Propertee64...
Range
I often wonder too if people have read it and absorbed it ! I spent considerable time writing the whole of the website in an attempt to put together what we do know on the factual side in this intriguing project and the hypothetical side of Fuel and Endurance calculations to explain the possibility, took up most of the time. I applaud MS Excel for doing the calculations because if Excel wasn’t around I’d still be running the numbers on a calculator.
…whether a Japanese patrol…etc ?
A good question.
Yes, it is possible that a Japanese Patrol did encounter the wreck, they were certainly there at Wide Bay and all down the coastline as the recorded history tells us. Some of the fighting in the TOL Plantation area was very fierce and of course we cannot forget the massacre of Australian Troops that surrendered at TOL.
However, it is more likely to have been ”Local” people if anything when we discuss someone finding the wreck. Generally speaking, local people in PNG are a bit wary of aircraft wrecks and do not enter aircraft wrecks in case there is anything in there which can go “Bang”. They do not know the difference between transport type aircraft and bomber aircraft.
It is recorded that the villages along the Wide Bay coastline did exist before and during WWII, albeit the location of the villages do change a little
The POMIO people possibly would have removed items “if” they had found it, but they do not know where it is. One of the first questions I asked in arrival there in 1994 was: “Do you know of any old aircraft in this area ?” In Tok Pisin that becomes, “Mi askim yupela, sapos yupela save sampela olpela balus na save ples istap long hap bilong yu ?" All I got was blank looks and a "Nogat", they had even forgotten about the B-17 and only wrote to me in 2000 about that. Whereupon I jumped on a plane to Rabaul, hired a helicopter and landed at the village, picked up three men and went inland and landed on a sandbank and walked up to where they had found something only to find that it was the B-17.
They are as puzzled as we have been since 1994 when they came in with us to search for the first time under my auspices and they had also been with one search party in 1993.
The wreckage will have been laying out in the open from the years 1937 until the time of year that I strongly suspect it was buried by the bulldozer driver: “Mid-1996”
We do know that the wreck was off the ridgeline and just slightly down the slope of the ridge to the northern side.
If not the Pomio people, then who else could possibly find the wreck ?
There had been a tribe of nomadic people called the MOLKOLKOL living in there for many years pre-WWII, during WWII and up until 1951. As well as being nomadic they were very violent and were known for raiding villages on the north side of the island in the OPEN BAY area and also on the south side in the WIDE BAY area where the search we do takes place.
Two Molkolkol were shot by retreating Australian Troops in a river valley when they attacked the party with long handled axes. They were known to co-operate with the Japanese during WWII.
They were rounded up in 1951 by the Australian Administration and were taken to RABAUL and integrated into the BAINING Tribes and generally now are known to live in peace and are not distinguishable from the other tribes around the GAZELLE Peninsula.
The worst raid they committed killed 36 people on the Wide Bay Coast most probably at the same village where we go and is most probably the reason why they were rounded up. This Molkolkol story is possibly significant to your question because a nomadic tribe wandering through the jungle may have come across the wreck and may have disturbed the contents. This has been at the back of my mind since the Robert E. Wallack story about a briefcase belonging to Earhart was reported found in a locked safe on Saipan and which may very well be true “IF” the Molkolkol had found the wreckage and had handed in a briefcase to the Japanese on New Britain Island. No-one has found any Japanese records to back up the briefcase story though, or, evidence of where the briefcase is now....
Because of the fear of the Molkolkol the people in the coastal villagers did not venture far into the forest. Since then, extensive logging has been carried out in the area and on the ridgeline, hence the bulldozer entering the scene in 1995, making tracks.
Last edited by David Billings; 24th Feb 2018 at 23:43.