Philippine Journal
Part of the
Greatest Generation Aircraft family
of historic planes.
Day two of the search, 19 February, 2009
The day began early today. We wanted to be at the boat to make sure we got a full day in. Our enthusiasm is only out done by our optimism at this point.
We load and launch out of the harbor by 0730 and head direct for the coordinates. Today we are going to employ all the technology we could pull together with the budget constraints imposed. Using the Global positioning system we mark the exact coordinates with a buoy and start a square pattern search at 50’ intervals. (The plane is 64 X 70, so we figure we can’t miss it at50’) As we circle, I’m guessing the plane could have glided underwater about 300’, before hitting the bottom and the coordinates can have a large margin of error so we just keep working out from the center and mark possible locations, pinged by the onboard sonar, on the GPS. In the first two hours we mark 29 locations of interest. One of those positions, #27 has two distinct lumps. These lumps are the correct size and distance apart to be the engines of a B25. By 1030 we are ready to go down and take a look at all the individual locations to see what we have. Well it can’t possibly be that easy. On the first dive we arrive on the lunar surface at 36 feet. And immediately sink to our knees in mud. Mud that swirls and creates an impenetrable cloud that doesn’t let you see your hand in front of your face. We swim a compass course, Agreed to on the boat in a 3 man formation that allows the wing men to see the center man who is leading the group. We swim for 20 min with no result and head for the surface. That not only didn’t work, but we are not even sure we swam over the target.
Plan B: Next time down we set a buoy on the exact spot. Go to the bottom, Put a guy in the center and pay out 50 ft of line. We then put one guy on the end and one in the center and swim in a 360 degree circle. The guy in the center is totally blinded by the mud cloud but the center and end positions can see about 5 feet. Once the 360 is complete the center guy releases 50 more ft of line and we do it again. Once completed we are confident we cleared the spot and can mark it off the list. We only get to do this twice and the captain announces that the seas are too rough for the boat, and we are taking on more water than we can pump out. I’m not sure, but I think that is the same problem the Titanic had. We pull the anchor and head for shore. At this point there is hope the wind and seas will lay at dusk so we head to town for lunch.
Unbeknown to me, while we were out getting wet, Our Philippino driver takes it upon himself and does a little probing in town. Upon asking around it appears he hits the mother lode and comes up with a name and a phone number of an older couple that may have rescued our crew after the crash 64 years ago almost to the day. We call, the old man is home and we go to his house which is 50 yards from the pier that the boat is parked on. Turns out the old man is a retired district courts judge from the area and knows everybody and most of the WWII history we need to fill in the squares. He tells us stories of massive executions, planes crashing in the bay, and a host of war stories. Turns out his wife is the one we need to talk to and she won’t be home until tomorrow, and it gets better, it appears she has an engine off the plane and one of the 50cal guns. (Of course that would mean someone has been taking parts off our plane)
Its late afternoon now and we check on the wind and waves (it’s hopeless) then head back to the hotel. Today we used SATINT, HUMANINT, and SIGINT with no positive results.
Tomorrow will be better
