| Update # 7 Hello Everyone! Lessons Learned: 1. Don’t leave out lessons learned. So there we were. Upside down in a mangrove, both booties sucked off, covered in mud, and we hadn’t even left the apartment yet. It was going to be a long day. We are all bushed. We went back to Babelthuap to visit a potential site with Lazarus. Laz in the past has led Pat to two wreck sites. Last year, he could not find the one he wanted to take us to. His friends on the island laughed at him and told him where the wreck was. He was going to locate it prior to us arriving in his village today and then lead us there. We hopped into our boat today at 0815 and shoved off. Had a lovely drive to Babelthuap, the volcanic island (largest one of the chain) just to the north of Koror. I sat on the bow just as the water got really rough. So rough that all the skinny butted team members were complaining about the bumps. Not me. I’ve got that extra padding. We pulled up to the pier and started walking up the main road. Stopped at Laz’s house and he came out. Someone asked him where the wreck was and he pointed. That someone also asked him if he found it yet. “I haven’t had time to, but I know where it is.” Laz smiled and he sure looked like Chucky from Child’s Play to me. We should have done task two first, get intel from village elders, but elected to follow Laz anyway. We walked a bit and came to some ruins. 5 Japanese 5” guns. 2 in concrete bunkers and 3 on exposed mounts. All the guns were aimed at the channel leading into the harbor area. Would have been lethal way back when. But the view of the ocean was spectacular. Easily multi-million dollar lot value back in the U.S. We walked some more to an old lighthouse. The bombing and shelling of it way back when knocked the top off of the light house. And this structure was all done in many inches of concrete and lots of rebar. Large gaping holes in the walls platform and ceiling. A little further and we went down the side of a hill and here was a mangrove. It’s in there, Laz said. Not too far. Let’s go in. At first, not so bad. Tall mangrove, not very muddy, could really walk on top of the mud. The further we went in, the shorter the mangrove got. Finally, it got so tangled in there that you could not even crawl below it, and if you walked in the tops, you couldn’t see anything below the leaves, which after all is why we were out there, to look and find something. It took minutes to move one or two steps. I cried uncle. But we were in the middle of this stuff. So Laz started cutting a path back to freedom. We got back to land and sat down for a real rest. Laz would scout on his own and we would stay put. Sounded like a good idea to me. So off he went and we went back to our put-in point. An hour later, Laz showed up and said it was out there, he just couldn’t find it. So, in a final attempt, we spread out along the bank, and at the same time, we penetrated in about 75-100' until the short stuff came up. Then we backed out, shifted down the bank and did it one last time. As you can guess, we did not produce anything but great pictures of very tight mangrove roots. Did I I mention that when you break a mangrove, it leaks blood-red liquid? Very striking. Maybe I know why they’re called MANgrove now. We marched back to the village to meet with one of the elders. Along the way we came across the only store there. They had the coldest ice cream treats and coffee drinks. We all had some. It cooled us down nicely. And the girl who worked there was Jennifer Lopez. I’m not making this up. She even had the green dress on from the Grammy’s. Don’t worry, I won’t tell Ben. This elder was a boy of 9 when this particular airplane crashed. He said he saw it go down and it was in 200 meters of mangrove. Well, it’s going to be there for a very long time as we just don’t have the technology to deal with it as a 6 man team. Even a 6 man team armed with chainsaws. But that doesn’t quite match Laz’s story. He said he saw it from shore. We don’t think you can have it both ways. Especially with 58 years of mangrove growth. So, what’s a team to do? We offered a bounty to the young lads of the village. If they could find it, and lead us to it, we’d come back and make good on the bounty. But until then, we are calling it a wrap on this particular site. Since we were in the mangrove all day, we missed lunch. Val made it this morning, and we carried it on the boat, but we never made it back for it. But we did have it on the way back as an early appetizer session. Back on the homefront, we decided to stay in for dinner. Val made miso soup and gyoza. Clem went out and brought back fresh sashimi. Pat did the dishes. Now I’m writing. Everyone else is watching My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. I’ll head to bed soon. I wanted to write you before I forgot what happened. Easy to do here. Tomorrow we are revisiting Peleliu. Stopping to investigate a new wreck on Carlson Island, going to Purple Beach in search of a lost item from the war (some people should keep better track of their issued items) and to revisit the Helldiver wing. This will only be a day excursion and should finish up our work this year on Peleliu. Just some admin cleanup. IT’S TOMORROW!! More lessons learned. 1. If you say, ‘we’ll just take a 5 minute
look see,’ you’ll find something special, and burn up hours
of precious daylight. So we got up, rushed through breakfast, went to the marina, boarded the boat and pulled out 10 feet and stopped. Dead in the water. Pat needed to make a cell call to a lawyer on the side of the bay who had some intel for us. I thought we were in a hurry as where we were going to look was very tidal dependent. Apparently, we were not in too much of a hurry. We cruised to the nearest dock and Pat jumped out to read the phone number on the side of the lawyer’s building. Back on the boat again, we slowly cruised out the harbor. I still thought we were in a hurry, but again, apparently not. There are reports of airplanes down close to the anchorage that we use. (This theme will play out the next day.) The water was very clear so we just looked at the bottom until we could not see it anymore. Then full throttle and away we went to Peleliu. Here’s our menu of events for the day. Matt the pilot from a few days ago pointed out some wreckage on Carlson Island and the reef around it. Carlson is about 7 miles or so from Peleliu. We were going to check it out for about 5 minutes or so. Then we were heading back to Peleliu with our aircraft books to really look at the Helldiver wing and make a final determination of what it really is. Maybe take 5 minutes or so there. And we were going to revisit a junk pile that had aircraft instruments, but in the middle of Horseshoe Valley. Again, maybe 5 minutes or so. After all that, a nice walk on the beach to try and find a raft that was buried in the sand by Herb who was on Peleliu prior to the invasion. A little swim in the ocean, a lovely cruise back home and then to Sam’s Tours for a presentation by Pat on all he has been doing out here for the past 10 years. A lot of the locals don’t know the history of what happened back in WWII and don’t realize that some of the twisted metal they’ve been seeing while diving are the last resting spots of American Servicemen. So as we approach Carlson Island at high tide, we see some debris sticking out of the water. There are multiple debris fields here. Our first stop is the Island itself. It appears that a Japanese Betty bomber came to rest on shore. We see the wings and part of the fuselage as well as some bits and pieces. Well, that clears up what all this wreckage is. Probably landed/fell onto the reef, broke apart and this section washed up on shore. So we head out onto the reef to see a prop and engine in the water and lo and behold, part of a fuselage is attached to it. With a cockpit and wing root section. And the cockpit is much different than a Betty bomber. And we find an actuator with a Japanese data plate on it. Now this is really getting interesting. We go to another section on the reef and it is a large tail section. The tail is a little unusual to us as the horizontal stabilizer has a hinge on it, but a fixed, screwed-in fairing that covers the hinged portion. We follow the GPS to another sighted portion and before we get there, we find a propeller and hub, that matches the blades from the second aircraft. We finally found the last section and it is a third fuselage with a cockpit that matches the second find. Well, this is quite a find. No one has identified these airplanes. They’re all Japanese, and are not our high value units, but still, quite a find for the day. We skeedaddled off the reef very slowly as the tide really was going out and it was getting very shallow. If we blow this, we’re here until late in the evening when the tide comes back in. Joe got us off the reef in the nick of time. We anchored off of Peleliu and had lunch and digested all of what we found. We think we have one Betty bomber and two of another type of aircraft. The only thing we could read on the Japanese data plate was P1Y1. I sent the descriptions to my aviation history buffs, but forgot to include the P1Y1 designation. It might not have anything to do with what aircraft it is, but if we can get lucky, we’ll take that. Back to Peleliu. Tangie picked us up and started us up the hill towards the Helldiver wing. We walked past the tail section that had the bureau number on it and as we were about to turn a corner, Joe, who wasn’t with us before, said “What’s that?” It was another piece of wreckage. Then looking up the hill he found another piece. We all found more pieces. So what started as a 5 minute admin day, turned into a search. We started climbing up and down the hills, finding more wreckage: wing section, flap section, fuselage section, odd bits of metal. And on both sides of the hill. And in a cave. And, and, and. Joe really knows the jungle and he told me he looks for what isn’t right with the jungle, and that’s how he finds the stuff. He also has worked long enough with Pat to recognize aviation, versus non-aviation pieces. When all this petered out, we went to the Helldiver wing. Pulling out our books, we definitely concluded that it is not a Helldiver wing, but is an Avenger wing. And it possibly belongs to the Avenger pieces we saw in the next valley over, and the engine that is on the hillside of the next valley over. Although the story of the Helldiver going down on Peleliu isn’t bogus, this just isn’t it. But, our day is growing short, so on to the instruments. Just for a 5 minute look see. Well, we photoed the instruments from the other day, when we all started to see more things. And then someone said, what’s down in the old phosphate mine? Pat, ever the adventurer, climbed down into the mine and found more instruments, and some other aviation metal. We looked around some more and realized we needed to get moving as we had a meeting to get to. Down to the beach where the raft is buried. Looked around a little. Could not find the raft. Back to boat and shoved off for home. We got into some really rough water that even my ‘cushioning’ could not dampen. We all had to ride the wild pony while we crashed into the swells. But Joe got us back to home safely. Quick change, some heavy appetizers in the apartment and off to Sam’s Tours. Sam’s Tours offers all water sports from scuba to kayaks. We met the crew of Sam’s and Sam himself a few days ago while enjoying the sunset from their veranda. Pat offered to put on a presentation for Sam and whoever wanted to attend. Sam’s thought that was a great idea and spread the word that Monday night the ‘Pro from Dover’ would be in the house to educate all who cared to come. We showed up early to set up. Sam’s was ready for us, a quick reboot of the computer and the PowerPoint presentation was ready. Then the hordes descended on us. The house was packed. I got to run the computer and only made mistakes when I was trying to eat sashimi while Pat was trying to get me to advance the pages. Hey! I didn’t get my union break so I had to eat and work at the same time. Rules is rules. A fed projectionist is a happy projectionist. Pat’s presentation was outstanding and the crowd loved it. The history of the war here, and the wrecks especially, really got the attention of everyone. Dennis, an American now living in Palau on his boat, led us the next day to some sights to look at. And we met some U.S. Navy Seabees who were really appreciative of what we’re doing out here. They really are the ambassadors at large out here with all that their Civic Action Teams do. But those stories friends are best saved for the next update. So, back at ya. I hope you’re enjoying these as much as I am writing them. Take care and I’ll write some more tomorrow. Until then, Blue SKies, Flip |
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