Warbird Information Exchange

Here's the one I saw - CNN:

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/21/pe ... e-aviator/

Good thing TIGHAR didn't find the skull first...

What? Someone was going to say it sooner or later. Anyways, back on topic this actually sounds like pretty interesting stuff which I'll probably be following. Does anyone know if the process to determine the skull's origin is being documented in any way? Sounds like with a little history and maybe the animators from Dogfights it could make for something I'd want to watch on the history channel. At least it would be a lot better than watching folks buy and sell the crap in their garages and basements.

-Tim

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Keep 'em Flying.

Tim--

Funny you should mention that....I received and email this morning from an associate who currently works for the folks who did DOGFIGHTS...they are putting together a program formatted around interesting historical artifacts-collectors-with military connections--including warbirds. Maybe the day is not too far off when the History Channel will have HISTORY again! Sorry--not wanting to hijack this thread.

my same opinion on the forks & coke bottle, however the shards of metal may glean some interesting facts.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I'll probably catch FLAK for writing this, but what the ....

It actually amazes me that JPAC is involved in the identification process. Granted they are right there...but come on...that is not their mission. They are tasked with the ID of US service personnel.

As far as WW2 goes, there are roughly 74,000 unaccounted for US personnel from that conflict. (Not to mention those from other conflicts)

JPAC budgets for ten (10) WW2 excavations a year....that's TEN.

If you consider that roughly half of those missing were from the Navy and went down with the ship--never to be recovered--that leaves about 37,000 land-based MIAs to be recovered. At the rate of ten a year that leaves JPAC with about 3,700 YEARS of work ahead of them.

They have a staff doing in-lab identifications---but that staff is limited. If you think the line at the DMV is long ask somebody on the inside how long it will take to even BEGIN the processing of remains brought in to JPAC today....the answer is (fill in the blank) YEARS. They have SHELVES FULL of remains awaiting processing.

I personally think it is a misallocation of time and effort to drop whatever anyone is doing at JPAC regarding US service personnel to run tests on an anonymous skull found in situ with forks and soda bottles.

I actually would not be surprised to find out that the skull was found, and all other possibilities (Hawaiian fisherman, murder victim, etc.) were eliminated before they claimed it was a IJN pilot's skull.

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All I did was press this red button here...

Steve Nelson explains it well. I have read about this before. Definitely the skulls of asians have a different bone structure than other races.

Asian skulls do have a different shape. Anyone tasked with recovering remains like that would quickly know the gender, relative age and general ethnic background of the skull. I agree that the “fisherman” theory is weak, but there were plenty of people from that ethnic group who could have fallen overboard from a ferry or vessel as an employee of the shipyard before the war.
I wonder how many Japanese pilots’ remains were actually recovered after the raid? The CNN article said 55 aircrew went down there (all KIAs. The only POW taken was from one of the midget subs) but I can’t find how many were found afterward. It stands to reason some were blasted into bits, ground into paste when impacting with the ground or burned to cinders after their crashes. I recall seeing a photo in a book of a Japanese pilot’s body still in (decent condition) full flight gear being hoisted out of the water there, the face gone and a bare skull inside the helmet “grinning” at the people recovering it. I can’t recall where I saw the photo but I assume it was soon after the attack.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

A coworker and I have been to the JPAC lab and did a presentation on our Duck Hunt project. Early on we were talking to them frequently about trying to get their help ($$). As I was told by our contact there, like some other govt agencies, they generate follow-on year budgets in line item form. As I recall, they have cases lined up and prioritize them according to how strong the evidence is and where the remains are located. If able, a recon team will visit the location and do logistical work (names, local contacts, hotels, intel, local resources available, who to pay off, etc) prior to the recovery team coming in. A recent Prez mandate was signed saying the # of MIA recoveries per year was to increase to 200 (I think that was the number?). There was a decison memo waiting to be signed directing the DPMO Office in DC to start working MIA recoveries. I'm not sure where that's at. I'll speculate this possible Japenese MIA case will count towards the 200 goal.

You can get a tour of the JPAC lab. If anyone is ever in Hawaii, I highly recommend arranging a tour. Very, very fascinating work they do there. When I was there, they had a large, environmentally protected room with many white tables neatly organized. On most of the tables they had human remains neatly laid out in natural form. All the scientist and workers who enter these controlled rooms are dressed in white suits, hats and gloves to avoid spreading their own DNA inside the room. And yes....the scientists there can look at a bone or skull and with some certainty tell you about who that person is. I think one of the things that JPAC doesn't like doing (as I was told) is working mass graves. Those are supposed to be very intensive and difficult cases. It's all cool stuff for sure!!

Oooh..if we ever make that trip to Hawaii the wife talks bout that'll definitely be on the agenda. She's a nurse, and would probably find it fascinating as well.

The book I mentioned earlier described the process they used to figure out what remains were from which person. The on-site dig team tried to bag the remains from different locations separately, but since there were 22 men in a plane that slammed into a mountainside at speed, all they found 40 years later were what were clinically referred to as "comingled remains;" that is, lots of small bone fragments..some of which had washed down a hillside into a creek. These were carefully measured and analyzed, and laid out on the tables mentioned above. Lab techs were able to assign most to the correct individual simply through basic detective work. Surprisingly, dental records were not very useful, as they weren't very complete in those days, even for military personel (During WWII, U.S. Army requirements stated that to qualify for service a man had to have "at least half of his original teeth." In rural 1940s America, I'm sure that rendered a fair number of guys 4F.)

Oh, and from a warbird perspective, one of the vertical fins was recovered from the crash site and is on display at the PNG Museum, with the 990th BG "Jolly Rogers" motif still well preserved. Here's a pic, and info about the crash http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/b-24/42-41081.html

SN

I did a forensic historical analysis of a C-47 crash in Belgium (Pathfinder a/c 42-100981) for the family of the still MIA pilot. Beyond the paperwork available to the Army post-war, I accumulated and annotated nearly 6000 pages of data including transcripts of video interviews of witnesses. I accompanied the family of the pilot to the crash site in 2001 where the local town erected and dedicated a monument to the victims of the crash. Two days later (9/11/01) we all watched the events in NYC unfold at Ground Zero. Two years later our work resulted in a CILHI excavation of the site. I was permitted an active part in assisting the then-CILHI team on the dig. At the conclusion of the dig they returned to Hawaii for the change-of-command ceremonies to become JPAC.

Results on finding the MIA were negative, although we extracted probably two tons of aircraft and a significant amount of identifiable material. I will withhold my opinion of the final official report generated nearly 18 months after the dig concluded. Simply put--had they followed the 'history' they would have found the pilot--as it was they probably missed him by seven feet horizontal and seven feet vertical. The witnesses said, independently interviewed, that the impact crater was 3, 4 or 5 METERS deep. (That's between 9 and 15 feet.)

They stopped digging at 42 inches....nuff said.

I read A MISSING PLANE years ago---fascinating. I distinctly recall the part where one of the diggers threw an oxygen cylinder into a ravine because he liked the sound it made when it hit. He later became the director of operations at CILHI.

More recently there was a book written called WHERE THEY LAY about a helicopter excavation in Vietnam. If I remember correctly they were half-way thru the excavation when they realized they were digging up the wrong helicopter.

Honestly, I do admire the dedication of the field teams that labor in remote locations to recover missing service personnel.

Do you know if the recovery team used a GPR? If so, they should have been able to detect any objects still buried.

CJ---

They used your average "Find a Fortune at the Beach" metal detector There were ten eye ball witness standing by that could point to the impact crater. We didn't take them to a zip code---we took them to a piece of ground the size of a card table. In a field as flat and green as the 18th fairway at Augusta.

After ten days they had dug a 42 inch deep hole the size of a four car garage. Every day moving further and further away.

On about the sixth day one of the eye ball witnesses asked me to ask the FAIC why he was digging "all the way over there...".

FAIC answer: "Because the plane IS upside down...so the pilot will be somewhere over here on the right..."

Question--Me to witness, "Franz, when you came here on September 20, 1944 and removed the LANDING GEAR from the plane and took them to your barn (that you showed me yesterday) was the plane upside down?"

Answer: "No." Followed by the Flemish equivalent of, "The Colonel doesn't know what he is talking about!"

The "No" was translated for the Colonel's benefit ...and he said this, "Well, obviously the witness is wrong."

(The translator they sent spoke French and English. Nobody in that part of Belgium speaks French they speak Flemish and if coaxed a little German...so my high school phonetic German was more useful than the French speakiing guy who was getting paid to be there!)

The "four car garage" sized hole was bordered by a run off trench maybe 20 inches deep and 30 inches across. Wet but not running. Beyond that was the rock garden of a farm house--which was set afire when the plane crashed. The current occupant was the grand daughter of the 1944 farmer. She speaks four languages and in pristine English told the team, "Dig up the trench---and if you have to do it, DIG UP MY GARDEN TOO. Find the pilot!" Her mother (my host during the '03 trip) was a young girl hiding from the Invasion in the basement of that house when the plane hit.

The team stopped at the trench as if it was the end of the known flat world. Seven more feet....alas.

Well....sorry to hear about the delema. I make no claims to be an expert as I only worked with them twice.....but if you end up going back again.....use a geophysicist and a GPR. There are several out there to use and specialize in aircraft and human remains locating. Also...at that shallow of a depth, a magnatometer should be able to ID metal for you. We used both for our Duck Hunt on the ice cap.

Uh, hopefully the Park Service has more evidence than just a skull; like flight gear or Japanese airplane parts. As ships were pulling into Pearl returning from the war, troops and sailors were often told to toss contraband overboard or face prosecution. Japanese skulls were sometimes kept as souvenirs. There was a photo in Life magazine about it during the war that upset the folks at home. When I was a kid, the man up the street even had one. They also turn up periodically when people are going through grandpa’s personal effects and the family freaks-out because they think grandpa killed the babysitter 50 years ago. Hopefully the Park Service didn’t just find somebody’s abandoned “souvenir.”