The JPAC investigation area will indeed cover the Hump. In fact, JPAC already has six previously-documented/visited sites on their India wreck list in this mountainous area, due to the selfless work of Clayton Kuhles of Prescott, Arizona. A mountaineer with a desire to solve MIA mysteries, he has spent thousands of his own money to search for wrecks in the rugged, remote Hump areas of Burma and India. There are several more that the local people have told him about, but Clayton has not yet had the time and money to trek there. Over time, JPAC should reach them, however.
The native people, far removed from the wealth and sophistication of the Western world, have an awesome wealth of knowledge about their own landscape. They are the keys to unlocking further MIA mysteries.
The incredible effort to get JPAC to India was spearheaded by Gary Zaetz of Cary, NC, the nephew of Irwin Zaetz, a 308th Bomb Group navigator on B-24 42-73308, lost on Jan 25, 1944 on a ferrying mission over the Hump (one of 8 B-24s and 1 C-87 lost that day over the Hump). Clayton had found the wreck of 73308 in Dec '06 and had posted photos on his website,
www.miarecoveries.org . By chance, Gary was surfing the web and was astounded to find this information. He was off and running, finding the kin of all the other crewmen and starting a focused campaign to convince JPAC to finally get to India. The hard work has paid off.
For more on this particular aspect of the story, see the Reuters news report written earlier in the week, prior to the announcement by JPAC's Admiral Crisp:
http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/Full ... rc=RSS-USN
An audio of Admiral Crisp's news conference announcing the India recovery project can be heard by clicking on the appropriate link at:
http://newdelhi.usembassy.gov/
73308's crash site might be the first one investigated, though apparently this isn't firm yet.
I'm a small player in this story, having made the ID of 42-73308 from a construction number found on two pieces of wreckage. The international efforts of many people, mainly Clayton and Gary, have gone into the victory of gaining JPAC's cooperation...which, of course, is just another step in the long-term process of recovering long-forgotten remains from India crash sites. Google on "Hot as He**" and Zaetz and Kuhles, and you will find quite a few news stories from the past few months.
Here are some of the folks who have been involved. Gary wrote this; he has been trying to thank everyone. You can get a feel for how extensive his efforts have been.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
To the families and friends of the "Hot as He**" crew
It is my pleasure to report that Rear Admiral Crisp, the Commander of JPAC, has concluded her meetings with Indian officials in New Delhi with an official announcement that recovery operations at American World War II crashsites will begin before the end of the year. At this time, we do not know when the "Hot as He**" crash site will be recovered, but we have every reason to believe that it will be among the crashsites that will be visited by JPAC in 2008.
This has truly been a team effort, and we should all feel grateful first and foremost to God for blessing our efforts. We should also express our gratitude to all those who have helped us to achieve this milestone:
Clayton Kuhles,
his guide Oken Tayeng,
military historian Matt Poole,
Lisa Phillips of World War II Families for Recovery of the Missing,
Mike Surles, NC State Coordinator, National League of POW/MIA Families
North Carolina State Representative Paul Stam,
Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy of Vermont,
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina,
Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine,
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona,
Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont,
former Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh,
Indian Member of Parliament Tapir Gao,
United States Ambassador to India David Mulford,
US Consul General Henry Jardine,
Arunachal Pradesh Governor Gen. J. J. Singh,
Indian Ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen,
Admiral Timothy J. Keating, Commander of the US Pacific Command,
US Under Secretary of Defense Ambassador Eric Edelman,
US Defense Attache Col. Frank Rindone,
Indian Air Marshal (ret'd) B. D. Jayal,
Indian Army Brigadier (ret'd) Gurmeet Kanwal, and
JPAC Commander Rear Admiral Donna L. Crisp.
We should also be grateful to the members of the press who publicized our mission:
Raleigh News and Observer Staff Writer Jay Price,
Altoona Mirror Staff Writer Jay Young,
India Today Staff Writer Sandeep Unnithan,
Frontier India Defence and Strategic News publisher P. Chacko Joseph,
Staff Writer Becky Watts of the Pike County Times,
Reuters Staff Writer Simon Denyer,
Burlington Free Press Staff Writer Sam Hemingway,
Skycontrol Aerospace and Aviation News publisher Alain Thimmesch, and
South Coast Today Staff Writer Jennifer Lade.
If I have forgotten any of our friends and supporters, I ask forgiveness.
[In a followup e-mail, Gary added some names he missed the first time:]
As I suspected I would, I inadvertently omitted a number of friends and supporters from the list of people we owe a debt of gratitude to. These people include:
Mr. Steven W. Peterson of Hines,
Captain Larry Gillis, USN, Naval Attache in the US Embassy in New Dehi,
Lt. Col. Brian K. Hedrick, Deputy Chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation in the US Embassy in New Delhi,
Air Commodore Rakesh K. Jolly, Air Attache in the Indian Embassy in Washington,
Nina Bernstein, Staff Writer at The New York Times,
Jeremy Lange of AtlasPress photography,
Fernando Santos of Luso-Americano,
Cadi Fernandes of Diario de Noticias (Lisbon),
Mike Williams and Nevine Malek of the BBC World Service,
Seamus O'Connor of the Air Force Times, and
Adam Arnold of the Cary News.
In addition, we need to thank The Arunachal Times, the Arunachal Front, the Arunachal News, and Arunachal Diary for their coverage.
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