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| Purpose of the BentProp™ Project
During World War II, many American airmen lost their lives in the western Pacific, some in the western Caroline Islands, in what is presently known as The Republic of Palau. The ultimate fate of hundreds of these men remains a mystery today. For more than a half century, families and wingmen of airmen who were declared Missing In Action (MIA) have lived with a painful lack of closure: they do not know exactly how and where their loved ones died. If they could have such knowledge it might not eliminate the pain of loss, but such knowledge can sometimes ease the emptiness and silence the nightmares. The
only antidote for such painful lack of closure is information.
Unfortunately, the ocean and jungles don't give up information about long-lost
aircraft without a struggle. The ocean can bury an aircraft under sand and silt,
or gradually envelop it in a shrine of coral. Pursuing such mysteries, especially after the passage of so many decades, is not easy. Random searching, above or below the ocean's surface, can be a colossal waste of time. Directed searching using information gleaned from archives can at least provide tentative boundaries for a search area - but not always the correct one. By far the most fruitful approach is winning the trust of people who live in an area, who are then willing to come forth with information (and often express a willingness to be guides) leading to sites that - to them - are just curiosities from a time long beyond their recollection. Over several years, BentProp™ teams have tried all three approaches. That's what we do: we search the waters and jungles of the western Pacific, in what we hope are intelligent ways, for clues that may lead to the location and identification of wreck sites and remains of men who gave their lives in defense of America. On the question of remains: we
share information with - and greatly admire the efforts of - JPAC
(the Joint POW/MIA Accounting
Command), which was recently formed by merging the 30-year-old U.S. Army
Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii (CILHI), and the 11-year-old Joint
Task Force
- Full Accounting. These are the folks who assemble and deploy teams to places
like Europe, Korea, and Vietnam - and recently, to Palau - to look for, recover,
and identify remains of American MIAs. About this Web site The BentProp™ Web site is intended to make available information that the various teams have accumulated since Pat Scannon first realized that he was in this pursuit for the long haul. Other team members have contributed both to the expeditions and to the information contained here. You can navigate through this site in a couple of ways.
Please note that you can view the caption for any illustration by simply touching the illustration with your cursor. Use
the menu on the left to navigate to the destination of your choice. |
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Page last modified 02 January 2009 | ||
The
jungle, similarly, reclaims a wreck over the years by letting it sink into the
mud and be slowly covered by each year's bounty of leaves and vines.