Airmen’s remains recovered from “The Hump”
MustangCryppie sends us a link to Sky News which reports that the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) sent a team to hunt for the remains of American pilots who were lost flying supplies to the Chinese who were fighting the Japanese. They were flying over the highest mountains in the world in northeastern India, known colloquially to the pilots as “The Hump”.
Aranchal Pradesh, India (October 18, 2015) – Members from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), excavate during the search and recovery efforts to retrieve eight US Army Air Corps members that went down with the aircraft in 1942. DPAA conducts global search, recovery and laboratory operations to identify unaccounted-for Americans from past conflicts in order to support the Department of Defense’s personnel accounting efforts. (DoD photo by SSgt Erik Cardenas/U.S. Air Force)
“They had to hike in for three days to get to the site,” said US Marine Corps captain Greg Lynch.
He said once there, they spent eight hours a day carrying out detailed searches on a steep slope, often roped together.
They painstakingly sifted through soil around the plane’s wreckage to try to find the airmen’s remains, but the risk of landslides stopped them searching the whole site.
They found what they believe to be the remains of one or two of the missing airmen.
Gary Stark, from the DPAA’s India desk, said the remains could fit inside a ziplock sandwich bag, but to the families that does not matter.
Category: We Remember
Welcome home, brothers. Rest in peace.
That’s some pretty fine work all around…welcome home to our lost brethren, and thank you to those who went to find them in such harsh conditions.
This is one of those stories that has much more behind it than the recovery and return of the remains of a crew member lost on The Hump, and I find it curious that none of the back story was covered. The a/c was a B-24J Liberator named “Hot as Hell” and it was located by an American civilian, Clayton Kuhles, back in 2006. Kuhles, from Arizona, immediately reported the find to US authorities and included plates he had taken from the site as proof. In 2008, the North Carolina Legislature passed a joint resolution expressing its gratitude to him for his efforts. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/House/PDF/H2798v2.pdf (One of the crewmen was a North Carolinian.)
Unfortunately, once the US government became involved, the problems began, thanks to JPAC (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command.) An internal report of JPAC concluded that its management was “so inept, mismanaged and wasteful that it risks descending from dysfunction to total failure.” The report also said that “the decades-old pursuit of bones and other MIA evidence is sluggish, often duplicative and subjected to too little scientific rigor.” That report, published in 2013, was thought to be the of JPAC, but it wasn’t. Instead, JPAC was overhauled, some desks were moved, but it finally took benefit of the work done by Kuhles and others. And a decade or so after the site was found, the government finally made it to the “Hot as Hell” crash site. No mention is made of Kuhles. No mention is made of the 10-years lapse. No nothing. All of the crewmen on “Hot As Hell” were identified long ago but not named in this article. (They are named on Kuhl’s website and in the joint resolution honoring him.) And now you know the rest of the story.
Thanks 2/17 for that.
Disappointing to hear that about JPAC. I knew some guys who worked there. But they’re probably retired now. At least I like to think so. I can’t imagine the crusty Master Chief I used to work for in Japan allowing the word failure to be uttered, never mind become reality.
That’s nothing. JPAC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on another site, before they learned that it wasn’t the crash site. Bad luck? No, it was stupid and entirely avoidable. I kid you not. One motivated American, Kuhles, using his own money, has accomplished more in one year than JPAC did in 10 or more. He is not a treasure hunter. He respects the sites he seeks and finds and dutifully reports his finds. He is one of those special people who do much and ask nothing. Clayton Kuhles.
Thanks, 2/17 Air Cav, for telling the background of this story, which the article did not cover adequately. Gary Zaetz, nephew of “Hot as Hell” navigator 1st Lt. Irwin Zaetz.
I’m guessing the airplane was actually a C-87, the cargo version of the B-24. It was a different airplane in many ways, calle the “Liberator Express.” I don’t think any true B-24s were used on the Hump, since they had no cargo area or cargo doors.
An interesting Hump flying story was one related by Ernest K. Gann about the day he and another pilot almost wrecked the Taj Mahal. Apparently what happened is that it was a very hot day in Agra, India and they were trying to get a fully-fueled, fully-loaded C-87 transport variant of a B-24 off the ground for the trek over the Himalayas. They managed to get it in the air but missed clipping the Taj Mahal with a wing by only about 10 feet.
LMAO! Awesome!
Welcome home, Brothers. And props to those working the site.
‘So many questions’: Botched recovery mission didn’t follow JPAC’s own protocol’
SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — World War II officially ended with the surrender of the Japanese on Sept. 2, 1945, but it was far from over for 1st Lt. Horace Joe Gabbart.
The Army Air Corps pilot fought the urge to rush home to see family and friends, instead choosing to stay behind to help complete the daunting task of repatriating war dead from across the Pacific.
http://www.stripes.com/so-many-questions-botched-recovery-mission-didn-t-follow-jpac-s-own-protocol-1.271273
God Bless Team DPAA and the families they serve.
I say double their budget!
Out!
Really? Please read my comment above. Or did you and you think that they are doing such a swell job?
Honestly, one of the things that other countries/cultures cannot grasp is why Americans fight they way they do. We fight because we know when we fall, we will never truly fall. We WILL be brought back. Maybe not that day, or year, or even century, but those who carry the torch will look for us until there’s only dust to look for, and they will still bring it back in a bag.