Pearl Harbor's Missing Aircraft - 7 Dec 1941

[David_Aiken]

In introduction, since 7 Dec 1966, my goal is to locate, identify, and, hopefully, recover the MIA American and Japanese airmen from the Pearl Harbor Attack. Your help to locate witnesses who viewed an aircraft in distress, crashing, or visited any such plane from that day's action is greatfully appreciated. While I have interviewed over a thousand US and Japanese witnesses, the job is still on going and still has needs.

The research includes:
A list of every aircraft airborne within 300 miles of Oahu on 7 Dec 1941--THE WHOLE DAY! BOTH SIDES!

A crew roster for the above aircraft? Both Sides! Japanese side nearly complete. US side in progress. My incomplete roster of PILOTS for those 70-plus American aircraft airborne DURING the attack is given in EAST WIND RAIN by Stan Cohen (Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Pub; 1991) page 97-8. March 1994 edition has most current list.

Experiences of those airborne crews and the ground crews which aided these planes into the air. Both sides!

A history of each airbase (and the radar history) for 7 Dec 1941 is in work.

A roster of all aircraft on Oahu. See my incomplete list in 7 DEC 1941: THE AIR FORCE STORY by Leatrice Arakaki and John Kuborn (Washington DC: GPO; 1992).

Acquire marking data to properly paint replica or museum aircraft correctly as "Pearl Harbor" aircraft.

Acquire data to assist museums with exhibits of Pearl Harbor related accessions which are still relegated to storage.

Locate and recover the Missing Aircraft of 7 Dec 1941. Crew identification at recovered crash sites helps eliminate potential problems.

Assure the historic aircraft get properly restored and exhibited.

*For JPAC http://www.jpac.pacom.mil/

Provide enough data to isolate the crash sites of missing American airmen. See a sample of one project at: http://www.flightjournal.com/articles/lost_p-36/sterling1.asp

Have the US military's JPAC do the crew recovery. I have been working with JPAC and its predecessor since 1975.

Prove that certain UNKNOWN graves at Punchbowl contain the bodies of Pearl Harbor MIA airmen.

*For the Japanese Bereaved Family Association and the Yasukuni Shrine:

Recover MIA airmen for return to Japanese relatives.

Identify those recovered Japanese returned to Japan in 1948.

Assure that all 1941 burials were disinterred.

Unique and esoteric stories or sources regarding Pearl Harbor are sought. These may be witnesses to crashed planes, a list of wartime/prewar publications, photos or documents of those days.

Here is to history, the ultimate puzzle, with a lot of pieces missing!
May the pieces be found before the witnesses are gone.
Cheers,
Sincerely,
David Aiken, a Director: Pearl Harbor History Associates, Inc.
http://www.pearlharbor-history.org/
PearlHarborHistory (at) Hotmail (dot) com

[David_Aiken]

Aloha Colonel Rohr,
The introduction of the above cited article on Gordon Sterlinghttp://www.flightjournal.com/articles/lost_p-36/sterling1.asp states the total US aircraft missing by category....and why. Thus, as with the US aircraft, there are Japanese aircraft still missing in the ocean, too.

Since 1966, every Pearl Harbor crash location (recovered in 1941-2 AND the "X" on the ocean) has been identified by country, unit and type plane. The crew ID for the Japanese planes is still a problem...for seven planes. This is what I am trying to resolve.

Of course, new witnesses give good confirmation as well as more details about known crashes. The full tail code of the KATE which crashed at the US Navy hospital is still sought...yet I must not lead any witness. There are a host of unanswered questions about the recovered crash sites....many crashes were never photographed as the threat of being put in the brig was great.

The Sterling article had the help of the aerial witnesses to the P-36 crash...and the location has a GOOD "X" on the ocean, thanks to them.
Hope this helps,
David Aiken

[David_Aiken]

Hi Dave,

Anything I can do to help you send me an e-mail I would like to cross-check some of my Crash records with you.

Send me your telp.# via pm and I'll give you a call.

Cheers
RER

Hi Colonel,
Did you get the PM?

Of interest to the USS Enterprise sorties made that day, I have kept the BIG E reunion association apprised of the progress and have had some of the research printed in their pub.

Mitchell Cohn, a USS Enterprise SBD gunner, either died in the air or when the plane crashed on land west of "Ewa Mooring Mast Field" (1941 term). His body was taken by ambulance to the US Army morgue, buried at Schofield as "possibly a pilot" and transferred to Punchbowl after the war. He is one of the MIAs...oops, BNRs...which I seek to resolve.

The head of the US Army's Casualty and Memorial Affairs Branch, Alexandria, VA phoned me in 1982 to complain that I was using "MIA" when the term is BNR (Body Not Recoverable). MIA is a pay scale, he stated, for the next of kin. Once a body is declared BNR, the pay stops. That is why so many families from 'nam wanted their loved ones kept as MIA or found, not so much for the closure...but to keep the money coming in...or so he suggested off the record.

One of the BIG E SBDs crashed in the area of the reef runway...probably covered up by the runway! Sigh. A B5N KATE which crashed aft of the USS Nevada in the first wave...in the area of the new bridge to Ford Island, is probably covered up too...by silt raised from that project.

Have you read "Torpedoing Pearl Harbor", Military History mag, Dec 2001? That details all forty B5Ns in that phase of the attack...every plane, every pilot name, every target hit IN order of hits, and every B5N crash location. Nine Japanese torpedo attack veterans, and two Japanese men involved with the technical aspects of the torpedo helped. That issue is now out of print. See it and other articles at: http://groups.msn.com/japanesemodelaircraft/technintelpearlharbor.msnw

Be aware, I share unrecovered crash site locations and crew IDs only with US Government JPAC/CILHI personnel and their Japanese counterparts.
Hope this helps,
Cheers,
David

[RareBear]

Was reading on Paul Freeman's site about Little-Known Airfields concerning the wreckage of an SBD that was dragged out of the brush on EWA MCAS in 1999. Any details on that?

Walt

[David_Aiken]

Aloha nui loa Rare,
This is not connected with Pearl's MIA/BNR airmen and not in the air that day...so I have 'no comment'. Anyone else know an answer for Bear's question?
Malama pono,
David Aiken