal dining room, almost like a camp dining hall. Great food and lots of it. And one night we found the President of Palau there. Actually walking out behind the restaurant towards his SUV. Seems he is a relative and he comes to Peleliu to get away from ‘the big city.’ Where else in the world can you just walk up to the President of a nation and say howdy. Pat has met the President before and they dove together on the B-24 we found last year. But this was still a treat.

And I learned an eco-friendly, green technique for controlling flies. Seems the Peleliuans, if that is the correct descriptor, hang baggies of water from the top of their door frames. Three baggies across the opening to be exact and that keeps the flies out. No one could explain to me why it works, but there were no flies in the dining room or kitchen. And the screens they had were large enough to fit a hummingbird through the gaps. Hmmmmm?

Another green technique is to place Clorox bottles filled with water along the perimeter of a piece of land that you want to keep dogs out of. I’ve seen these white perimeter devices all over Palau, and never gave much thought to it. But in Peleliu, I finally asked and was told it keeps the dogs out. But again, no one can tell me why. I actually watched a dog walk right up to the line of bottles and not cross it. Hmmmmm? And the Clorox bottles do not seem to be a necessary part because we saw some variations with the use of milk containers and wine bottles. Hmmmm?

It was finally Survivor: Palau night. There was a delay of a week until it could finally be aired here. But the whole island was a twitter because of it. I think everyone on the island was watching: all 320 of the residents and guests. We watched in the kitchen of Auntie’s restaurant. The Palauans think this is a comedy show. Their one big thing they want to tell you is don’t be afraid of Palau: Palauan dugout canoes do not, repeat, do not tip over on their own. Did you see the ropes in the water captured by the underwater cameraman? The ropes should be a giveaway on this, but don’t you think it a tad coincidental that a cameraman was there at all? Hmmmmm?

And the snake that keeps crawling up the post in one of the shots, not poisonous. No poisonous land snakes in Palau. Coral snakes don’t count as they rarely go on land. And the bombed out Japanese bunker in the background? Hmmmmmm? We’ve been to all the islands that they shot scenes at. Only we’ve been there in previous years’ missions. And the people who got kicked off on the first show? They may have the best deal of all, if you can’t be the absolute winner. I’ll let you know about that on the next update.

If you have any questions about anything you see of Palau on the next shows, give me a shout and I’ll fill you in. We know some of the people, who know some of the people that know something about what happened out here. We won’t compromise anyone who worked the show as they have confidentiality agreements with the producers. But, thankfully, I don’t!

None of us watch the show normally back home. But where better else to watch Survivor: Palau, than in Palau. When the show was over, we all retired for the evening. I intended to get a lot of reading done. I got through a page and a half before my head hit the book.

Up at the crack of dawn, down to Auntie’s for breakfast and then out into the field again. We got some intel from an acquaintance of Pat’s who is an historian from afar of Peleliu. He told us about finding a Helldiver wing on his last mission to the island and of a tail section with a number on it. Well, that would be wonderful! And since we have an I.D. on the one on Pope’s Ridge, this must be the other one we’re looking for. We were excited.

We found this new piece of metal on the jungle trail, that turned out to be this:

He told us to go to Waddie’s Ridge via the East Road as the way in from the West Road was too hard.

So we went in via the East Road, into Wildcat Bowl, around Hill 140 and on to Waddie’s Ridge. We walked the whole length of it. Nada for the new stuff. But we keep finding Avenger parts right on the flight path of the one that came to rest on Pope’s ridge.

Mike’s first find of the trip. Photo by Flip

The odds are not great that two planes would follow the same path, but we are keeping that in mind. And if we could find one more piece of anything Avenger, that would add up to more than one Avenger, then we could say we found the second one. 3 wings would be good since an Avenger only has 2. 2 rudders since an Avenger only has 1. You get the idea. But we did not.

Pat’s source said to go to the Engineer’s Ramp and look to the right of it. So we got to the bottom of Waddie’s Ridge on the west side and proceeded to search. More Avenger parts on our already established line of flight, but no new airplane parts. And no ramp. And as we were ready to turn around and go back to the East Road to get out of the jungle, we could clearly hear a car go whizzing by. Seems the hard to use West Road was 50 yards from this area of debris. Either Pat’s source is screwed up, or we just did not interpret his instructions properly.

About the Engineers Ramp. It seems our forces on the ground were having a devil of a time with the area known as Death Valley. Very narrow entrance. Laced with caves and lots of ordnance being flung at our Marines and Army troops. The Army Engineers built a ramp from Wildcat Bowl into Death Valley and the introduction of tanks led to the clearing out of the valley. Wildcat Bowl is nowhere near the west side of Waddie’s Ridge. And we did not get to Wildcat Bowl to find the ramp until the third day.

When we got to the ramp, it was pretty impressive to climb it and realize a major battle and breakthrough had taken place here.

I can imagine two different conversations taking place within minutes of each other. Mind you, Death Valley was named for a reason. Once the ramp was complete, the two closest tank commanders had this conversation: “You go first.” “No, you go first. I insist.” “No really. After you.” “But you should have the honor of going first.” “Ah, but you’re junior.” “But I insist.”…………

After the first tank crested the top of the ramp and looked into Death Valley, two Japanese privates, in the first cave facing the newly opened ramp, looked at each other and simultaneously said, “We are so screwed.”

But, we hadn’t found the ramp until the third day so on the second day, we were not near the new parts.

Back to Auntie’s. Another great meal. Another great night’s rest. However, I did get 2 pages read before my head hit my book.

Our third day on the island would be back to the west side for more searching. We found more parts, but only along the flight path of the known Avenger.

Reid with a big find. Photo by Flip

The debris field for this one airplane extends for a mile and a half. Again, it could be two airplanes, but we don’t think so. We told our van driver, Bradford, to pick us up south of our entry point at the quarry. But soon after, we changed our search pattern and searched north instead. And we found a few more parts. Again, along the flight path of the known Avenger.

We flagged down a passing local car and asked if they would tell Bradford where we were. A few minutes later, Bradford whizzed up to us. It is a small island and everyone knows everyone. We went to Orange Beach for lunch. The day prior we went to The Peace Park. Another ocean side picnic area. Both beautiful. And both showed how rough the ocean was. The Palaus have some big winds these days and the waves are quite big. We could see waves breaking on Anguar, the next island south of us and it is 6 miles away. Someone said that they knew where something was in the water. We would have to snorkel to find it. And these are not sand beaches for the most part. Still very firm coral and rock. We decided to wait until next year to take this side trip although I would love to go to Anguar. I haven’t been yet and it is where the USAAF based their B-24s for the Palau operations. It’s where the bombers that we are looking for started their missions so many years ago.

We finally entered Wildcat Bowl and found the ramp the engineers built. It scaled China Wall and dropped down into Death Valley. Still lots of ordnance all around. Still lots of unsealed caves. But no new aircraft parts.

One cave was very eerie to Pat. It was a zig-zag cave and in the middle of it, were a dozen pair of Japanese combat boots, and one American pair. Also, an American helmet and canteen with a bullet hole in it. As Pat said, “There must have been an interesting story here.”

We looked at a few more caves, searched around the base of China Wall and called it a day. No new finds here. So, unless we can get some more intel, it appears that Peleliu is not going to give us any more aircraft.

It was too late to get back to Koror by boat, so we spent one more night on Peleliu. The next day we would devote to being tourists and in doing some searches in the water near German Channel.

Bradford picked us up and we went to many bunkers, bombed out buildings and the Peleliu War Museum. Inside is a collection of war material, printed literature and artwork as well as mementos sent to the museum by participants in the war or their descendants. It’s a museum with American, as well as Japanese artifacts. The live bombs that used to be part of the collection have been moved to someplace else. Thank goodness since some of those old explosives can become quite unstable over the years.

And we found a map with some answers to questions about where a wreck might be. So Peleliu is giving us some intel so we can come back. We took a quick look at the mangrove in the area of the map that interested us and found out from Bradford that no one goes in there. Very ugly mangrove area. So of course we’ll go in. On our next trip.

Got to the boat, loaded up and headed to German Channel. Someone reported to Joe of seeing an airplane on the side of the reef there. So we donned snorkel gear, made rope handles to hold on to on the sides of the boat, went over the side and we held on and trolled. You can cover much more ground this way than by paddling around. We’ve never actually found anything this way, but we get to see a lot of seafloor that doesn’t have anything to show us. And spend less time eliminating an area of interest. And it’s fun, and it’s wet.

And then we were back in Koror. Our little side trip was over. But our plans for the next day, today, the 28th would be another road trip up to the north of Babelthuap to interview any elders we can find in the villages along the way. Unfortunately, no one remembered to ask Sam to use the SUV he loaned us the other day and it was taken. You do remember we can’t take our rental van onto the big island. By rental agreement and for our own safety. The van we have can’t even clear the painted lines on the highway let alone bumps and dips in the road.

Changing gears, we did more courtesy calls, and interviews in the local area. At about 1300, I broke off from the group to take care of some editing business for Rebecca. I became especially motivated to do that as over breakfast at Sam’s, a beautiful yacht pulled in and I thought I better get to editing if I ever want a boat like that. Today’s change of plans worked out perfectly.

Out for a sashimi dinner, a trip to the truckstop for a mocha shake (island is no longer out of mocha, but is still out of VB) and now I am writing to you. I have completely confused what happened on which day at Peleliu. But all the stories are correct. Or at least you can believe they are. I will take better notes on our road trip up north which starts tomorrow. So until I can type again. Good night and I hope you all are having a wonderful turn into March.

Blue Skies, Flip

Update #5 — We Certainly Know Where The Airplanes Aren't

2005-02-23T09:18:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #5

22 February

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

Another fine day in the tropics. We took a short van ride onto Babelthuap (please don’t tell anyone, especially the spy at the Shell station) and a two tank boat ride today. And we celebrated Mark’s coming of age. The age of 40.

But first, lessons learned.

Lessons Learned

1. Don’t lock your camera in the van and not figure it out until the person with the key is asleep.
2. Elders are getting elderer by the minute.
3. When someone flies off to Hawaii to avoid you, you know you must be somebody.
4. Random acts of kindness abound.
5. Sorry Rebecca, chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream is still my favorite dessert.
6. Everyone should have a pair of ‘cheap sunglasses.’ Could you hear ZZ Top just then?

The day started off just grand with oatmeal and turkey bacon. It seems the turkey bacon is a hit with this group. We’ve had to fry it since we don’t have a microwave, and we all like it better that way. Round the meal off with some fruit (oranges a big hit with this group, apples a distant second place) and some good coffee and you have a grand start of the day. We can mark the passing of time here by our coffee consumption: first bag of Starbucks was finished.

Mike Olds joined us last night and had his first group breakfast briefing. He’s fired up and ready to go.

The plan was to meet Bena Sekuma at Neco Marine and let him show us what he has seen over all his years in Palau. Bena was supposed to go with us two days ago, but had to go to the big island to attend a funeral. We tried to find what he talked about, but could not. It’s always better to have the person show us. In our history here, it seems we get stood up 50% of the time. Of the other 50%, 50% of them will actually lead us to something. So roughly 25% of our leads turn out to be metal. Whether or not it is metal that we are interested in is another matter.

Not only did Bena stand us up again, he flew out to Hawaii to do it. Most of the time, our stander uppers are around the corner at the local mini-mart. Going to Hawaii to get out of a show and tell session is a record for us.

So we quickly switched gears, put on our hiking stuff and went to the big island to chat with Ricky Spies. Ricky was 17 at the end of the war and has distinct memories of seeing two different American airplanes being shot down. One went straight into the bay and the other had one parachute come out of it. And he thought that person was captured. Do we have another POW here that was executed?

Ricky saw the shoot downs from his school that was on a hill overlooking the bay. The school area is now overgrown, but a nearby open area would give us a good view. And it did. One of the best views in town.

See what I mean? Photo by me again.

Unfortunately, Ricky is older now and cannot get up the hills anymore. Without him up there with us, it’s hard to narrow down where to look. Although he told us the line to follow from the hill, out through a propeller that we know about in the water, and continue for 1.5 miles, that still is a large area for 4 divers to search. We came, we looked, we snapped a few pictures and we went back to our boat.

Hard at work doing many different things. I have no idea what. Photo by Flip

Dropped Mark off at Neco and he started to investigate the markings that we found on the Twice Blown Up wreckage. By studying the photos of the markings, he may be able to discern what aircraft they came from.

The rest of us went on the boat and out to sea.

Cruising the day before with John Chatterton. Thought I
would throw this in for setting the mood. Photo by Flip.

Well, at least as far as Q.B. Nelson’s crash site. You might remember that Major Quintus B. Nelson crashed within site of the current Neco Marine facility. We found this site because the owners of Neco were salvaging an anchor for some landscaping they were doing and they saw something they thought might be off of an airplane. And the year before that, my sunglasses blew off my head and unbeknownst to us, dropped into QB’s wreckage.

I asked Joe to stop the boat over Q.B. not to memorialize him, which we all do every time we pass him, but to acknowledge our odd methodologies of finding sites: landscaping and buying cheap sunglasses. We found QB because Neco Marine found an anchor and saw some wreckage to the side of it. My sunglasses on P-MAN IV flew off my head and landed in the debris field. I have saved some of my sunglasses from over the years and gave everyone a pair. Now they have their own cheap sunglasses to dispose of in such a way that they land in an unfound site. Then we’ll all dive in and be heroes by finding it. Of course I still have a wetsuit out there somewhere that is probably draped over the cockpit of something.

Having taken care of that bit of business, we went to a known tourist spot for diving: The Buoy Jake. A Jake is a Japanese floatplane from WWII. There were many of them here during the war and all were attacked and sunk. This one is pretty intact and rests in 40 feet of water. We decided to make this Mike’s checkout dive for the trip. Mike is a newly certified diver, but went and got his basic, advanced, open water and wreck diving sign offs. So he has more experience than the average newbie. But, we thought it best to let him have one dive before we put him to work.

The visibility was great and the Jake is a fun dive. We also saw a school of mini barracuda, squids, parrot fish and many other colorful creatures of the deep. A very nice dive.

Quick lunch, long nap and a short ride back to the floatplanes we found in the area we thought a Hellcat went down in. We rediscovered some parts that were found on Dive One the other day, but that we could not relocate. We decided they were not aviation related. To find the parts we did a search pattern in water with not the best visibility. This was a great experience for Mike and he did great.

Then we went to one of the floatplanes and came to the conclusion that maybe, these two floatplanes are what people were telling us about over the past few years and not an American Hellcat. They’re in the right location, at about the right depth. But one story is told of seeing a white star on a wing. That certainly would not be a Japanese airplane. But, the story could be wrong, or, there really is a Hellcat out there and we just have to find it. Still. But for certain, where we looked, there are no Hellcats.

We made our way back and hit Sam’s for sunset. Sam gave us a great idea. Why not just drive to the villages on Babelthuap and just ask to talk to the elders who are there. So simple it plum evaded us (thanks to Jimmy Buffett for providing that bit of wisdom). Dermot, the general manager of Sam’s even offered to swap our way underpowered, and no ground clearance van for their S.U.V. Well, anytime you can trade an SUV for a POS it’s a good thing. We of course said yes. It would be a tight fit for the 6 of us with hiking gear, cameras, cooler, etc. But that is better than leaving the oil cooler on the road. You did reread my posts from P-MAN IV didn’t you? Did you know you can’t take a rental van up to Babelthuap? Neither did I.

Out to dinner to The Bakery. It has a real Palauan name that we just can’t remember. Besides fresh bread, cakes and cookies, they make killer pacific rim food. We ate way too much. The reason we picked this place is that Mark turned 40 today. What better way to celebrate than to have a cake in Palau. By the by, Mark interpreted the chicken scratches off the parts that we found as part numbers from the Twice Blown Up site and has sent them off via email to his buddies who know parts like a doctor knows pills. Hopefully, they’ll tell us which model they came from which will narrow down the possibilities of what it is and maybe who was in it. We’re still detectives in the end.

That brings you up to…….

23 February

We briefed earlier than we had to today. We went over the entire target list that we brought with us, added the new information we have obtained here and reordered the list. We added a few sites to investigate and knocked off some that we either cleared from the list through good work, or didn’t think there was much of a chance of finding it.

Headed out in our trusty SUV and crossed the bridge that we’ve never taken a van over. And we were so lucky that we had that SUV. Our van would not have survived the first big bump.

We headed up the west side of the big island and marveled at the beautiful countryside. The jungle really is a pretty place, especially when you can see the ocean out the other side of the car. Our first stop was at the old military police station at the top of the hill. Lots of stories of POWs being driven here, and never seen again. Last year, JPAC excavated a portion of the hill based on some Palauan eyewitness accounts. They did not have any luck. We heard that Daewoo was working near the site and wanted to see if they were disturbing it. This area may have a lot of Americans buried in it. Our number of potential POWs grows as we dig deeper in the history of the war here. Daewoo has been near it, but sufficiently far away that they won’t disturb it. For now anyway.

JPAC worked the dirt area last year. Photo by Flip

But, from going over the eyewitness accounts, Pat has a feeling that the search area should be shifted to another portion of the hill. As we poked around, we found all sorts of remnants of the war: slit trenches, fire positions, foxholes, quinine bottles, food tins etc.

We moved on to the new capital complex of Palau. This is one of the most beautiful public buildings on the planet. The architecture is great, colors perfect, landscaping very complimentary. Two problems. One, it’s not finished. Two, it doesn’t have electricity, plumbing, people, infrastructure, towns near it (it does have a village, but not enough people live there to run the place), business centers, recreation centers, finance centers or anything else. There’s a great view of a bay and the ocean on the east side of the island. But that’s it. It’s as if the aliens came and found a remote place to plunk down a mystery, just like the heads on Easter Island. We ate our lunch between the Executive Building and The Oval Office (which rightly should be called The Oval Building) since there was an elevated walkway that provided us with shade. I’m pretty sure even the President of Palau hasn’t eaten there yet!

The Capitol with Mike for perspective.

A Palauan bird that I guess proves the old saying, “You are what you eat.” Photos by Flip

On to our first village. We were told of an old woman who lived by the ocean. She did and what a beautiful view she’s had all these years.

Is this beauty or what? Photo by Flip

And how about this? Photo by Flip

She was more than willing to talk to us. For the record, all the elders we talked to today were eager to share with us. She relayed what she knew about the war. She was able to tell us a couple of stories she heard, but she did not witness anything. She did tell us that 7 of her family members are in the U.S. Military. One of her sons lost his life in Vietnam. And she told us to go see an old man down the road.

We know she’s sweet on Pat in the photo, but we could have sold her Mike
for just of few of the betel nuts hanging on the right. Photo by Flip

So we made a U-turn and went 3 houses down the road. This gentleman was in his 80s and happy to chat. He spent most of the war out of Palau, working for the Japanese on other islands. There was a lot of forced movement of islanders throughout the Japanese holdings in the Pacific. From my reading, they used different island peoples as laborers and overseers. He told us what he knew and we pressed north to the next village.

I just learned that a Palauan summer house is not like going
up to Traverse City for the summer in Michigan. It refers to
the house outside of your regular house. Photo by Flip

We stopped and asked two guys sitting under a meeting house “Do you have any elders in the village?” “Why yes we do? Turn left here, make the next left and you’ll see the school. It’s the house across the street.” So we did that and we were surprised to see that the village is a lot bigger than it looks from the coast road. If all you ever did was drive the coast road, you would lose out on the flavor of Palau. We found the man and he came out to his sitting area under the front tree. He was overflowing with stories. He was in his twenties during the war and was a laborer for the Japanese. He told about having to move the big guns up the mountain by The German Lighthouse. If you see big guns laying on the road, or to the side, during one of the Survivor shows, we met one of the men who moved it.

One of his stories is of filling in a cave with Japanese guns and ammunition at the end of the war. You wouldn’t think they would do that. And there are stories of the Japanese burying records of what transpired during their tenure in Palau. Maybe these are the records? The old man said he would lead us close to where they are. We’ll save that for when we come back from Peleliu.

Telling us we better come back and take him to where he wants to take us. Photo by Flip

We all agreed that this methodology worked. We got more information. And the sooner we meet all the elders, the sooner we can learn what they know. Most of it won’t help us, but will be interesting to hear. Some will be the nuggets of gold that helps to bring someone home after too many years away. Pat liked this so much that we’re going to borrow the SUV again and head up the west side of the island to the northern tip, spend the night and then go back to Koror on the east side.

Met up with Dermot at Sam’s and arranged it all. Had dinner and now I’m deciding whether or not to post photos to this, pack for tomorrow’s journey or just go to bed. Okay, I’ll stay up late and add some photos. Photos might be added to the blog later. [They will be added as soon as I get my hands on them but right now he's totally unable to upload files because of the concrete block their Net connection is being filtered through so he's FedExing images to me on Grand Turk Island, TCI. Ain't technologhy grand? Ed.]

We’ll be out of touch for 3 days. Which means at least four until I get the next update out. I hope you all are well. We are and big things are about to happen.

Blue Skies, Flip

P.S. DOB, you know what this sentence is intended to do.

Flag Ceremony at FM2 Wildcat site.

2005-02-21T18:05:00.000-05:00

Update #4 — It's Sure Hot Out Here

2005-02-21T17:55:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #4

21 February

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

We’ve had a couple of enjoyable search days with a nice find on the FM2. We’ve also eliminated some of our leads as possible areas of interest. But first: DOB, two day notice for you young man.

And now, lessons learned.

Don’t create one of these lessons learned list when you’re too tired or else you tend to leave out the lesson learned.

From the first lessons learned list I did not explain the light gear bag, cell phone usage or ‘breaking the code’ of communications.

When I unpacked my gear bag I found I was missing 2 pairs of athletic shorts and 2 t-shirts. Not bad for packing out in two different stages.

Cell phone worked great in Guam. I think I did not even get charged for roaming! However, the phone doesn’t even see a cell tower in Palau. Thank goodness Joe always has his and there’s always a convenient cell tower on all these little uninhabited islands.

Breaking the code refers to my inability to get my email on line from SBC. Back at home, it’s easy. Here, not so easy. When I finally broke the code, the entire population of Palau was trying to get their email. You could watch every single byte march slowly through the wires. I think they use concrete block for connector links.

Two dozen eggs don’t last as long if they keep dropping to the floor.
Security is so important at an inoperative power plant.

The sun is hot in the tropics. Did you know that and why didn’t you tell me?

You never know who you’re going to meet in Palau.

There’s always a second way to a site.

Where there’s one bomb crater, there’s always another.

19 February

Today was our first land trip. Not jungle, but working a site out in the open. It’s the Wildcat that we found last year. We still do not have the specific aircraft number identified so we thought we would go back to it and poke around some more. We approached from a different side and had a much shorter walk. We had to take that route as our rental van probably would not have made the trip successfully down the rutted road from last year. By the way, did you know we are not allowed to take our rented van out of Koror? We didn’t either.

We parked at a shutdown, never used power plant. The story is that the plant was built to run on diesel fuel. Building costs were in the millions. Diesel fuel shipped in turned out to be prohibitively expensive. So the plant is not used. And I’m not even sure they ever fired it up.

There is a fence around it, with a locked gate and a live-in security guard. Of course when we started our approach, he started shouting at us. We were about to crawl through the very large holes in the fence, when he shouted a few more times and I thought we were in trouble. No, he recognized us from last year and wanted to be friendly and let us use the front gate, as god had intended it. He unlocked the gate with the large hole in the chicken wire. We walked to the back of the power plant where the fence was missing altogether and hiked down the hill to the Wildcat. On the way out, he was gone, the gate was locked. So some of us used the hole, and a couple of us used the area just to the left that was missing the fence altogether.

We poked around a bit. The intent was to find the engine data plate so that we might be able to identify which particular aircraft this is. Some of us were working the front side of the engine to accomplish that. Some were combing the debris field one more time for anything new, and a couple of us were working the backside of the engine. We did not work the back side last year.

We did find some more parts but nothing that would lead to an identification. However, we did find a parachute pack closing cone. It’s a small metal piece that is used to keep the parachute container closed. That would indicate that the pilot may have gone in with the airplane. All reports from this mission say he did.

Photo by Flip

When we discovered the cone, we stopped work, closed up the hole and headed back to base. We’re going to document this and turn the piece over to Rita at the Historical Preservation Office. Maybe JPAC will one day be able to put this on their list of sites to excavate. Their plate is full forever, so it will just depend on whether or not more evidence can be discerned.

But, since we were convinced someone died here, we held a brief flag ceremony for the fallen hero. I’ll hold onto the flags until the pilot can be identified and then we’ll deliver the flags to the surviving family members.

Photo by Chip Lambert, but it is my camera!

It was Pam and Chip’s last night in Palau before heading home. The flight leaves at 0035 on the 20th so a dinner celebration was in order. And they had a surprise for us. The two hosts of Under Sea Detectives on The History Channel, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, were going to meet up with us. They were down on Peleliu trying to film a show about diving on the U.S.S. Perry. It’s in deep water at about 250 feet. The weather did not cooperate so they did not get their project accomplished. However, they are coming back in the spring to try again. But we did get to hoist a few. They seem like nice guys. They are the protagonists of a book that is currently out there called Shadowdivers. It’s a good read. I just finished it a week or two before I left for this trip. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Did I tell you it was hot out in the field today? Temperature was 97 degrees and it sapped us all of energy. After dinner and socializing, we all got a great night’s rest. I did not wake until 0606. I’m sleeping in later and later. Yippee! I’ve put the circadian rhythm clock back in synch.

20 February

Our egg supply is running short earlier than expected. Mostly due to me knocking eggs out of the ‘fridge and onto the floor. Generally with the whole shelf coming out at the same time. Not once. Not twice, but three times so far. This trip is getting costly, egg wise.

This day would be a water/jungle day. We took the boat to an island because Bena said he saw wreckage there. Bena was one of the heads of the Palauan Conservation Society. He has retired from that. But last year he wanted to take us out to show us what he knew from all his years in the islands. We just could not make it happen. Now we would. However, he could not show as someone died and he HAD to go up to Babelthuap. As you may remember, we have much better luck finding stuff if the person who sends us actually goes with us.

But Bena has a great reputation so we went anyway. John Chatterton came along with us. He was interested in what we do and how we do it. He does the deep stuff so I guess he wanted to see how the ‘topsiders’ live.

We cruised the entire island without seeing anything manmade. It was too rough to put someone in the water to snorkel or troll. We decided to return WITH Bena at a later time.

Then to a spot someone said there was wreckage. As it turns out, it’s by one of the Survivor Challenge sites. Want me to tell you who wins?

But alas, we knew this wreckage already. A Japanese airplane.

On to ‘The Smoke On The Hill’ site. We found a photo at the National Archives (NARA) that showed numerous smoke plumes in and around one particular island. It’s well documented that a number of American airplanes went down in this area. One photo clearly shows smoke on the top of the island. So we decided to go check it out.

We donned our jungle gear and off we went. The initial climb to the ridge is quite steep. Then it’s almost like rolling hills, only these hills are all coral/limestone that is sharp, crumbly and covered in slick jungle leaves and vines. I love this stuff. The Palauan jungle is quite tourist friendly. No swarming bugs, poisonous snakes or very many diseases that can ruin your day. About the only things that can get you are some fairly large spiders and coconut crabs.

We just needed to get to the highest point and turn around. So we did. And we saw nothing. But we did get to sweat a lot. The Pat Scannon Health and Wellness Program is still alive and in full swing.

Meanwhile, back on the boat, we left Jennifer. Mark’s wife. While we were gone, a couple of women from a nearby sailboat came over to ask for directions to a good snorkeling area. Joe filled them in, they all chatted and then they went off in search of the site. By the time we got down from our stroll, the sailboat was out of sight.

When we got back on the boat, it was decided we needed to cool off. We cruised a short distance to a known Avenger crash site. This is the site we came to a few years ago and at first Pat did not recognize it. We thought it was a new find. The site is partially in the water, and partially on the side of one of these coral islands. Pat had never seen the island parts and that was what he first looked at on that trip. Then when he went in the water, he knew immediately that this was not a new site.

But today, it was just the ol’ swimming hole. We snorkeled a bit, had lunch and shared stories. A good time had by all.

We dropped Mark, Jennifer and John at the PPR and we headed back to town.

We ran some errands, restocked our grocery shelves and headed out for some Indian food.

Back at the homefront, crashed early and slept a long time. Tomorrow is going to be a mixed day of interviews and minor jungle work. Can’t wait.

21 February

Today Mike Olds joins us. We can’t forget to pick him up at the airport.

We headed out a little late today as we made some phone calls to set up some appointments. We normally pack a lunch in the ice chest but decided to go to the best burger place in Palau: Bem Ermii which means Come and Taste. But first, a few interviews.

We met up with Jonathon Emul. We talked to him a few years ago and time has taken its toll on him. He is an older Palauan who has aged dramatically. He was an errand boy for the Japanese during the war. He talked about the American POWs that he saw, but he added nothing new to his tale.

We met up with Steve Salii who is an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (E.O.D.) expert with the Public Works Department. We were told he was the man to talk to about aircraft wreckage. We’re told that since the road has gone in on Babelthuap, new wreckage has been found. We need to go see all these sites and Steve may know where they are. He said he’d get back to us with a list.

Went to Bem Ermii and met the owner. He is a Palauan who went to the U.S. for 22 years for college and to work. He lived in Hawaii for a time where he learned the restaurant business. In 1997 he opened his own place in Koror. We’re told he’s going to open another place soon.

He talked about aircraft wreckage he knew about, but it seems Pat knew about it too. But it’s always good have someone tell us what they know. And it’s always good to have the best burger on the island. And a great mocha shake too.

Went to a site that Pat calls twice blown up. By the way, did you know we are not allowed to take our rented van out of Koror? We didn’t either. I think the airplane was shot down, and then the SeaBees blew it up one year not knowing what it was. Last year, Pat found some wreckage here and could not tell what it was. Reid was convinced it was a float plane of some sort. Mark really wanted to look the parts over so we went to humor him. Thank goodness we did. We don’t know exactly what it is yet but we all agree that it is a float from a floatplane and Mark found English writing on a parts label with a manufacturers ident. And the part surely looks like a float from a OS2 Kingfisher. The Kingfisher was used for rescue, observation and gunfire support. Three were known to go down in Palau with some MIAs. There’s not much chance of finding anything more than we did. So nothing more will come of this but at least we know what kind of plane it is.

Across the street from the twice blown up aircraft is an elementary school. We had a report that 500 meters towards the airport from the school lies an airplane. Okay, we’ll go look. We walked down the road and realized there’s a lot of brush, jungle and woods between us and the airport. Well, let’s walk one line out, and another back. What could be simpler.

The brush started by being boot high. Then thigh high. Then I fell into a bomb crater and the brush was well over my head. I thought to myself, self, there’s always more bomb craters. So when I climbed out of the one I was in, I promptly fell into another. The brush was well over my head again, but when I attained level ground, it was still over my head. I pushed ahead and came out of the tall stuff to just waist deep jungle and then once again, boot high brush.

This little jaunt reaffirmed our opinion to work smarter, not harder. We need more intel. We’re not opposed to working hard in the brush. But it has to make sense. We could have easily walked by a B29 and not have seen it since the brush is so thick. Maybe our source will lead us there.

We came out of the hills and went to the rental car agency. By the way, did you know we are not allowed to take our rented van out of Koror? We didn’t either. The van we have is so weak in terms of power, that if we encounter any size hill, we have to get out so the car can climb it. This definitely is not going to work for us. Especially since we want to go to Babelthuap with it and we’re not supposed to. So we wanted to switch cars. Not with our agency. They have no other vans available. They called around and found one at King’s. We’ve rented there before. So off we went to get it.

We dropped off Pat to deal with that while I took Joe and Reid to the hotel. Then I took Mark to the PPR. Then I returned and found Pat. Seems that we aren’t getting a different van. When he got to King’s, they told him in no uncertain terms that the van was not to go to Babelthuap. Seems someone took a van up there a few years ago and tore up the underside. (Please see P-MAN IV updates for all the factual details. I thought it was just the oil cooler we broke from its brackets.) Took a lot of money to repair it. And they now have a spy/watcher at the Shell station that sits on the road you cross to get to Babelthuap.

So we’ve kept our gutless wonder and are now looking for a powerful set of wheels for the few days we need to go to the big island.

Raced to an interview with some notable Palauans. A woman who works in the President’s office attended Pat’s presentation the other night. She told her Mom and her Mom wanted to talk with us. She was a child during the war, but was also the High Chief’s daughter and learned a lot about what happened during that time frame. Her older sister came too and we were treated to a wonderful night of memories from long ago. We did not get any leads of particular sites to look at, but some great stories and we were told to contact some other folks. The best story was about the Japanese spy who saved many Palauans from being executed by the Imperial Japanese Army: I.J.A. The story is that he was Japanese/Hawaiian and was landed on the big island by a submarine. He helped hide the Palauans and told the Americans where they were hidden. When the I.J.A. wanted to execute the Palauans, he convinced them to let them farm instead. At the end of the war, he was captured with a number of Japanese, was taken by submarine to Peleliu and disappeared. When he was found living in Japan many years later, he denied he was a spy. Of course he did. Wouldn’t you?

Out to dinner at Carp and then Pat left early to get Mike. See, we did not forget him.

Now I’m writing to you.

We’ve had a problem with email. Broadband isn’t so broad here. Tough to get pictures out in large file sizes. Tonight I’ll try smaller. I hope this works for you!

That’s all for this missive. We’re having a ball. We’ve accomplished some items on our check off list and have many more to go. Hopefully, the next update will include something special.

Until next time. By the way, did you know we are not allowed to take our rented van to Babelthuap? We didn’t either.

Blue Skies, Flip

P.S. We have someone to lead us to some wreckage on Eil Mak island. Is this the last B-24 to be found? There’s only one more not accounted for.

Update #3 — Out on the Water

2005-02-19T17:30:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #3

18 February

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to Palau. It took an extra day to get here, but, I made it. And that’s what counts. It’s great to be back in Palau. It’s hot, azure blue skies, friendly people and the jungles and waters are calling our names.

But first, everybody’s favorite section of the update, Lessons Learned!

Lessons Learned

1.When your shipment of gear is 1 pound, 14 ounces lighter than last year’s shipment, you should know you left something out.

2.There’s more than one way to get back home at the end of the trip.

3.Construction workers the world over never call to find out where the buried electrical cables are.

4.Your cell phone will always get a signal when you don’t really need it, and never when you do.

5.Communications are always a matter of ‘breaking the code’.

I had a marvelous day in GUM on the 15th. The massage was great. Food good and plentiful. Sun just strong enough and the pool water just cool enough. I even got one go on the water slide. Life is good.

Got to the airport in GUM in plenty of time for the evening flight to ROR (Koror, Palau). Met up with the NWA station manager for GUM operations, who I had met previously. We started chatting about load factors, how business was and other NWA related topics.

SHAMELESS MARKETING ALERT

It’s still a great time to buy tickets on NWA. It’s post Valentines Day, you probably forgot to buy your honey a card, some flowers or chocolates. So buy him/her a full fare ticket to Paris to show them how much you really care.

END OF SHAMELESS MARKETING

Back to my story. The station manager informed me that we have a great service back to Japan via Saipan. The flight goes from Saipan to Nagoya and then on to Narita (Tokyo). Both Narita and Nagoya have flights directly to DTW. So, if the flights are full from GUM to NRT, I have another way home. It requires spending the night in Saipan, but if I get behind leaving GUM, I’ll be spending the night in Narita anyway. Saipan vs. Narita for spending the night? I’ve never been to Saipan so I’ll keep that one in my hip pocket.

But what’s all this talk of going home. We just got here.

Met up with Reid, Mark and Jennifer right before flight time. They looked like they had been traveling for over 24 hours. 30 by the time we got to Koror. Taking an extra day in GUM sure helped me not look like them, although I know I did the day before.

Just for introductions, Reid Joyce is the webmaster for www.bentprop.org and has been with Pat since the mission in 2000. Mark is the new member of the team and is a UPS pilot. His wife Jennifer is out to lend moral support, have a great time and see some great sites. Pictures to follow.

We all got on the airplane in GUM, settled into our seats and sat. And sat. And sat. Push back time came and went and we were still sitting. The Captain came on the P.A. and told us that the runway lights had failed. No one could takeoff or land. We saw some heavy construction going on and of course we assumed that they were the culprits.

One of the commuter flights that was trying to land had to divert to Saipan. We needed to get going and the airport needed to be open since many 747s were about to arrive. GUM gets a lot of heavy metal at night. I’d like to tell you that we just took off using the landing lights from the plane with cars and smudge pots marking the sides of the runway. But that didn’t happen. The Governor of Guam owns the lights and got them back in about an hour and a half. Enough time to get off the airplane and have a snack.

A little late to Palau, but here none the less. I was the 5th person off the airplane, and the 2nd to clear immigration. Since I had no checked luggage, I was the first through customs. Total time from stepping off the airplane to seeing Pat in the waiting area, five minutes. Record time.

Loaded up the van with all of us and took Mark and Jennifer out to their hotel: The PPR (Palau Pacific Resort). It’s the really nice hotel on the beach rather than our convenient hotel on the harbor. Our hotel takes great care of us and has all the amenities we could need for folks who will be only sleeping there. Mark and Jennifer checked in and we waited by the beach for an evening libation with them.

That taken care of, we checked into our hotel and Reid and I moved into the Ready Room for a month. Every day the team shares breakfast and we brief the day’s festivities in the ready room. It’s where the coffee pot is. Then at the end of the day, we debrief somewhere where we can see a sunset. But the ready room is our central meeting area.

But while we were in transit to Palau, Pat was a busy man. He met up with the Navy dive team that was doing a survey of the B-24 we found last year. JPAC (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command) is mounting a mission in April to search the B-24 for remains and bring the crew home if they can find them. The mission leader, Zeke, a Marine Captain, will be leading the recovery effort in April and is with the Navy divers to set up logistics for it. The Navy dive team isn’t actually a part of JPAC, but is loaned to them for the mission. And these guys are excited about doing this type of mission. As their Senior Chief Petty Officer said “Normally we go down, wrap a chain around a big hunk of metal and yank. This one is going to require finesse.” We could see the gleam in his eyes as he said it.

Pat led them on a three tank dive and they have a good plan for the recovery. The rest of their time on the island on this trip will be used to set up logistics.

Pat also made one of his world famous presentations at Sam’s Tours. It was attended by 80 folks including The JPAC Team, local divers, and members from governmental offices and non-divers who were just interested. The AirBees were their too.

You might remember that we met the SeaBees here and have stayed in touch with each new team that arrives. These are Civil Action Teams (CAT) that do pubic works projects around the islands. There were a number of these teams throughout the Pacific, each of them run by a different uniformed service. This CAT team is the last one in the Pacific since the drawdown of personnel. So, all the services rotate through. This time, it’s the Air Force’s turn. But they don’t have a real team nickname so we call them AirBees.

We’re planning on showing them what we found in their backyard last year: The FM2 Wildcat. And we’re going to show them a bit of Air Force history by taking them to the B-24 later during our mission. Along with some special guests that are coming to Palau in March. Somebody remind me to tell you about them in a couple of weeks.

So that takes you through the first day that I got to Palau. The next entry will be the first full day here. Give me a few hours to get back to my laptop.

16 February

I’m back. I slept all the way to 0519. Puttered around a bit and we met up downstairs in the restaurant for breakfast. In addition to our team members, Chip and Pam Lambert are here. They were involved with a filming project on Peleliu, but things did not work out so that freed them up to work with us. Pam and Chip are experts on Pacific diving and they led the mission that found the very armed trawler that President Bush sunk when he was an Avenger pilot in WWII. That was the mission that got Pat to Palau and started The BentProp Project.

Mark’s mission for the next few days is to finish his scuba certification process. He’s on independent duty until he does. Jennifer is tasked with having way too much fun in this tropical paradise.

Today’s mission for the rest of us is to buy a coffee maker. We brought the Starbucks. We just need to cook it properly. Oh yes, and groceries too. And we have a bunch of courtesy calls to make.

Joe Maldangesang, our boat captain and master guide, joined us to help in the courtesy calls.

Went to Neco Marine to get our diving paperwork in order. Then on to Surangels’ Grocery Store. We loaded up the carts. And not with junk food. We’re going to eat much better this year than last, but not as good as when Val Slocum was here. Val, you are missed.

Pat was invited by one of Palau’s Senators and Chiefs to make one of his presentations to the Council of Chiefs that happened to meet on the 16th. Of the 16 Chiefs, I believe 10 or 11 were in attendance. It was quite a hit. The Chiefs ask a lot of questions and were genuinely interested in hearing about the history of the war here in Palau. They also agreed to help spread the word about what we are doing. Palau has an interesting governing setup: a senate and House of Delegates as well as a tribal system.

Our next stop was at The Historical Preservation Office to see Rita. She is the keeper of the flame for all things Palauan. We want to make sure she knows what we are doing and that we want her blessing in doing our searches. We fell that if we keep it on the up and up with her, things will go better for us.

Then on to the President’s office. Last year, the President of Palau dove on the B-24. It made the front page of the local newspaper. He understands the significance of what we do and declared the B-24 off limits to everyone in order to preserve this potential gravesite. We met his chief of staff and he was a wonderful man to chat with. We learned a lot about Palauan politics and current events. We also will be put on the President’s calendar.

We stopped at the Palauan Navy Yard to try and find the Australian Naval Officer who is the advisor to the Palauan C.N.O.: Chief of Naval Operations. Commander Brown chatted with us and we invited him to chat more with us over dinner. We were hosting the JPAC team that night and thought it might be a good idea for these two sets of Naval Forces to meet.

The Palauan Navy consists of one patrol boat that coincidently was purchased from Australia. Yes, I know, you’re shocked. The Australian contingent consists of the Commander, and two sailors. They all think this is a great tour. Commander Brown’s wife and kids are here and they all love it.

Went for sunset at the source of Red Rooster beer: Palau Brewing Company. If you’ve read my previous comments about the beer, you know I am not a fan. I’m still not. I took a brewery tour and it is nicely equipped for a small batch brewery. And the brewer’s assistant is doing what he is told to do. However, the brew master hasn’t been around in awhile and he probably doesn’t know what has happened to his product. But, each year I have one just to prove to myself why I shouldn’t have any. I had a dark one and it had actually improved in taste. It went from awful to tasteless. The Amber was fed to the fish. I switched to San Miguel.

Out to dinner with all our guests: The U.S. Navy, The U.S. Marine Corp and The Royal Australian Navy. We had a ball. The JPAC team can’t wait to bring home those flyers and my intuition tells me that they will.

Time to say goodnight. Dropped into bed and promptly woke up at 0519. But that really is another day. So……..

17 February

First breakfast in the ready room. I made turkey bacon (My favorite brand too. All the way out here in Palau.), scrambled eggs and toast. Sliced oranges and apples, cold cereal and Starbucks rounded it off. Val, they love me more than chunky fish ice cream.

There was a Hellcat that went down near the Japanese Seaplane ramp on the north side of Arakabesan. Lt. Punnell was seen to impact the water 300 feet from the ramp, brought down by anti-aircraft fire. The tail snapped off and the plane went straight in without any explosion or flame. We had someone who said he knew where it was and would take us to it. After breakfast, we loaded up the boat and Joe went to get our human intelligence. No deal. He has to go off island, but will take us there tomorrow. Well, the boat was loaded so we went anyway.

We took our best guess, anchored and set up a search grid. We would go out on a 330 degree heading until we got to 2000 pounds in our tanks, wheel right, and head back at 150 degree heading. We were five across. Not a big search group, but enough. We started out and Reid and I ran across a seaplane. We kept going and I did not see anything else noteworthy. Chip came across some debris. When we made our U turn, I came across another float plane.

We made a second dive and Chip and Pat came across some formed aluminum that resembled a leading edge of a flying surface. Other than that, bupkis. But the float planes were interesting. Both floats, motors, fuselages were there. But no wings, horizontal stabs or vertical stabs. Never got back to that formed aluminum.

We decided this site was worth another day if we could bring someone who knows something with us. Then we could do some more pattern searches once he got us in the right area. Tomorrow. Joe would arrange it.

Low key dinner at The Palauan Brewing Company. Yes, I know what you’re saying. Didn’t he just slam their beer? Yes, I did. But they have great food.

Fell fast asleep early on and woke up at 0520L. I got to sleep in an extra minute. But, that is tomorrow’s story.

18 February

Yeah! Finally I’ve caught up with the date and when I’m actually writing this.

Oatmeal, fruit and fried Spam for breakfast. Yes, I continue to purchase a food stuff my teammates do not want to eat. But this was turkey Spam and it was delicious fried. And there was plenty of it since my buddies wouldn’t eat much of it.

Went to pick up our human intel at his place of work and he no-showed us again. This is not a good sign. The story is that he knows where a plane with a star on it is. Well, we haven’t seen it yet. Nor him! And the odds are that he does not know where it is. Or maybe what we’ve already seen, two sunk floatplanes, is really what this is all about.

Back to the site, and we did some great search lines. Covered quite a bit of ground. Really investigated the floatplanes and they are really interesting wrecks. They’re just not Hellcats. Chip and Reid took a bunch of photos and we called it a day. But these are not sites that are known to the Palauan authorities so we have done a public service for the Republic Of Palau. And unless someone says that in addition to those wrecks there really is a wreck with a star on it, we’ll close out this site. For now anyway.

Out to dinner with Lenny and Bert. Both are local ex-pats and both are colorful characters. Both have dived with us in our searches. Lenny is opening a paint ball range on Koror and Bert is still working in the scuba world. They thoroughly entertained us with stories.

But Mark really entertained us. He couldn’t dive today due to problems with his ears so he and Jennifer got a car and driver and started poking around. They drove to the area that we are going to tomorrow to work on our Wildcat discovery of last year. Enroute, Mark spied a propeller sticking out of the ground. An American Hamilton-Standard prop. The kind that would be on a Hellcat, Corsair or Avenger. And the driver’s cousin said there is an airplane attached to the prop under the dirt. Why they buried it is a big question. But they didn’t do a good enough job. That’s good for us. So tomorrow we’ll add that to our list of things to do. If there really is an airplane there, Mark found one on his first day of searching.

And that catches you up to the last day’s festivities. Tomorrow is our first land day. Not really in the jungle, but at least it will be hot and in strong sun while we’re scratching at a little dirt.

Until next time, we’ll use plenty of Deet and sunscreen and hopefully we’ll hit pay dirt today or tomorrow.

DOB! This is your 2 day warning that we’re going to find something!

Blue Skies, Flip

I'm a slacker? NOT!

2005-02-17T07:33:00.000-05:00

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Hello Everyone!

It's been hectic since we hit the island. I'll have an update out shortly covering all the happenings. But just wanted to let DOB know that we're all okay, absolutely loved his comments on the blog, and they are out of Victoria Bitters, tuna sashimi and Meyers Rum. By they I mean the island. The whole island.

And this is your two day notice DOB that we are going to find something really cool. Did I tell you about the Hellcat parts?

Blue SKies, Flip

Check Out OfficeRick

2005-02-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

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Check out the photo of OfficeRick from an earlier post. My Tech Guru, Pat Swovelin, who is in Grand Turk at his end of the skinny wires of the Internet, has modified the photo. Can you identify the man behind the visor?

Blue SKies, Flip

Update #2 — Half The Fun Is Getting There

2005-02-14T22:25:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #2

13 February 2005

The BentProp Project

Hello Everyone!

Hello from Portland, Oregon! My first day’s journey went fine. AND you are buying all the seats I told you to in previous years. That’s a great thing for my airline. I whole heartedly endorse your buying sprees of the past and for the future. However, full airplanes are not so good for employees who want to travel.

For those who are not in the airline industry, a little review is necessary. Airline employees have a great benefit when they want to travel: reduced rate ticket prices. However, it’s for standby travel. Hence the phrase, ‘time to spare, go by air’. Yesterday, a Saturday, all the flights from DTW to MSP were full. Now I could actually buy a ticket and get a reserved seat like anyone else. But what’s the point of having a benefit if you don’t try to use it. (Let me interpret this last sentence for you. I’m too frugal to buy a real ticket as long as I can be a little flexible with my itinerary.) Being a pilot I can also ride the jumpseat in the cockpit, so I did to MSP.

My next leg, MSP-PDX, I got the last seat in coach. I got to PDX as planned at about 1300 PDT. The plan was for me to pal around with my sister Amy and her boyfriend Lance during the day, have dinner with them and then get an early start on the NWA Honolulu flight the next day. I would meet up with Pat Scannon, the founder; the big cheese; El Jefe; Boss; SMF#1 of The BentProp Project, in HNL and fly the rest of the way with him. From HNL, we would then get on Continental and fly to Guam (GUM) and on to Koror, Palau (ROR), arriving on the 14th. Two more members of the team would arrive a day later on the 15th and the last member of this year’s team would arrive a week later.

When I left DTW yesterday morning, there were plenty of seats on the NWA flight to HNL and 37 seats on the Continental flight to GUM. Plenty of room for me. On a whim, I checked with a Continental representative when I got to PDX. Things changed dramatically. There were only 5 available seats on the HNL-GUM flight and 60 Continental employees trying to use them. I’m doomed!

IF I had known this before I left DTW, I could have jump seated to Japan directly, gotten myself down to GUM and met Pat there. But once I left DTW, there was no way to keep going to Japan from the West Coast and stay on schedule.

To make a long story shorter, I rerouted myself via Japan (NRT) on us. Good news: seats available. Then on Continental to GUM and they said they have a few seats left. And if that works, I’ll get to GUM at 0115 in the 15th. A day later than originally planned. But I’ll get there. And I’ll meet up with the other members of the team for the final leg of the journey. If I can’t get on Continental, then NWA has a flight the morning of the 15th that will work.

And here is the plan for day 1 in Palau on the 15th . The day that I will now miss. Pat will show a U.S. Navy survey team the site of the B-24 we found last year. There may be MIAs associated with that site. JPAC (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command) must be thinking of mounting a recovery mission for later in the year. Then Pat will go to Sam’s Tours to give a public presentation about Palau and World War Two: the battles that were fought there; the significance of what The BentProp Project does and field any questions that might arise. Over the past few years, the presentations have been well attended.

We also seem to get some leads from the audience. Last year, one such lead led us to a FM2 Wildcat and the realization that a Task Force that we did not know about participated in the invasion of the islands. Maybe we’ll get some more, good intel this year.

On day two, we have been invited to attend the monthly meeting of the Chiefs of Palau. Although Palau has a government system based on the U.S. system of representation, there is also a vibrant tribal system. Pat will be putting on his presentation at the request of the Chiefs. This IS a big deal. I want to be there for that.

We’ll probably take care of logistics that day: buy groceries, a coffee maker, set up and make courtesy calls and whatever else we can get done without going out into the field.

Then on day three, it will be time to get our feet wet, our pants dirty and our skin full of deet bug spray.

More later and I’ll let you know if I ever get there.

February 15th in Guam

I got to NRT just fine. But when I went to the Continental transit ticket desk, the same desk that I left Rebecca at last year for 2.5 hours without a ticket, passport or seeing a way out of Japan, they said all seats were taken on the rest of the flights to GUM. Although they said go to the hotel, and it was only 1500 local time, and I hadn’t slept in 20 hours, and the bed at our layover hotel in NRT was calling my name, and I was hungry, thirsty and an old Navy buddy actually flew me from PDX to NRT and wanted to get together, being the good standby passenger that I am, I went to the gate anyway.

They told me again that the flight was full. At two minutes to door closing time they were frantically making announcements for some missing passengers. There’s hope! But then a dozen happy travelers showed up and got on. No seats left. But, there’s one more flight. 4 hours from now. That bed at the hotel was screaming my name.

3.5 hours later, they were telling me it was full. 4 hours later, they handed me a boarding pass for a wide seat. Patience pays. Or maybe it was the cinnamon Altoids I kept feeding the gate agents. Or my enchanting non-rev smile. In any case, at 0115 in the morning, I was in GUM heading to the hotel.

0200 fell into bed. Fell fast asleep expecting to be up at 0500 due to my body clock not having adjusted to the new time zone. No. At 0300 the fire alarm went off. Back to sleep when that was done and actually slept in to a reasonable time. Had breakfast, a massage, doing a little typing to you and will head to the pool. My flight doesn’t leave until 1940 tonight so I might as well make the most of this arduous duty.

I should be on tonight’s flight to ROR with some other team members. Then, let the games begin. So until I get to Palau, thanks for reading this and I’ll let you know what we find when we find it.

And so far, I haven’t been kicked off any islands. But there is a Chief’s meeting tomorrow.

And DOB? Here’s your two day notice that we’re going to find something.

Blue SKies, Flip

Just Around the Corner

2005-02-09T21:44:00.000-05:00

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February 9th

BentProp.org

Hello Everyone!

Just a couple of more days until P-MAN VII starts. I'll start heading west on the 12th: DTW-MSP-PDX. Then on the 13th, PDX-HNL-GUM-ROR, arriving in Palau on the night of the 14th. It's a very long day of flying no matter how we do it.

I'm having to go via Hawaii since all of NWA's flights to Narita, Japan are full. Looks like you listened to me when I said to buy more tickets on my airline.

My last day of flying was Monday the 7th. I had one more day on call but NWA did not call. So now I'm getting the rest of my gear ready, checking off some things from the honey-do list, preparing for an early Valentines Day and just puttering around the house. Thank goodness the construction project won't be done by the time I have to leave. (g)

More later as I know it. This is really a test for my tech guru to see if he's on the ball. More once I'm airborne.

All dressed up

Blue SKies, Flip

Why we do this. The Flag ceremony.

2005-02-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

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Why we do this. The Flag ceremony.

Update #1 — BentProp Supporters

2005-02-02T22:21:00.000-05:00

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P-MAN VII Update #1

The BentProp Project

29-Jan-05

Hello BentProp Supporters and Friends!

The time is close at hand when a band of stout, hardy travelers will make their way to a tropical paradise and traipse through the jungles and waters and see what awaits them. Yes, we’re going to Palau again. But you knew that. What you might not know is CBS Television has already gone in the form of Survivor: Palau. Now I’m not much into reality television, but if you want to see some beautiful scenery, lovely jungles, sparkling waters and lots of denizens of the deep, this might be worth viewing a bit to get a sense of where we are. I understand that they might make some tie ins to the battles that took place during World War Two. But don’t get your hopes up that this will be more like a History Channel documentary. It is after all Survivor: tribes, councils, tests, voting people off the island etc. Although we start P-MAN VII officially on 15 February, the TV show starts the 17th.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

DOB, this is your two day notice that we are going to find something.

Last year, we lost a few of our team members to injuries that they sustained right before the trip to Palau would have started for them. So there’s no point in introducing you to the team just yet because we’re not actually there in force. Once we’re there, I’ll send a photo with a good caption of who we all are.

Suffice it to say, unlike Survivor, there will be no voting people off the island. Well, that’s not exactly true. Pat Scannon, the head of The BentProp Project, reserves the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason. He says it’s all about safety. So I guess he could kick me off the island. After all, he is El Jefe. And there is a real tribal system of government that is very effective on Palau. So if I make one of the Chiefs really mad, he could kick me off the island. And there is a government of The Republic of Palau, so I guess that they could kick me off too. I best be on my best behavior.

We won’t be having Jawonga tribal council meetings, but we will brief every morning before a mission into the field, and debrief every evening. Most of these meeting are over some form of food and beverage, depending on the time of day and what we have to do after the briefing.

No skills test to see who stays and who goes. Our trekking is a natural selection process of its own. The weak shall inherit bumps, bruises, scrapes and cuts. Thank goodness El Jefe is also our medical officer for the trip. I can attest to his great chair side manner for the past three missions.

A picture of me trekking through the mangroves and a picture of what we’re looking for in order to repatriate the men who did not come home from the war. Photo of me courtesy of DOB, Aircraft photo courtesy of Reid Joyce and NARA. Palau map courtesy of Palau.

If you’ve been reading the previous stories I’ve written, (I will refer to stories from the past, so if you need to get caught up, go to www.bentprop.org and read all of my mission missives over the last three years.) you know that this team does not believe in coincidences. On the first jungle excursion, of the first year I went to Palau, I became known as Map Boy for the bruise on my thigh I earned/created on Eil Malk island. I of course prefer to be thought of as a demi-god as the bruise looked exactly like a map of the entire island chain. But, I digress.

We hiked Eil Malk due to some stories of a ‘multi-engine’ airplane being there. We actually had two sources for this info. However, we did not find anything. We really did not allow enough time that day and darkness was approaching. For some reason, we elected not to return to that island.

This year at the National Archives, we found some info from mission reports and decrypted Japanese message traffic that indicates that Eil Malk may indeed hold an aircraft crash site. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think we’re heading back to the first island we looked at 3 years ago. But I will be much more careful so as not to get a bruise.

Once again I give all of you the opportunity to opt out of this email list. Just let me know and I’ll take care of it.

My guess is I’ll have some travelogue writings to do somewhere over the Pacific when I finally get going. Until then, enjoy the rest of winter.

Blue SKies, Flip

Welcome To The BentProp Supporters Blog

2005-02-01T11:04:00.000-05:00

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Hello BentProp Supporters!

The BentProp Project

DOB suggested I blog. As DOB says, I do. So here is a blog for those that want to particpate in the adventures in Palau from afar. I'll try posting my updates here as well. Maybe, just maybe, something fun will transpire here.

Blue SKies, Flip