P-MAN II - 14 
But the day was not over. After we returned to the dock, Chief Rebekuul met us there and said he wanted to show us one other wreck about a half mile west on a coral head in the water. We did find a debris field of small pieces of iron and aluminum. One piece appeared to be a .50 cal machine gun sticking vertically, barrel down, out of the coral head, with .50 cal ammo lying at its base. Several other small pieces were lying nearby, most notably a small hinged section, function unknown. Snorkeling around the coral head did not reveal any substantial or identifiable part. This aircraft was American but probably disintegrated when it hit the coral head; alternatively, if the aircraft crashed intact, over 50 years of storms has taken its toll. We photographed what we could and obtained a GPS reading.
On 22 October we attempted to lay some additional groundwork, based on recommendations of Father Felix, for next year's expedition. We went by boat to two villages on northeast Babeldaob but we were unable to make any new connections, as no one was around - they all had gone to Koror, from where we had just come!
We left Palau that night for Guam and met Professor
Shuster the next day. He gave us a tour of the University of Guam after
which I gave a presentation at the National Resource Center for Micronesian
Studies about our efforts in Palau. Before leaving Palau, I had told Professor
Shuster about "Seran Serae." He had done some homework and,
with the help of his Japanese wife, Wakako, concluded that the expression
was correctly "Shudon Shirikan", which translated roughly to
Combined Headquarters of the 14th Army Division. This confirmed to us
that we had likely found Lt. General Inoue's previously undiscovered jungle
base of operations. While in Guam, we also met Professor Dirk Ballendorf,
who has written and published extensively about the war in Palau. We left
early the next morning and arrived in Los Angeles at 5am on 24 October
2001. The field portion of P-MAN II was over. Now the interpretive work
began - and much of it is still ongoing.
