Michael J. Claringbould
Historian & NarrationMichael is president of Aerothentic Publications, whose WWII knowledge is second to none. Michael's connection with the history of the Pacific war is deep, and ongoing. It commenced when he was growing up in Papua New Guinea, and on weekends he would walk New Guinea's jungles finding aircraft relics.
In 1976 he conducted numerous surveys of crash sites in Papua New Guinea while based at Lae. The following year he continued his survey of crash sites in the Solomon Islands. In 1984 he was a key member of a RAAF salvage team, which recovered an intact Douglas A-20G "Hell'N Pelican II".
From 1995 to 2001 he conducted fourteen surveys of crash sites in the Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. These sites include Grumman Wildcat F4F-4 Bu 5192 of U.S Navy Squadron VF-5, the first US aircraft shot down in the Guadalcanal campaign, and presented on this CD. These surveys also resulted in the recovery of Japanese MIA aircrew from two Japanese 705th Kokutai G4M1 bombers.
Michael is an established author in this field as well. His books to date include Helluva Pelican, The Forgotten Fifth, Forty of the Fifth, and Black Sunday. His most detailed historical work, Rampage of the Roaring 20s, is to be published with International Research and Publishing. Michael is also Pacific correspondent for Flightpath Magazine, Australia, and the designer and owner of www.aerothentic.com, the most comprehensive website in the world on the US 5th Air Force. On this site he offers complimentary aircraft and Missing-In-Action identification services.
In 1999 Michael was made an Honorary member of the Zero Fighter Pilots Association (proposed by former Japanese Ace Saburo Sakai after discovering the wreckage of Southerland's F-4F Wildcat as described above). Today he is also a consultant to the US military Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CILHI), and in this capacity was a guest presenter at CILHI's regional conference in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, held April 2001.
Michael's historical associates include the who's who of the Pacific war. Writers such as Bill Bartsch - author of Doomed at the Start, Larry Hickey - President of International Research and Publications and author of Warpath Across the Pacific, Jim Lansdale - Smithsonian Associate and expert on WWII Japanese aircraft, Steve Birdsall - 5th Air Force historian and author of Flying Buccaneers, Seneah Greh - Curator of the PNG Museum, Douglas Walker, son of Brigadier-General Kenneth Walker, Commanding Officer of 5th Bomber Command, MIA 5 January 1943, Yoshi Shinozaki, Japanese war historian, and Hiroshi Ichimura, Japanese Army Air Forces Historian, but to name a few.
Other credentials add to Michael's knowledge and prestige. He is also a qualified pilot and aircraft restorer. He has compiled largest database in the world on Pacific war crimes and has accumulated the largest database in the world on Pacific aircraft losses and casualties. He has identified five MIA sites in past two years, resulting in the recovery of numerous US lost airmen. He is in touch with more than 8,300 Pacific veterans, is familiar with Guadalcanal battlefields, has identified hundreds of present-day non-MIA crash sites. His expertise has placed him in many international newspapers and magazines as the subject of feature articles in his own right.