Flip Colmer, who took a ton of photographs at the
Doyle and Yoh funerals (see below) has assembled them into a couple
of moving slide-show tributes to these
young men. Note that you should be able to watch the videos in full-screen
mode either by right-clicking the screen and selecting "Toggle fullscreen"
or by clicking the little square icon in the lower right of the player
gizmo, next
to the volume
control.
Join us in remembering Jimmie Doyle
The voice on Jimmie's video, and the author of the song
and the lyrics, is Col. Mike Lembke, III Corps and Ft. Hood chaplain,
U.S. Army, who conducted Jimmie's service. The young Marine Captain sitting
with Tommy and Nancy at the graveside service is their son Casey, who
escorted his grandfather's remains home from JPAC in Honolulu..
Join us in remembering Earl Yoh
The song on Earl's video is the one selected by Earl's family
to be played at the funeral service. Earl was one of 13 siblings. The
two gentlemen in the front row at the graveside service are Earl's twin
brothers,
Gale
(left, who
received the flag) and Dale - the last surviving of Earl's siblings.
JPAC has reported
that their three recovery missions (in 2005, 2006, and
2008) to the underwater crash
site of B-24 '453 were a total success! They
recovered remains of all eight crewmembers who went
down with this aircraft
on 1 September 1944. Five of the crewmembers were positively identified,
but they have insufficient structural and DNA information
to
make positive identifications of the other three. JPAC knows who the
three are, they just can't tell which is which. So we understand that
there
will
be a group
service for those three, who will be buried together at Arlington National
Cemetery. When we have information about that group event at Arlington,
we'll post the information here.
On 25 April 2009, Jimmie Doyle,
the nose gunner on B-24 '453, was laid to rest in a full military
funeral in Lamesa, Texas. You
can read a newspaper account of the event here. Many of you
may recall that BentProp team member Joe Maldangesang, who lives in
Koror, Palau,
named
one
of his sons
Doyle. One of the most moving parts of the funeral service was when
Tommy Doyle (Jimmie's son) read the following note from Joe:
"The other day, Doyle asked me, why is his name Doyle, so i told him
that during wwII, a very special man by the name of Jimmy Doyle, flew
to palau
on airplane to help defend Palau from Japanese and he died protecting
us, and he was a very special man, and because he was special to us
and we loved
him, mom and i decided to give his last name to you so although his
not with us anymore, you will carry his name and legacy until one day
when you
get married and have kids and then you can tell your kids the story
of your name. And by sharing the story of your name to your kids and
grankids, He
will never be forgotten and his legacy lives on with us forever."
On 9 May, Earl Yoh,
also a crewmember on B-24 '453, was laid to rest in a family service in
Van Wert, Ohio.
And now that Mark
Swank is home from Palau, he's begun submitting a series of
POW Site reports describing the land team's efforts in the vicinity
of "Police
Hill." Here's where you can read Mark's
reports.
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. 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.
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. When
we (the BentProp team) discover a site that may still contain remains, JPAC,
which
has
the
world's
largest forensic laboratory, has the resources (e.g., DNA analysis) to extend
the scientific analysis of the site and seek positive identification of remains.
We
also
notify relevant armed services' historical agencies, including the US Naval
Historical Center, the US Marine Historical Research Center and the
US Air Force
Historical Research Agency. We also inform air reunion groups that flew over
Palau, including the VMF (Marine Fighter Squadron)- 114, VMF-121, VMF-122, 494th
BG(H)
(Bombardment Group (Heavy)) of the 7th Army Air Force and the 307th BG(H) of
the 13th Army Air Force. Finally - and perhaps most importantly - we share information
with families of missing airmen, as the information is obtained and confirmed.
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.
The
menu at the left side of each page is designed to give you direct
access to various collections of information that live on this site. Just
click the links, and explore the collections.
There
are also several fair-sizedchunks of pages that
tell a story - for example, there are detailed, individual reports on several
P-MAN expeditions. "Forward" and "Back"
buttons are provided at the top and bottom of pages within such chunks to allow
you to move in a straight line through the story, if you wish to follow the "flow."
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.
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.