Scientists to recover more remains
from WWII plane crash that killed seven
By Wayne Specht, Stars and
Stripes
U.S. Navy file photo
The Lockheed Hudson PV-1 Ventura bomber like this one that crashed March 25, 1944 on
Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula north of Hokkaido is believed to hold the remains of seven
Navy aviators. |
Harsh weather and low ceilings enveloped Kamchatka Peninsula, 900 miles north of Tokyo
on March 25, 1944.
On that day, five lumbering Navy PV-1 Ventura twin-engine bombers took off from Attu in
Alaska’s Aleutian chain.
According to Navy archives, their mission was to conduct reconnaissance, then bomb
Japanese bases in the northern Kurile Islands.
Only one of the five planes in the flight was able to successfully complete the
mission.
One crashed soon after take-off, two were unable to reach the designated target area
and dropped their bombs into the sea before returning to base. One failed to return,
downed not by enemy fire, but by bad weather.
For the past 56 years, the remains of the seven-member crew that never came back
remained entombed in the wreckage of the bomber where it crashed on the slope of the
Mutnovsky volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
On Tuesday, the long trip home for the Navy aviators began when a team of 10
specialists from Hawaii arrived in Russia to recover the remains.
The wreckage of the Ventura bomber was discovered on the peninsula in 1999.
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office, working closely with the U.S.-Russia Joint
Commission on POW/MIAs, led a small survey team to the crash site in mountainous terrain
on the peninsula’s eastern flank in August 2000.
This week’s trip, expected to last for a month, will return more remains to Hawaii
for positive examination, said Ginger Couden, a public affairs spokeswoman with the
laboratory.
"The team consists of an anthropologist, linguist, medical personnel,
photographer, mortuary personnel and an explosive ordnance specialist," Couden said
Wednesday.
The explosive ordnance technician is going along because, Pentagon officials said,
unexploded 500-pound bombs were found with the wreckage.
"Bombs will not be detonated," Couden said. "The EOD person will make a
safe environment for the team members."
During a meeting of the Joint Commission’s World War II Working Group in Moscow in
November, 2000, copies of interviews conducted by U.S. commission investigators with
Russian citizens Mikhail Khotin and Mikhail Cheresko were given to Russian investigators.
The pair told authorities they saw human remains at the Kamchatka crash site in 1962
and in 1970 during trips to the volcano.
Last year during an exploratory visit to the crash site, the team recovered some human
remains and brought them to the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.
During the past year, the U.S. Navy has located family members of all but one of the
crewmembers.
The Navy also obtained blood samples from the families, should DNA comparisons prove
necessary if additional remains are recovered.
Pentagon officials said weather conditions on the Russian-held Kamchatka Peninsula
limit the ability to conduct operations to about one 30-day period per year.
The remains will be flown to the lab at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, where the
forensic identification process is scheduled.
Couden said since 1978, Army Central Identification Laboratory scientists have
identified the remains of 1,004 servicemen from World War II, Korea and the Vietnam
conflicts, and in Cold War-era mishaps.
For more information about POW/MIA recovery efforts visit: www.dtic.mil/dpmo/news_and_updates.htm
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