Papa Mike’s Palau Blog

Blue Dot behind trees above 1st Marine Memorial is crash site

I landed on Peleliu 22,712 days too late for the World War II invasion on this tiny island in the South Pacific. But I soon found out that the recovery and identification of the missing soldiers from that day over sixty years ago was still not over.

Around 5:00 they piled into the Mayumi’s, dirty, sweaty and cursing. After a shower and a Bud Light they assembled around the plastic covered picnic tables in the serving area. They weren’t hard to identify, with their short-cropped hair and perfect English voices. I had to smile remembering my time amongst their ranks, in an instant I realized that I was being overrun by the US Military. Tonight there were two birthdays to celebrate and I was invited to join in with the festivities. We had dinner and exchanged one-liners as the two birthday boys were presented balloons over-representing parts of the male anatomy. The celebration, complete with two birthday cakes, was a great hit and the kidding went on for hours. Later that night I was to find out that their purpose on Peleliu was of a far more serious matter.

It seems that a while back the wreckage of a TBM Avenger Dive Bomber had been discovered after over sixty years of being hidden on an outcropping over Bloody Nose Ridge, site of the fiercest battle on Peleliu. It can be assumed the bomber took off from the nearby airfield on a thirteen second bomb run dropping napalm on the Japanese that were fighting from caves on the ridge. Speculation was that the plane was hit by Japanese fire and has been buried in the jungle for over sixty years. The leader of the detachment told me that they had determined that the plane had a crew of three on board and through forensic pathology they will be able to identify the crew. I suppose you could be impressed with the technology that will allow us to identify the crew, I must say that I am much more impressed with a country that will go to all the cost and trouble to identify a three man flight crew and cross three more names off the list of missing in action soldiers from the Second World War.

Helmet and Cross at Red Beach Memorial

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 at 1:12 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.