P-MAN X Update #13 - Presidential authorization: we revisit the Arnett B-24 site; more trolling for sharks; more aircraft parts, but we're clueless...
04 March 2008 - Tuesday

We got a slightly later start than we'd hoped today, because of the need to make some phone calls. One of the calls was to President Remengesau's former Chief of Staff. He and the President have been very supportive of our efforts, and he's been extremely interested in the B-24 project. Shortly after we found that crash site in 2004, the President declared the area off limits to sport divers, and we've obviously honored that restriction. But since JPAC has just finally closed the site, and since we have two new team members along this year, and since we needed to do a team "check" dive for safety purposes, we asked if we could make that dive on the B-24 - because we're VERY familiar with the whole site. The Chief of Staff agreed.

So our first real SCUBA dive of this trip was on the Arnett B-24. We spent many years searching for this particular site, and we've all established an emotional connection with its crew members and their families. We were humbly honored to be able to re-visit the place where eight young American airmen died for us on 1 September 1944.

New team members Laura Regan and Grover Harms
visit the prop at the Arnett B-24 site for the first time.
©:Reid Joyce 2008

Reid really does dive, too. ©Grover Harms 2008

After that dive, we re-located to another "red circle" site and did some more trolling for sharks. It was a little rougher at the new site than at yesterday's sites, so the divers swallowed a little more sea water while being thrashed around in the chop. The area is lovely and the visibility was good, but big pieces of aircraft could easily hide in such underwater terrain and never be found. No joy. But at least we now know what the area is like, in case we ever receive stories about airplane parts being spotted there and have reason to go back.

Flip and Grover trolling. ©Reid Joyce 2008

Laura and Pat trolling. ©Reid Joyce 2008

After the new red-circle site, we went back to the small island with the spectacular cave that we visited yesterday. We've brought along an underwater metal detector, so Pat swept the area where we found some aircraft aluminum pieces yesterday, while Flip, Grover, Laura and I did a line-abreast snorkeling sweep in the 4-foot-deep water from the cave area around the north end of the island to a point roughly opposite the cave on the other side. We shifted the whole line out away from the island and made the same sweep back around to the cave. No joy. But when we got back, Pat had found enough more pieces of aircraft aluminum to double our total from yesterday. Unfortunately, none of the pieces is positively identifiable - although a couple of small pieces look like the kinds of strips that held canopy plexiglass in place. The better news is that he got a ton of hits with the metal detector but he was unable to probe them by himself, so we'll probaby try to go back again sometime, but closer to low tide, when walking and probing will be more comfortable than in today's 4-foot depth

Tomorrow we plan to spend much of the day going through a ton of material gleaned from the National Archives by Mark Swank and Katie Rasdorf. Much of this material was developed after we left to come here last week, and it'd be a shame if we were unaware of some key piece of information while we were here and able to run down a lead. We also have an appointment to meet mid-afternoon with the President's Chief of Staff and brief him on this year's mission.

- Reid
 

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