| P-MAN VIII Update #26 Long day. Today eight members of the Civic Action Team (CAT) came along with us to an island between here and Peleliu, called Mecherchar (pronounced "meh-er-ar"). We also sometimes refer to this island as Flip-flip island, in honor of the front flip that team member Flip Colmer did there three years or so ago. The result of that gymnastic feat on the sharp, crumbly coral was a bruise on his butt that looked exactly like a map of Babeldaob. The present CAT is made up of all Air Force members. Historically, almost all CATs have been Navy SeaBees, but there have been a couple of Air Force teams in the past couple of years, and at some point within the next year or two it'll be the first-ever Army team. The CAT does public-service projects, mostly civil-engineering-like things, and they run an apprentice program for local Palauan teenagers. They're widely respected and appreciated here in Palau. Over the years the Palauans have come to refer to ANY Civic Action Team as "the SeaBees," which unfortunately makes the Air-Force folks a little edgy, despite the fact that the Palauans mean absolutely no disrespect. When we told them we'd be going to the same island where Jellyfish Lake is located, I think they envisioned a little tourist-like stroll through the woods with some old folks. We all later agreed that it was A Good Thing that we didn't try to describe up front the kind of hike we actually had in mind.
There have been some hunter-stories suggesting that there might be some unidentified aircraft wreckage somewhere on Mecherchar. Last year, a man who lives on Peleliu told us that his brother, now deceased, said he'd seen such wreckage there, possibly near two lakes toward the north end of the island. That's of particular interest to us because a B-24 that was attacked by a Japanese Zero following a bombing mission to Koror was shot down and lost at about the same reported latitude as northern Mercherchar. The pilot and another crew member were reportedly captured by the Japanese and are presumed to have been executed. Their bodies have never been recovered, nor have the bodies of any of the other crewmembers. This was our third trip to the island - BentProp teams also visited the island in 2003 and 2005. But we hadn't been to the north part of the island to explore the area around those two small marine lakes. We were excited to have the CAT members along. Thirteen people can search an awful lot more jungle than five! So here's the deal. You can't take a picture of the kinds of places we went, and my descriptions are probably going to be pretty lame. So the rest of the story is going to be pretty short. The part of the island in the area we searched is extraordinarily steep, and it's all made of sharp, crumbly coral that's like walking and climbing on broken glass. Actually, broken glass covered by wet leaves, and strewn across a 50-60-degree slope. Covered by vines. And poison trees. Suffice to say we found the two lakes and searched the complete perimeter of each. We headed into the jungle at about 9:30 and got back to the boat at about 3:30. In between, we were climbing and slipping and yelling and scrambling and having a great time. After the first 20 minutes or so, everyone was so wet that we looked like we'd just stepped out of the ocean fully clothed. It was not a tourist-type stroll in the woods, and the CAT members admitted when it was over that it went well beyond their "hash-run" cross-country contests that the crazier folks tend to participate in around here. We old farts (plus Mike) felt like we kept up pretty well - although we did have the advantage of being fairly well oriented to the island. Net effect: no finds. Absolutely no chunks of metal in the woods, or that we could see in the lakes. Dan spotted a couple of small (~3-foot-long) monitor lizards, and there was a gorgeous red snapper in one of the lakes - and a couple of people spotted some seriously big land crabs. But except for the cool fauna, all we did was add to our growing list of places where aircraft wrecks are NOT. But hey - that's an extremely valuable addition to our database. It was a fun day, and the CAT people were great to come along. And best of all, no one got seriously hurt. There were a few potentially dramatic tumbles that resulted in little more than scratches and bruises, and we came out with the same number of people who went in. But there will be some Advil popped tonight. We also managed to disabuse the CAT people of the notion that we're somehow compensated for what we do, by JPAC. It's hard for people to understand that we do this completely on our own nickel, and are willing to beat ourselves up like this, purely because we believe in what we do and because we think it's important that SOMEONE continue the search for Americans still missing here after more than 6 decades. It's our way of saying "Thank you" to those missing Americans, and to their families, for the sacrifices they've made for freedom. - Reid |
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