B-24 crash site found - India

Well done Doc.

Do you think the management of these Cemeteries might take a digital photo of these RAAF headstones for me?

 

The management of U.S. cemeteries run by the Veterans' Administration -- which includes all the ones on your list -- don't take photos. (OTOH, the American Battle Monuments Commission will for cemeteries not on US soil.)

All the men on your list are on Find A Grave, and all but one have photos already, though the quality is variable:

Lieut Francis D Milne ( - 1942)

Lloyd Ashwin Morris ( - 1945)

Sgt Henry William Clapinson (1908 - 1944)

Gerard Michael Keogh (1903 - 1943)

William Alexander MacKay (1914 - 1943)

Sgt Edgar Horace Hawter ( - 1942). (BTW, there are two other RAF airmen buried in a collective grave with Hawter, according to both the headstone and the VA records, but they are not in the CWGC database. Curious.)

Ronald William Scott ( - 1944) doesn't have a photo yet, but I've posted a request for one.

I would love to be able to (re-) take the photos myself to give you consistent quality, but the closest one of those cemeteries is Arlington and I'm 560 km away. Not exactly a day trip.

 

The principal that if individual remains cannot be identified when a number of aircrew from different countries, and the majority are from the US, then they are repatriated to the US, seems to apply here. Like Wingate.


Looking through Hawter's casualty file, it certainly seems to imply that it was a group burial:

http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/imagine.asp?B=1057549&I=1&SE=1

What he was doing with the USAAF 3rd BG I don't know and unfortunately his service file hasn't been digitised.

 

Ah, here we go. From:

vernon mcbroom

and

B-25C "Aurora" Serial Number 41-12792

 

Hamilton's Casualty file has also been digitised but not service file. I'm really intrigued as to why two RAAF men were in a USAAF unit and neither file gives any clues.

http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/imagine.asp?B=1070040&I=1&SE=1

 

I know what you mean.

I live in Melbourne Victoria and the three Canadians I was chasing were buried a long way away in Queensland (2,000 kms), Northern Territory (3,500kms) and Western Australia (4,000kms)

 

Wow, what a great series of posts since I've been here last!

Nope, not Gordon, Spidgeman. Ashamedly, I had not heard of him. Looks like I have a few more visits to do to Karrakatta!

The guy I'm thinking of was WWI. Will check your next post for his name which I'll recognise straight away.​

 

Hugo Throssell was "my" man, Spidge. I see from the link you posted above that he has plaque in Greenmount. That's about 10 minutes drive from home so will investigate further.

There's been some comment on The Great War forum about his grave being quite neglected. I was talking to a lady who is trying to get permission to tidy it up...so far to no avail.

 

Excellent stuff, Doc. Very well done.

My wife has taken an interest in Jacka as she found out he resided (?) where she grew up - the Melbourne suburb of Chelsea.

 

RAAF search team located wreckage & recovered remains in 1945.

If anyone is interested in reading about the RAAF search teams, keep an eye out for The Searchers by Jim Eames. Brilliant reading.

 

[SIZE=-1]www.lighthorse.org.au/Pershist/thossell.htm[/SIZE]

Personal Histories
H.V.H.Throssell VC 1884 - 1933
The only Light Horseman to be awarded a Victoria Cross.



It is hard to comprehend of the thousands of Light Horsemen and supporting mounted units who left these shores between 1915 and 1918, that only one man could be awarded the Commonwealth supreme award for Gallantry - the Victoria Cross - and that, while serving as an infantryman during the Gallipoli campaign.
Second Lt. H.V.H. Throssell was born at Northam, West Australia on 27th October, 1884, from a pioneering West Australian family. Throssell was educated at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide and then returned to farming at Cowcowing, West Australia.
He enlisted in the A.I.F. on the 29th September, 1914 and was posted to the 10th Light Horse Regiment. He had previously served six years in the ranks with the 18th and 10th Regiments Citizen Forces.
Throssell did not embark with his unit, the 10th, but joined it on Gallipoli two days before the fierce fighting at Walkers Ridge early on 7th August.
On that day the 3rd Light Horse Brigade faced the heaviest fire encountered by the A.I.F. when four lines of the 8th and 10th Light Horse regiments charged the Turkish positions at "the Neck". Throssell went over the top with the 4th wave, which had seen three other waves cut to pieces.
Throssell managed to get through the day unscathed.
Throssell was awarded the V.C. for his bravery and devotion to duty in the battle for "Hill 60". Despite his terrible wounds he refused to leave his post to obtain medical assistance until all danger had passed.
In April 1916 he was invalided to Australia and allotted "light duties".
By April 1917 he was back with his unit for the second battle of Gaza; on 19th April his brother Frank was killed in action and Hugo was again wounded. He rejoined the 10th after recovery in December and served with it in the operations which culminated in the capture of Jerusalem. He had been promoted to Captain on 15th August, 1917.
When General Allenby made his formal entry into Jerusalem through the Jaffa Gate, Throssell commanded the Australian detachment of the ceremonial guard.
His A.I.F. appointment was terminated on 13th February 1919. Later that year he married the novelist Katherine Susannah Pritchard - they had one son.
A radical Socialist, he suffered badly after the war and finally committed suicide at his Lazy Hit Ranch, Greenmount on 19th November, 1933 and is buried at the Karrakatta cemetery in Perth.
Throssell's Victoria Cross and other service medals were donated to the people for Nuclear Disarmament in 1984. The Returned Services League purchased the Medals and donated them to the Australian War Memorial, where they are now displayed in the Hall of Valor.

 

American Clayton Kuhles was the first person to document the crashsite of C-109 44-49628, on October 22, 2007, when he found the site in Arunachal Pradesh, near the town of Bishmaknagar. His report on the crashsite is found on his website MIA Recoveries : Locate and Document Missing WWII Aircraft and Pilots. He has filed this report with the US Defense Department's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), which puts highest priority on recovering the remains of Vietnam MIAs, and lowest priority on recovering the remains of World War II MIAs. He confirms the above post giving the names of the crew as 1st Lt. Allen R. Turner, 2nd Lt. Frederick W. Langhorst, Radio-Operator Cpl. Robert L. McAdoo, and Aerial-Engineer Pvt. Joseph I Natvik. According to Clayton's report, this tanker aircraft was flying from Jorhat, India to Hsinching, China when it disappeared.

 

Great first post, Gary!

 

Hi Andy,
A very enlightening discussion of this crashsite is found here:

C-109 Found in India

Gary

 

Welcome Garyz,

Tell us a bit more about yourself in the introduction thread.

 

That's a good insight into what is really going on, Gary. I was not aware of JPAC etc having a preference for Vietnam MIAs over those of WWII and, frankly, the apparent reluctance to make recoveries in India is appalling. Are you aware of any reason why this is the case?

 

Thanks, Spidge...I'm happy to be on board...I just posted an introduction thread.

Gary

 

C-109? Thats a new one for me - anyone got any pictures/ info?

As the website describes it as a Consolidated C109, was it a transport version of the B24?

 

For many years, the Vietnam MIA families have been the best organized, the best funded, and the loudest. So JPAC has devoted most of its admittedly limited resources to recovering Vietnam MIAs. There are groups which claim to advocate for MIAs of all America's recent conflicts, but, in reality, they focus primarily on Vietnam MIAs first, Korean War MIAs next, Cold War MIAs after that, and, last, World War II MIAs. Recently, families of World War II MIAs have gotten more organized, as in the recent formation of World War II Families for Return of the Missing, led by Lisa Phillips of Windham, Maine.

Frankly, the reason for the Defense Department's reluctance to make recoveries in India is a mystery. My family has contacted various officials of the Indian Government (Members of Parliament, retired military officers) about recovering the remains of my uncle and his crewmates from their confirm crashsite in Northeast India, and they have all been extremely cooperative. When questioned, the Pentagon says that the area where the crashsite is located has poor terrain, underdeveloped infrastructure, and is plagued by insurgencies that could endanger American Department of Defense (DoD) personnel. None of those reasons hold water. JPAC routinely sends recovery teams to other regions (e.g., Tibet, New Guinea, Vietnam, Laos) with poor terrain and underdeveloped infrastructure. As far as insurgencies are concerned, the state of Arunachal Pradesh, the site of my uncle's crashsite, does not have any active insurgent movement of its own, although it is true that insurgent movements in neighboring states, such as Assam, sometimes spill over into border regions of Arunachal Pradesh. But even more importantly, while DOD'S JPAC claims that this area is too dangerous to send DoD personnel to, the DoD has in fact been sending DoD personnel to this region for joint training exercises with the Indian military for several years. In fact, these training exercises have occurred in parts of the Indian Northeast far more politically and militarily unstable than Arunachal Pradesh.

 

From the outside the 109 looked virtually the same as the standard B-24 except that the turrets had been removed. This is a good article:

The C-109 and Jack Ryan's Air force.