Posted on 12/17/2007 10:02:35 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The families of eight U.S. military men who died in a 1944 plane crash in the Himalayas want the Pentagon to step up efforts to recover their remains from the crash site discovered last year by a mountaineer.
Exactly what happened to the B-24 bomber dubbed "Hot as Hell," was a mystery for more than 60 years. It disappeared while on a flight from Kunming, China, to Chabua, India, to pick up weapons and other supplies and return to base in China.
Clayton Kuhles of Prescott, Ariz., a mountaineer who has made it his mission to search out crash sites along a route so deadly pilots called it the aluminum trail, found the wreck last December near Damrah, a village of 200 in northeastern India.
"I was so elated," Larry Zaetz said about hearing the plane that carried his older brother had been found. "To suddenly know that my brother's remains were within human reach, I just went through the ceiling."
But now Zaetz and other relatives say they've been frustrated by what they see as the Defense Department's slowness to send a team to India to retrieve crew members' remains.
Maj. Brian DeSantis, a spokesman for Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, or JPAC, in Hawaii, said he doubted such an effort would be launched anytime soon. He blamed political instability in the region and said the needed approvals from Indian government ministries, requested nearly a year ago, have not been granted.
"Once the area is deemed safe and we have the permissions, we'll follow up on this pretty quickly," DeSantis said.
Zaetz noted India is a U.S. ally, and he called reports of instability in the region out of date.
"I thought our motto was 'Leave no one behind,'" he said. "How can you treat military personnel like this? It's unbelievable. This is not to be accepted."
Larry Zaetz's son Gary was trolling the Internet in June when he decided to punch his uncle's name, 1st Lt. Irwin "Zipper" Zaetz of Burlington, into the Google search engine. He pulled up Kuhles' Web site, miarecoveries.org.
"He reported he had discovered a plane wreck," Gary Zaetz said. "He'd also done some heavy-duty documentary research on the aircraft so we knew it had to be the one that belonged to the crew that included my uncle."
The Web site include 16 photos of debris from the plane, which is believed to have hit the side of a mountain at about 9,000 feet altitude.
"I knew I couldn't rely on the U.S. government to put the information out, so I put it up on my Web site," Kuhles said. "I was hoping some relatives of the crew members would discover the Web site, and bingo — that's what happened."
DeSantis said JPAC typically does up to 50 recoveries a year and plans them a year ahead of time.
"There are 88,000 people still missing from different wars," he said. "We can't go to all the places at once. We make decisions based on the best information we have."
My father flew this route in C-87s (cargo version of the B-24). He described mountains that went on forever and high winds. And if you had mechanical problems and needed to land, you were toast.
Sad.
This was called flying the HUMP.Some of the most dangerous flying of the war.Lots of airmen are still missing from the missions over the hump.
Major Brian DeSantis states that instability in the area of the crash site makes a recovery mission difficult. With all due respect to Major DeSantis, this statement is not supported by the facts. The families have been informed directly by The Hon. Tapir Gao, a member of the Indian Parliament representing Arunachal Pradesh, the state where the crash site was found, that the law and order situation there is quite good. Furthermore, the US State Department’s Consular Sheet on India does not include the state of Arunachal Pradesh in the list of northeastern Indian states that are known to have experienced ethnic separatist violence.
Furthermore, there is no evidence to substantiate Major DeSantis’ claim that JPAC requested approvals to access the crash site of the “Hot as Hell” almost a year ago. In fact, it was only this past month that the families were informed by the US Embassy in New Delhi that the US Government contacted the Indian Government for the first time about this site just a few weeks ago. The families themselves contacted senior Indian Government officials in November 2007, and these officials confirmed at that time that JPAC had still not notified the Indian Government about the crash site, eleven months after Mr. Clayton Kuhles of Prescott, Arizona reported his discovery to JPAC. That’s the real reason why no approvals were forthcoming from the Indian Government. JPAC simply failed to notify the Indian Government about the crash site’s existence. Thanks to the US Embassy in New Delhi, the Indian Government was finally notified.
Gary Zaetz,
Nephew of 1st Lt. Irwin G. Zaetz, navigator of the USAAF B-24 “Hot as Hell”
Great job Gary.Seems to me you got the ball rolling on this. Happy new Year, Tom
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