@Sunfish...
We have doubts as to the Tag being in Australian Records as per Lieutenant Backhouse saying that his belief was that it was sent to"the Americans". At that time in 1945 the patrol members did hear of the response from "the Americans" some five weeks after the patrol had been completed, that the engine they had seen was a Wasp engine and that it did not belong to the U.S.Army, presumably to the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF). Obviously if the Americans had assessed it as a "Twin Wasp" they would have been interested.
The visit by two U.S. Army Officers to speak to Lieutenant Backhouse means that the message had also been circulated from Australian Forces to a nearby American Unit in New Britain and that unit was Company B of the 594th Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment (EB&SR) left behind in New Guinea to transport Australian Forces in their 30-odd Landing Craft, both from Jaquinot Bay (Palmalmal) and From Kimbe on the north coast. So some interest was shown. Most American Forces units by this time had moved on to Hollandia and in April/May 1945 had reached Manila and the rest of the Phillipines.
After two visits to the CBR War Memeorial myself and one visit from a professional researcher on my behalf, nothing more has resulted from Australian Records, so now we have hopes that the Tag is in American Archives. One of my team lived in Washington and visited the archives at College Park and went through some hundred boxes there and the boxes were full of "everything" that had been in desk drawers at U.S. Units from the SWPA Operations, including paper clips and staples....
Our final hope is the depository at Maxwell AFB at Montgomery Alabama but none of my contacts in the U.S. live in that area and I have to wait until someone gets the time to go there. Apparently when the USAAF became the United States Air Force (USAF) in 1947, the "Army Air Force" records relating to "Army" went to the U.S. Army and the "Air Force" record elements went to Maxwell Air Force Base. It is very likely that the Tag ended up with a Recovery Unit for assessment and it was they who decided it was not an engine from the U.S. Army Inventory, hence, "Not one of ours".
Last edited by David Billings; 25th May 2018 at 21:28.