| P-MAN X Update #18
- Getting it right can take a long time; a dip in the river Okay, here's a story that's not exactly about what we're doing here in Palau right now. But sort of. If you've been following the BentProp story for a few years you may recall that on 13 September 1944, two days before our invasion of Peleliu, a TBM Avenger flown by Ens. Don Baxter was shot down and crashed somewhere on Peleliu. And that the BentProp team found and documented the site over a period of about 3 years, and JPAC eventually did a recovery mission there in the spring of 2005. Those of you who've seen the documentary "Last Flight Home" will also recall that the sister of Wesley Stuart, one of Baxter's crew members, said that remains identified as Wesley were recovered from the Peleliu jungle in about 1947 and were returned to the Stuart family. Stuart's mother said, "It's someone's son and I'll take care of him," but she never truly believed that the remains were those of her own son. Fast forward to 2008. Mary Ellen, Wesley Stuart's sister, finally had the remains exhumed and paid to have DNA testing conducted. The tests confirmed Mom's intuition: the remains were not those of Wesley Stuart. JPAC (which did not exist in 1947) is now working to acquire and test those remains to see if perhaps they are a match to one of the other crew members. Closure can sometimes take a long and winding path... Okay, on to what we did today. An acquaintance of Joe's told us a couple of days ago that he's seen aircraft parts in a small tributary of the Tabecheding river. The problem, as it so often is, was that his description was a little vague, and we weren't able to contact him either to clarify his directions or to enlist his help in showing us. We tell ourselves over and over that we're not going to launch into the jungle or out on the water without either a guide or a high confidence level in the information that we have, and we mostly stick to that advice. But occasionally we violate that rule when we think we can "fill in the blanks" ourselves. We did that today. THINK we could fill in the blanks, I mean. The instructions basically said "turn left at the second intersection." The parts that were missing were how to determine which of many major and minor tributaries comprised "intersection," and how far up the tributary the wreckage might be found and how much of it there was and what it looked like and...you get the idea. But we went anyway.
The parts of the river that I've seen before are slow moving and shallow, and much of the time you can move along reasonably well above the river in the jungle, staying close enough to see anything that might be lying in the water. But there are some places where the river is cut deeply into the volcanic clay, and you pretty much have to wade along in the water to be sure you don't miss anything. So we did a fair amount of that. Now, at this point our definition of "wade" got tested. I used to think of wading as basically walking in maybe knee-deep water. Also "walking" takes on some new meaning in this river, lined as it is with large, slippery rocks and vines and fallen trees and holes. Deep holes.
It was hot enough this afternoon so that wading in butt-deep water actually felt good. But then we got into some places where there was no climbing out because the mud banks were too tall, and the water was more like chest-deep. Then neck-deep. On Flip. Who is about a head taller than I am. So we were basically slipping and bobbing and flailing along, holding our packs over our heads. and occasionally slipping and submerging completely. Then moving back up to ankle-deep rapids on large slimy rocks. Woulda Coulda Shoulda... We traversed partway up the two most likely candidate tributaries, and Joe worked his way up ahead of us until each became nothing more than a trickle. No airplane parts. Nothing man-made, actually, except a couple of big truck wheels, most likely Japanese. We eventually had to admit that 1. We really didn't know what we were looking for; 2. We really didn't know where we were supposed to be looking for it; and 3. We should have asked Joe's friend to show us. We know better, but today was definitely a lapse in the "smart man" approach. But it was Sunday. Muddy Sunday. And for us, today marks the halfway point in this year's mission. Still completely soaked when we emerged from the jungle, we decided to head north and capture an interview with an elder in Ngarlong (in far northern Babelthuap, where Joe grew up as a boy). Once again, Grover spent part of the interview giving the Rubak a chance to speak Japanese for the first time since the war ended six decades ago. He loved it. It was dark as we finally headed home to Koror.
- Reid |
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