Update #4 (should have been sent on the 4th, but didn’t get to it until way late on the 6th, sorry)

Hello Everyone!

We’ve had a great two days. But of course it’s time for everybody’s favorite section: Lessons Learned

1. Climbing through the jungle without a plan is just exercise.
2. You have to ask the right question, in order to get an accurate answer.
3. Not all dangers lurk in the jungle.
4. Even when you ask the right question, in a nation that doesn’t speak your language, be careful of the answer.
5. Missing your flight doesn’t mean you are not resourceful.
6. Mangrove Mud is medicinal.

Let me tell you that this is a gorgeous area of the world. The skies are azure blue, the nights pitch black with diamonds for stars and the rain squalls come through and frame the emerald islands beautifully. Now I know why there are ex-pats.

Yesterday, we met up with Joe’s wife’s brother. I don’t know why he doesn’t say ‘my brother-in-law’? Maybe that term doesn’t exist in the Palauan language. In any case, he was going to take us to a wing that was on an island out his back door. If it was what we think it was, it would be a wing off of a B-24. It was towards the end of the war when 1Lt.Custer was sent on a ‘milk run’ to bomb someplace on Koror. They even had a cook on board so he could see what it was like to be in action. They got hit in the wing and a very dramatic piece of film from another airplane shows the airplane going in. Pat found one wing, the wing that the film shows a number of years ago. Maybe this was the other wing.

We got to a little rock island and man was it steep. We climbed up a short way and he said, “this is where it was.” It appears to have been salvaged a number of years ago. We actually never asked him if it still was there. We only asked if he knew of any airplanes shot down. The others said that he was surprised it wasn’t there anymore. Oh well.

Custer B-24 WingSo we visited the other wing of the airplane and some of the fuselage. Very odd to see that film clip on the destruction of an airplane, and then stand next to the very same pieces. Very moving.

Pat conducted a flag ceremony to honor the fallen fliers from that B-24 crew.

Everyone on that airplane was killed. However, one crewman, Lt. Kaufman parachuted to safety, was captured by the Japanese and then executed. This was well documented. It is amazing to me that the Japanese were executing anyone as it was obvious the direction the war was going.

We tried to visit two other sites. One, the tide was too low. We’ll go back when we have some slack time.

The other, in a mangrove, proved elusive yesterday. It was a Corsair deep in the mangrove. The pilot got out and Pat is even in touch with him: Walter Brown, Brownie. That is quite a story in itself. He got out, landed his parachute inside the barrier reef, his squadron flew cover for him and strafed to keep the Japanese away while a PBY floatplane, Dumbo, tried three time to pick him up. Very close to the Japanese as they were shooting at them. Third time is a charm they say. Brownie certainly does. Of course we’re told the Dumbo pilot was convinced to try over again by a heavily armed Corsair.

If you don’t know what a mature mangrove swamp is, think of all the plagues in Egypt rolled into one.

Pat thought he knew where it was and said for the rest of us to wait outside the mangrove. It was low tide and we were standing on silt, that in places you sink up to your thighs. The mangrove roots are 3 feet tall or so above the silt layer and then the tree itself starts. The roots are all intertwined and trying to get through all that is like trying to walk through multiple rolls of barb wire. Not fun.

One rule we made for the mangrove was not to lose sight of anyone in our search group. Well, once Pat took off, he was out of sight and on his own. Learning patience for this group is a challenge, but 40 minutes later, a quite tuckered out team leader came back and said he could not relocate it. Joe our boat captain could not find it. Adhering to our new motto, work smarter, no harder, we went back to the boat to get some intel. Joe made a call and his buddy told him where to put in. As we were approaching a channel in the mangrove, a woman sitting on her front porch yelled at us. The conversation between Joe and this woman was in Palauan, but the gist was ‘I’m the only one who knows where this airplane is and I’ll take you to it. Tomorrow. 8am. Be here sharp or you’re all toast.”

So, adhering to our new motto, we called it a day and went back to the hotel to make phone calls, get cleaned up and get prepared for the mangrove.

Our first real injury occurred going into the restaurant for dinner. As I was climbing the steps up to the dining room, my sandal toe caught the top step. That bit of leverage pulled my big toe down to the lip of the step. There was a sharp corner on the tile on the step. That sharp corner took a big chunk of the skin off my toe. After a bit of blood going over their nice tile floor, and a bit of t.p. to stem the flow, we all had an excellent meal. Pat pulled out his doctoring kit back at the hotel and my toe is going to be as good as new. Someday. But before we turned in, we had one more chore to do.

Clem finally showed up at the airport. Of course we didn’t think he would as was a few days late. We actually did not rush through dinner, ambled our way out there and low and behold, no Clem waiting for us. We asked the counter people and they confirmed he was on the island. But Clem did not know where we were staying So we checked with the hotel where we stayed last year. No Clem. We went to our apartment. No Clem. However, the office had his luggage. Said he went to a local restaurant/pub. We went there. No Clem. They said he just left. Finally, he came to us and now the whole team is in place. Good thing too. The front office side of PostStar Productions is tired of doing the production side of PostStar Productions. They really like Clem the cameraman. Now we can go to bed because tomorrow we spend most of the day in MANGROVES.

IT’S TOMORROW. We all pile into the boat to go meet the woman who is the only person who knows where this Corsair is. After speaking with her yesterday, there is an off chance that this is a new airplane and not the one Pat already found. Cowboy Stout’s airplane has not been seen since 1947. He commanded a Corsair squadron on Peleliu. But, we have to get inside the mangrove to find out. This is the same mangrove that won versus Pat yesterday.

We stop by her house, pick up her and another woman and head just around the corner to a channel leading into the mangrove. And coincidentally, it was one channel over from where Pat and Joe went in.

Well, these two women jump overboard and yell, follow us. We all did. The difference between yesterday and today was the tide. Pat went in at low tide. These women, probably laughing at us yesterday, took us in at high tide. Easily 4 feet of water difference. We floated in as if it were a superhighway. Pat was laughing and grinning like a kid. He never went into a mangrove with that much water before. We made great time. We got in much faster and deeper than if we had to climb in over the roots. We still had to be careful when walking not to trip on live roots, or the dead stumps of old roots. The old roots break off from the tree and stick straight out of the silt. Like pungee stakes from all the movies. Looks like them too. On the way in, one of those pongees got my wetsuit.

So we all held our packs up high like the G.I.s do in the movies and started walking, wading, swimming, pulling and tripping our way into the mangrove. And by golly they took us right there. A Corsair that was Brownie’s, not Cowboy’s. Walter Brown's CorsairBut we saw the fuselage, wings, engine, landing gear and much more. Some of it stays out of the water all the time and some only is exposed at low tide. Brownie’s airplane landed in a young mangrove, but we’re working in a mature mangrove. Hence the thickness of it all.

One of the reasons we’re revisiting some of Pat’s finds is to get accurate GPS readings for all these war crashes. And to get more film footage for the PostStar documentary. So, Pat and the camera crew walk around and he tells them stuff. The rest of us scurry around doing what we want to do, taking pictures, finding more pieces and taking GPS readings and anything else we can think of.

One thing this team is good at is expanding the known debris field. Pat has only had a ‘team’ with him a few times. Naturally, you can’t find all the pieces on your own. Well, we were finding more and more pieces as time went on. That’s a good thing. But we also noticed it was getting warmer and warmer as time went on. By golly, it was much easier to walk around the wreck as time went on.

Now it was time to go and I think you may have picked up on this. The tide went out. We were now having to get out under the same conditions as Pat experienced yesterday. But Joe, God bless him, found a much easier way out that lead right to the boat. As it turned out, the ladies brought us in a circular shaped channel with the wreck 2/3’s of the way around the circle counterclockwise. We continued the circle around and popped out at the boat.

The sound of 7 people (our team is 6, add Joe the Boat Captain to make 7) picking their feet up out of sucking mud, to make it out to freedom, is quite unusual. We had all taped our dive booties on and that was necessary to keep the mud from collecting our footwear.

You might ask where our lady guides went to. Well, once again, they were laughing at the tourists because they floated out as the tide started to go out. Hey, they know the superhighway is better than the surface, or in our case, sub-surface sucking secondary, roads. After we bid them a farewell and thank you, they grabbed their styro ice coolers they had brought with them and swam away to go clamming on the mudflats. We headed north to a wreck on a reef. And you thought we were stuck on the flats.

The Judge's CorsairWe motored out to the barrier reef to see a Corsair out there. Once again, this was to get a GPS reading and some film footage. At high tide, the airplane is under water. At low tide, half of it is with the wings still submerged. As you drive up, you can definitely see an airplane sitting there.

This is The Judge’s Corsair. He’s from Richmond, VA and Pat is in touch with him too. The story goes that The Judge did a beautiful landing on the reef after getting the bejeezus shot out of him. As he was wading out to the barrier reef, away from the Japanese, his wingman started strafing the airplane so the Japanese couldn’t use any of it. Well, the hot shell casings were falling all around The Judge and as you may assume, he wasn’t too happy about that.

More footage, GPS points, photos, a little snorkeling and we were out of there.

We went to another mangrove and the tide was out. Did I mention earlier that Palau has salt water crocodiles and they like to live in mangroves? Especially around this part of Palau? Joe got us as close as he could, we sucked our way around the edge of the mangrove until we found a channel that lead into it. Then we found the wall of the island, arced around until we found the waterfall and that’s how we knew where to start climbing.

Here Pat said there were two ways to go up this steep hill: up the waterfall with lots of handholds and toeholds, or up the normal jungle covered hillside. We asked him which was easiest and he said there was more to see up the hillside. Did you notice how he did not answer the question?

Some of us went up the waterfall and some went with Pat to see the pieces parts on the way up. That was quite a vertical climb, especially since we were in dive booties instead of climbing shoes. We did start in a mangrove after all. Did I mention the crocs? Anyway, those that went up the waterfall were snacking and resting by the time I got to the top.

Ken Wallace's CorsairThis was Ken Wallace’s aircraft. The Corsair flew straight into the hill. The Japanese buried the body and he was recovered after the war.

Quite the impact site here. The motor was buried in the side of the hill. The prop was bent back like a pretzel. The fuselage broke off and landed a number of feet sideways from the engine. Some parts flew up over the hillside. Very impressive if you think of how much energy it takes to make all this happen.

More footage, more GPS.

We all went down via the waterfall. So much easier than the way up. And cooler too.

When we got down to the base of the waterfall, Joe the Captain went to get the boat and said he’d pick us up at the mouth of this channel, rather than have us traverse back to where we came in. No problem. We marched out the river bed, into the mangrove and guess what, the tide had come back in. So, back we were into the chest deep water, towards the end of the day. The time when it cools down so the predators can search out their next meal. Did I mention the crocs?

You can’t run in chest deep water. Especially when you still have the sucking mud on the bottom trying to rob you of your booties. So, we made jokes about the crocagaters, and hoped that they chose one of the others for their meal. After all, what are teammates for! We got out of the crocs feeding zone, onto the silt flats of the bay and Joe picked us up.

The largest croc found in Palau so far was 25 feet with most being around 12 feet long or so. Pat has never seen one in the wild although we have been to a tourist croc farm. And of course every ripple in the water as we were going in and out of this mangrove we knew had to be a croc. A 26 foot long one as we could not possibly be eaten by an average croc.

We motored out of the croc bay area into blue water ocean, had a swim call to wash off everything we had and then called it a day and went back to the hotel.

We debriefed the day’s outing, went out to dinner and had to pack for an early start the next day. We’re going on a road trip from our road trip. We’re going to spend tomorrow night on Peleliu Island: the site of some of the bloodiest battles of all of WWII.

Okay, back at ya. Since we’re leaving town, I won’t be sending anything for a few days. More later.

Blue SKies, Flip