The BentProp Project

P-MAN III - 6

Ngatpang/Execution/POWs

INTRODUCTION:

For several years, Professor Donald R. Shuster, University of Guam, has been actively searching for the final burial site of six Catholic missionaries, four members of a small family brought to Palau from Yap by the Japanese military, and up to three US airmen known to have been executed by the Imperial Japanese Army in September 1944 on the island of Babeldaob in Palau. In 2000, because of ongoing interest in American airmen who remain missing in action in Palau from World War II, I contacted Professor Shuster and offered information concerning specific airmen lost over and captured by Japanese military in Palau immediately prior to the execution date. Since then, Professor Shuster and I have been working together in an effort to find this burial site. This has involved continuing examination of archival information and extensive interviews of both Japanese (in both Palau and Japan, by Professor Shuster and me, aided by Ms. Wakako Higuchi as Japanese translator and historian) and Palauan elders.

Between July and September 1944, at least three B-24's of the 307th BG(H) and the 5th BG(H) of the 13th AAF were shot down over Palau and Yap, which resulted in capture of at least six, and possibly seven or more, American airmen by Japanese military. These airmen were all reported to have been transferred onto different Japanese ships in Palau sometime between August and September 1944 and shipped to the Philippines; no further records of these airmen and their fates have been found to date.

Professor Shuster has discovered in his research that a similar story was constructed (i.e., shipping the missionaries/families from Palau and never making it to the Philippines) for the missionaries/families, who were accused by the IJA of spying for the Americans. However, in this case, war crimes tribunal testimony reveals that these ten civilian individuals and up to three American airmen, from the seven mentioned above, never left Palau: captured IJA eye witnesses after the war testified that these civilians and airmen were executed on two different dates in September and buried in a common grave. Further, in September 2001, I interviewed in Japan, with the help of Ms. Wakako, Higuchi, a former IJA officer who candidly revealed while on video that he is aware of a second and separate execution in early September 1944 of two additional American airmen whom he claimed with certainty were from B-24's shot down over the area. He stated that he did not attend the beheadings and, although he could describe the execution site, he could not remember the precise location on Babeldaob. There is a growing trail of evidence that the "shipping" story was used more than once: several Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) members or "frogmen" who were captured in Yap and moved to Palau, also were later reported to have been shipped off-island subsequently disappearing at sea presumably due to U. S. submarines.

As mentioned in the report of M. Emerson Wiles from CILHI below, it is believed, although not proven, that the three airmen most likely executed by the IJA were from B-24's. Accordingly, from the perspective of CILHI, the reasons for searching and finding any human remains include (if possible and as appropriate) first providing an opportunity for formal recognition and burial of these Americans and missionaries/families and second determining if forensic DNA analysis of discovered human remains (e. g., bones) is feasible for helping to establish who exactly was executed at that site.

This research has resulted in two field explorations, in October 2000 and November 2001, of the area suspected as the execution site for these unfortunate individuals. These explorations were carried out by specialists from the U. S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI), searching in their official capacity for the remains of the executed American airmen.

This report consolidates the results of the two field expeditions. Professor Shuster, who provided a summary of the 2000 trip, and Mr. Wiles, who provided his preliminary report, have kindly permitted me to include these as part of this summary. The interim conclusion provides the status, as of November 2001, for this project. The remainder of this report consists of four parts, which are presented on following pages of this Web site: