JACK Magazine
January 2003 Issue, Pages 192 - 199

"Ghosts of the Pacific"
Six decades after Pearl Harbour, hundreds of aircraft wait to be discovered in the vast jungles in the South Pacific. Bombers and fighters, many with long combat histories, remain where they crashed, cocooned in dense jungle, swamps, or forgotten on remote mountain hillsides.

Now, teams of Pacific historians are attempting to locate and document these aircraft, in Papua New Guinea, theSolomons, Guam and Bougainville - scene of some of the bloodiest battles of WWII. Already, many planes have been recovered and, in
some cases, reunited with the crews they left behind.

The stories of these Pacific aircraft, their pilots and final missions are stranger than any fiction. These are surely, the Ghosts of War….
by Len Adams

War came to the Pacific on December 7, 1941 when the Imperial Japanese Air Force struck at the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. An hour later, Japanese bombers based in Saipan, launched a heavy attack on the island of Guam. Within six months they had conquered Southeast Asia and the pacific islands of the Solomons, New Britain, New Guinea and were aiming to take Australia and New Zealand after the destruction of the US Navy.

By the time the war had ended with the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945, the conflict had spread to one third of the earth's surface costing the lives of five million people.

Caught in the middle were the people in the Pacific islands upon whose homelands, and in whose waters, some of the bloodiest battles were fought. Today, the remains of aircraft, tanks, pillboxes, and concrete gun emplacements are a spooky reminder of the battles fought to retake the islands from the enemy. After the war much military hardware was vandalized and stripped for souvenirs to sell to tourists. Not any more.

What's left of these precious relics - much photographed by swarms of tourists - are part of an historical legacy, protected and classified as a 'national cultural heritage.' For the Japanese in particular, these ghosts of war are shrines to the memory of their recent ancestors whose fading pictures they carry in memory.

Off-shore, in the crystal clear waters of the ocean there is still much to see. Scuba-divers can explore a virtual military museum where tropical fish shelter in the twisted bones of landing craft. They can touch the guns, and tanks that never made it to the beach. Here too, lie the remains of shot-down US and Japanese aircraft. Most of the fuselage has gone but the engines and bent props stick out like so many graveyard markers.

Others, however, like -Barbara III the TBM 'Avenger' torpedo bomber, flown by Lt. George Bush, lie sleeping in deeper waters, Surprisingly, many are in reasonable shape through lack of marine activity.

It was on September 2, 1944, that Bush took off from the carrier San Jacinto to join a raid against the nearby island fortress of Chichi Jima. During his bombing run against a Japanese radio installation, his plane was hit by flak and set on fire. Bush headed out to sea, radioed his co-pilot to eject, then watched the billowing parachute unfold. He then followed but his own 'chute snagged and he was gashed on the head when it struck the tail.. Stunned, he floated down, jettisoned his chute and scrambled into a life raft to be picked up hours later by the US submarine Finback. in which he would spend the next few months. As for his plane, the Avenger hit the water at speed and slipped slowly from light to darkness into the abyss, It came to rest a mile deep, on the edge of a vast underwater canyon known as the Bonin Trench, where it remains to this day.

One day, preservationists hope, technology will have advanced to locate, identify and retrieve the aircraft and restore it to the Bush Presidential Library in Washington. Sadly, no such protection was afforded the redundant aircraft shipped back after 'VJ Day' to end up on vast desert boneyards in Arizona. There, they lined up in rows stretching to the horizon, to await the breakers and an inglorious future recycled as teapots and fridges. That's why today, B-17 Flying Fortresses are as rare as virgins in Paris.

But out there, waiting to be re-discovered in remote jungles and swamps - undisturbed for almost sixty years - are hundreds of B-17's, Thunderbolts, Liberators, Lightnings, Kittyhawks, Marauders and twin-engined Mitchell bombers, untouched since the day they kissed the earth in a deathly embrace. Consider the figures.

Last year (2001) there were still more than 300 aircraft missing from the US Fifth Air Force, alone. Their wrecks litter the ground from New Guinea to the Philippines. Yet progress is being made: each year, two new discoveries are being made slowly closing the gap in information. It's a fair guess that most of them crashed through enemy action. Others ditched through mechanical failure, and many were written-off when their bases were bombed. But whatever the cause, each plane, classified as an MIA (Missing in Action), is regarded as an historical treasure.

Briefed to locate and document these and other wrecks, teams of aviation historians are busy hacking through Pacific jungles, wading through swamps, scaling cliffs, following leads given by natives. The finds have been spectacular. They include a Japanese A6M2 Zero that took part in the Pearl Harbour attack, the rare wreckage of a Ki-43 Oscar from the Japanese Army's only raid against Guadalcanal; An American A-20G "Hell 'N Pelican II" that crash-landed during the infamous Fifth Air Force 'Black Sunday' mission, and a P-38 Lightning, 'Sandman II' belonging to Richard E 'Snuffy' Smith of the 39th Fighter Squadron, based in New Guinea.

A few miles away, at Nadzab, one of the largest air bases in the South Pacific, author and historian, Michael Claringbould found the wreckage of two Douglas light bombers and three P-47 Thunderbolt fighters. that had slammed against a mountain range near the airfield. In 1999, in recognition of his recovery work of aircraft from both sides, Michael was made an Honorary member of the Zero Fighter Pilots Association, proposed by former Japanese ace Saburo Sakai.

Chances of survival in such a hostile theatre of war - even without the enemy - were pretty slim. Claringbould, who knows the area like the back of his hand, says "operational conditions were brutal, steaming jungle heat, shark-infested waters, snow-capped and cloud-shrouded mountains, all faced crews who strayed off course or ran into problems" And if they did ditch in Jap-held territory, they might be be-headed or set to work where they would be beaten and starved. Survivors of a B-24 that crashed in the Highlands were even eaten by cannibals!"

Occasionally, the discovery of an aircraft settles an argument as to what happened the day it crashed. As a wartime battle it lasted just a few minutes. But the legacy of what happened on April 18, 1943 would continue for more than half a century.

On that day, Isoroku Yamamoto, Japan's top navy admiral and strategist, was shot down in one of the most successful missions of WWII. But which P-38 pilot made the kill?

Two men claimed they fired the fatal shots, beginning a feud that would distance the former buddies for years. While the US Victory Credit Board of Review gave equal credit to both men - Lt. Rex Barber and Lt.Tom Lanphier - colleagues of the rightful victor, set about establishing the truth.

Although Lanphier wrote an article for Reader's Digest "I Shot Down Yamamoto", his account failed to tally with the true facts when the wreckage was found by American investigators in dense jungle on Bougainville, in 1988. For one thing, an aircraft wing which Lanphier reported seeing falling off, was still in place. But more damning were the photographs showing the bullet holes shot from six o'clock (as Barber had claimed). They went through the fuselage into both engines, causing the bomber to spiral down with a trail of black smoke. Asked to reconsider their finding, in view of the new evidence, the Review Board refused. By now, Lanphier, in his 80's was dead, his autobiography still unfin ished. Barber, also died recently. But at least his honour was vindicated.

One of the pleasures shared by the aircraft sleuths, Mike Claringbould and Justin R. Taylan, founders of the Pacific Wreck Database www.pacificwrecks.com is the thrill of reuniting the pilot with his plane long believed to have vanished into oblivion.

In 1943, Richard E. ("Snuffy") Smith, from Indiana, was the pilot of a P-38 belonging to the 39th Fighter Squadron based at Port Moresby in New Guinea. Still in his mid-twenties, he flew 195 missions and is credited with seven 'kills' represented by the Rising Sun flags painted just below the cockpit Whilst on a flight near Popondetta on December 4, his plane developed engine trouble and was forced to ditch in the jungle.

Bruised and shaken, Smith made his way back to base where, for the time being, he shared another twin-engined P-38 with a fellow pilot named Ken Sparks. Sparks, being an easy-going guy, agreed to have the aircraft re-christened 'Sandman III'.

Smithy liked the P-38. It was his favourite plane. Speaking at his home in the States recently, he said it was because the Lightning had two engines. "And it was fast" he said, "Our cruising speed was up around 180 - that's as fast as those Nascar drives go today. But we could go as fast as 280-300 at full power. We would take off from Port Moresby, fly high over the mountains and to the target, then to get home, just point the nose down! I scored all my victories in a P-38. It had all the armament up there in the nose, in a two-foot diameter circle…..Usually you would use your guns first to sight the plane, and when you saw you were on target, pour on that 20mm. On the controls you just pressed one button for machine guns, and the other for cannon."

He went on: "We would often fly 500 to 1000 miles round trip to targets like Rabaul or Wewak. Up to Wewak, that was 500. Over to Rabaul, that was 100 miles over land, 300 over water, and the last 100 over land again. - then back again. So, compared to those guys who just flew over Germany and back, our missions were much longer." When they told Smith that Sandman II had been found after sixty years, he couldn't believe it. It was fantastic news. Would he like to see his old plane again?

Smith, by now a pensioner, couldn't wait. Flying in to Port Moresby from Australia, he found the city had changed - except for the downtown natives. "They were still chewing betel nut and their mouths were all red" he recalled. He tried to find his old camp but nothing remained save for the Officer's Club which was now a restaurant and bar for the locals. Boarding a small prop plane, he flew with the guys who found the wreck - Bruce Hoy and Dave Pennyfather - to Popondetta where they trekked through the vegetation to where Sandman II.lay mangled but with markings still clearly visible. There, to the left of the cockpit, was his name" 'Lt. R.E. Smith'. Below were the flags marking seven kills. Choked, unable to speak, as the memories came flooding back, the old aviator climbed back in the cockpit re-living the magic moments when the sky was his alone. Richard Smith, for many years a member of the

Fighter Aces Association, reached hesitantly for the controls and looked unseeing through the shattered cockpit windows.
What could he hear? The rattle of cannon fire…the distorted voices of comrades warning of approaching Zeros? Smith took his photos; ran his fingers over his name on the side, then, glancing back only once, made his way back to the jeep. For the onlookers, the bittersweet memories were almost too much to bear.

But there was more to a unique day of nostalgia, Smith had barely settled in his seat on the returning passenger jet when he was approached by an attractive young stewardess. It seems someone had whispered to the pilot that their passenger was a bit of a pilot himself. Would he like to sit up front with the crew? Smith said later, it was a marvellous experience. "It made the perfect ending to a day I will never forget." he said. For more, Pacific Ghosts www.pacificghosts.com