P-MAN X Update #09
- Japanese bombs This morning we (our team plus Rich and Matt from the JPAC team) went back to the area we explored yesterday, met our guide, hiked in past the point where we turned around yesterday, and continued to expand our picture of the area during a hike that lasted a couple of hours. There was clearly a Japanese presence in this area, as evidenced by large collections of roof tiles and a blacksmith's shop area that contained a furnace, anvil, and a bunch of drums and other miscellany. The key finding, though, came from Matt, who had taken photos and measurements of the bombs that we examined yesterday, then did some bookwork at the hotel last night to identify them. Turns out they're Japanese, and their relative intactness most likely indicates that they were never dropped. It's more likely that they wereremoved from a depot somewhere nearby and cut open to remove the high explosives for "personal" use such as killing fish. We had hypothesized that the story of "a bomb with a propeller" might actually be aircraft-related debris - and this is the area in which the Allison Corsair disappeared. Since that propeller/bomb could still exist, we're still trying to track down the individual who told us about it, but until that happens, that hypothesis has to be put on hold...because the Japanese bombs that we did find yesterday shed absolutely no light on the Allison mystery. We headed back to the hotel to do some data mining, based on the map that our friend Minoru found in Japan a couple of years ago, which shows red circles in locations where it is believed that American aircraft were shot down. We've brought along a video projector (thanks, Dan!), which has been valuable for projecting maps and photos on the wall as we try to puzzle out relationships and plan daily missions. Although we've all looked at this map many times, this time we started to have some little flashes of insight - and occasionally some BIG flashes of insight, as we recalled conversations we've had with several Palauans over the past few years. Basically, we're starting to develop some hypotheses about where the Rea B-24 may have crashed, based on the newly discovered reports (thanks, Mark and Katie) that state that the two survivors, Rea and Curry, were recovered quite a bit north of where we've been assuming for the past few years. In fact, if the recent report is correct, they may have gone down quite near to Koror. Having acknowledged that possibility, we realized that a couple of stories we've gotten from Palauans, which we've previously assumed were related to a diffent aircraft, might actually be related to the Rea B-24. With a little luck, we'll be able to re-interview one of those Palauans tomorrow morning. We'll see where that leads. We also did some waypoint-creating and plotting on Google Earth to begin to devise a strategy for the first two or three water missions this year - which we'll probably begin early next week, after Laura arrives. This evening Neco Marine and a Palauan politician hosted a dinner party for the JPAC team, which is leaving in a couple of days - and we were invited. We've also been invited to a dinner with JPAC and the Civic Action Team tomorrow night, so the social calendar is almost as full as the jungle calendar. The JPAC folks, particularly the Navy divers in the current team, have been urging us to find more underwater sites...they want to come back to Palau! So the pressure is on to find that Rea site. Wish us luck tomorrow. - Reid |