P-MAN IX Update #16
Hello Everyone!
It has been two days since my last report. Lessons learned.
06 March Dan took the van to the tire shop and got us a new tire. Fresh off the shelf. How long the other three will last is something betting pools could be made up for.
We had three tasks we wanted to do today. Theres a Corsair down in the jungle that hasnt been found nor has the pilot been recovered. We wanted to take the information we got from Minoru and walk the jungle. Were finding that the more we do analysis of the red circles on Minorus map, the more accurate we realize they are. So we would look for this airplane.
We then wanted to walk into an area that on a topo map had a legend for graves. Were told that Palauan graves are not listed on topo maps. Maybe this was an American grave. Or maybe another nationality. But until we go, we wont know.
Not too far from there, a Corsair was shot down. The pilot was not recovered. JPAC did a recovery operation there and really scoured the ground. But they did not find the pilot. However, our analysis supports speculation that maybe the pilot made it to the graves that are on the topo map. Again, the only way to find out is to walk the ground.
After breakfast Derek came in with a different analysis of the situation. Derek is a Marine Corps Captain. All Marines take Basic School in how to be a grunt. Derek made a perfect score in the orientation section and his compass had been broken. But he scored 100% because he figured out how to read terrain and relate it to a map, and visa versa.
Derek made the case that all of our lat/longs are off due to bias in each of the coordinate systems. I wont bore you with all the details but Derek ignored the lat/longs and took Minorus red circle map (which has locations of supposed aircraft crash sites), and checked topography of that map to the topography of our maps and Google Earth imagery. When he did that, all of our previous lat/long points for crash sites were found to be off. So we recalculated and then compared the red circles to the crash sites we have found. And they matched.
When we did that for the last site, it made no sense for us to go. We wouldnt be able to add anything to what JPAC had already uncovered.
For the graves, we lowered the priority for that due to the shifting red circle on the aircraft I just mentioned. Before the red shift, (a little humor there for any physicists in the crowd) the red circle was between the crash site and the graves site. Once we adjusted, the red circle was on the crash site. It doesnt make much sense for the Japanese to bury a pilot so far away. We might get there, but only if we run out of things to do.
However, our big focus for the day was looking for the Corsair I first mentioned. We did the aerial recon a week ago looking for this pilot. We searched one section of jungle due to the red circle and a Palauan hunters recollections. We saw nothing of value. However, Derek looked the topography over and laid out a case for another search. Before this new analysis, we thought that this was the end for this case because we had nothing new to go on. So today, Derek is the mission commander and will direct us in the field.
We picked up Joe and headed out to our search area. We parked the van near where I got it stuck. Then Joe found our path into the jungle and we started to go. However, for a Palauan, slippers (flip-flops, Tevas, sandals) sometimes can be a hindrance. Here is how Joe goes through the jungle most of the time:
We split into our usual two search groups: Joe on independent duty and the rest of us doing search lines.
We had walked about 20 minutes when our mission commander said, We should have turned right at the stream and we turned left. So we backtracked a little and got to the correct side of a field of ferns. And then we searched on line for a good couple of hours.
Sad to say, no luck. We found some interesting Japanese fortifications: slit trench system, artillery firing positions and foxholes. No aircraft pieces. We had a box area to search and we thought we would cross what we think the pilots flight path might have been. However it didnt work. We took a 15-minute break and searched some more. Still nothing. Joe checked in by radio and reported finding an old sawmill.
We took another lap through the area and of course found nothing. We met up with Joe at the van and wolfed down our lunch. We got a late start this morning due to doing the red circle analysis and we did not come out at a reasonable lunch hour.
Pat was going to make a presentation that night at Sams Tours about what we do here. Since it was late in the day, we thought wed leave the jungle and head home so Pat could fine tune his PowerPoint presentation.
That gave Derek some time to analyze what he thought we should do and what we did do in our searches. He came back to us and stated that we were on the wrong side of a ridge. He looked at the topography again and found some more info that says to look over there. To give Derek credit, the red circle map is a hand tracing of the topography so it is not exact as a USGS topo map would be. He has to interpret to make it work. And he is making it work. He told us where we need to look next. But that would be in a couple of days. We have a date with JPAC tomorrow to make our case for a new recovery mission for them. Ill tell you about that tomorrow.
Tonight we went to Sams early and had dinner. By far it was the best tuna sashimi Ive had while Ive been here. A nice yellowfin tuna that was fresh off the boat. Hmmmmm good.
People started filing in and sometime around 1930 (7:30pm) Sam kicked the presentation off. Pat gives a brief overview of our operations, a history of why Palau was important in the war, what kind of airplanes operated here and then tells the story of The BentProp Project. He chats about the Palauans who have helped us and the organizations that we work with. He updates every one of what has happened since our last mission here (same time frame in 2006) and what we are doing this year.
Then he tells the folks what they can do to help, which really means keeping your eyes open as you roam around Palau. He fielded some questions. Some very original questions too. And that was it. Home we went.
Bob put some finishing touches on the PowerPoint presentation Im giving to JPAC tomorrow. Were taking them to the field to show them The Stone Grave site and the Wildcat site. We think both should be investigated. However, without some background information, going to the field to see a possible execution site would just be going to see some rocks.
We used to think Pineapple Hill was Police Hill. Now we know its not, which shifts all our thinking further north. However, JPAC still thinks Police Hill is Police Hill only because they havent dissected the transcripts as we have, and done the interviews that we have done this year. Our thoughts are only a working hypothesis. However, well lay it out for them and if they like it, theyll do something with it.
But the team wanted me to practice my presentation for them. I complied but I knew I had peaked when I did. Never get too good, too early. The good news is that JPAC is going to the field no matter what. I could sing Super Freak by Rick James (we just watched Little Miss Sunshine) and they would still go out with us. But, I humored the team and they were happy with my PowerPoint prowess.
Then, it was to bed.
07 March
Today we escorted an assorted group around Palau showing them sites. The main emphasis was to take JPAC to these sites because we feel they should be put in the queue for future recovery missions. We had three JPAC folks with us: Rich Wills, the anthropologist and team leader; Rodney, an Air Force medic; and Matt, a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) expert.
We also had some other guests. Jolie Liston was joining us again. And so were Yoji Kurata and his daughter Emiko. Jolie was going to fill in some info about our sites as it pertains to Palauan antiquities. Kurata-san was a Japanese soldier here during the war. He lived on Babelthuap up until he was 18. Then the Army got him and he spent the next month on Anguar. He is one of the few Japanese defenders of Anguar to have survived the war. He was a POW and was interned somewhere in the U.S. He went back to Japan, had a full career and then moved to Palau. Hes now the resident go-to man for Japanese visiting the islands and he is a zoologist and botanist to boot. He came with us to look at the Japanese installations and to read some Japanese writing on the wing of a Wildcat. As Ive found out, some of the kanji writing from 60+ years ago is mis-read by todays Japanese. I guess styles of prose have changed significantly in the ensuing years. Emiko is a crocodile researcher and her Dads interpreter. Were told Emiko taught the Palauans how to take blood samples from crocs so that they could test DNA and see to the health of the crocs. Her Dad taught her what she knows. Last year the BentProp team got to meet her pet croc, which is 6-8 feet long.
I gave the JPAC team our briefing in our ready room. Why was I chosen, you ask? Pat asked does anyone want to do this? No one volunteered so I chirped up. I think we were enroute to eating something and I wanted nothing to get in the way. And just so you know, the title-page joke bombed but Ive decided the show must go on, so Im not giving up standup. Not just yet anyway.
Our brief essentially laid out what we gleaned from the Guam War Crimes Trial Transcripts; what we learned from our interviews this year; why we think we need to shift our attentions north; some new anchor points in which to calculate distances from points A to points B; and a general overview of the area. We essentially had to suspend our past belief structure to create a new map. Our Stone Grave Site fits to a great degree our new reality.
Is this a 100% match? No. However, we feel sufficiently positive about this that we wanted to show them. It will be up to JPAC to decide if our intel is good enough to warrant a mission.
We loaded up and headed to The Palasia Hotel to meet Kurata-san and Emiko. Safety being paramount, Matt the EOD guy gave us a field safety briefing.
Essentially it boiled down to the same brief that Blake Pospisil gave us so long ago: This is a battlefield. We will find unexploded ordnance. If you dont know what it is, dont touch it. If you know what it is, dont touch it. Tell the EOD guy and hell note it. And by the way, dont touch it.
Off we went. The first stop was the Stone Grave Site. If our sleuthing work is accurate, then three American POWs were executed and buried here. So were three Jesuit missionaries and members of their community for a total of 10 additional victims. In addition, a British national was also executed in the area. There may be 14 people in this grave area.
We parked along the side of the highway and then tromped in. The first 50 meters or so is pretty steep. Then we go through 50 meters more of tall ferns and grasses. Then we level out until we reach the jungle and enter.
Kurata-san is 81 years old and uses a cane to walk. He showed up in hiking boots and we knew we could not keep him from making the hike. He kept up a good pace and managed to point our flora and fauna to his daughter. On the last hike of the day, he thinks he discovered a new species of pitcher plant a variety of carnivorous plant (relaxthey just eat bugs) that looks like a vertical tube with a toilet seat on top. The one pictured below is common throughout Palau, but Kurata-san found some miniature ones growing out of a rock wall. He had never seen the mini version before.
We showed JPAC around a bit and then they went to work taking measurements and making notes. Thats what they do when they go out and survey. Matt used a metal detector to search the area as well.
Kurata-san verified that the bunkers we found there were indeed constructed as air raid shelters. Air raid shelters played a pivotal role in the British national case. One of our assumptions is that since we have never seen any structures constructed in this way in any of our searches anywhere else in Palau, then theres a pretty good chance these are the correct ones. Jolie, who has roamed further than we have throughout Palau, also doesnt remember ever seeing anything of similar construction.
We spent a number of hours here. During the stay, Jolie started wandering and she yelled for Pat. Pat went where she went and he yelled for me to bring my camera. This was a section of ground we hadnt walked before and we found some remnants of the Japanese army: water filter system and a barbers chair. It could be a dentists chair, but we like barbers chair better.
There were also a few caves in the area but they all looked as if they suffered from some cave-ins so we thought it best not to go into them.
We hiked out, said goodbye to Jolie and then proceeded back toward Koror. Instead of turning right to go over the KB Bridge, we turned left to the airport. We were heading back to a Wildcat site that we found in 2004.
On a subsequent expedition, we stumbled upon a parachute cone in this Wildcat's debris field. We bagged it and tagged it and handed it over to The Historical Preservation Office of Palau. We also informed JPAC and on this year's mission, they wanted to see where we found it.
The importance of the parachute cone (in old parachute systems, a series of metal cones with holes across the narrow end of the cone were used with pins to keep the parachute closed until needed) is that it was part of the parachute system which presumably would be attached to the pilot. So the theory is: if you have this sort of equipment in the crash site, the pilot has to be there somewhere.
Rich also told us of some Japanese writing on the wing which appeared to be a poem written on 08 March 1945. We asked Kurata-san and Emiko to translate for us.
Long day for them without food or even much water. Kurata-san said he did not want to sweat a lot so he refused our offers of water. Then we headed to Bem Ermii for burgers, fries and a milkshake. I normally have mocha, but had strawberry just to try it. Mocha is still my favorite. The JPAC team joined us and we got to chat some more about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Back to the hotel, got cleaned up, checked email and we watched Little Miss Sunshine. Once I insert some pictures (yes I know, yesterdays was a little skimpy on the picture taking) Ill send this off to you and hit the rack. Tomorrow were heading out with JPAC again. Theyre going to help us look for the Corsair that Derek is honchoing the search for, and then were going to show them the mangrove find I told you about a week ago. I hope they bring chainsaws for this because we are not going to show them the path we cut. We worked for this find and theyll have to, as well. Were doing the mangrove show and tell in the afternoon due to the tides. Low tide isnt until 4pm and the tide is 6 feet tomorrow. That would be pretty wet in the mangroves. But that gives us 4 extra bodies to use in our searches for a Corsair. That increases our odds a bit.
So goodnight, everyone. I hope youre getting properly prepared for the two most important holidays of the year that are coming up later in the month: The Ides of March and Saint Patricks Day.
Blue SKies, Flip
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