RPM, FF, TGT…The East New Britain Project – Part 2
Gillespie wrote, addressed to me, on 7th July 1997:
Dear Mr. Billings,
Your name and fax number were given to me by Mr. Andre Malo of Pratt & Whitney in Singapore. As an aviation historian and the executive director of a non-profit archaeological foundation, I have offered to help Pratt & Whitney’s home office in East Hartford, Connecticut to evaluate possible evidence concerning the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. I am very familiar with the Earhart case.
Mr. Malo tells me that you are investigating a story about an engine seen in the jungle of New Britain. I wonder if this is the engine seen in 1945 by then-corporal Donald A. Angwin of Perth, Australia. According to Mr. Malo, the engine supposedly had a tag on it inscribed “600h.p. S3H1 cn1055” Is this correct? If so, what is the source of this information?
I’d appreciate any assistance you might be able to provide in helping us to evaluate this intriguing story. A fax would be fine, but if you prefer to email… etc
Very truly yours
RG.
I replied in a “cannot confirm or deny” mode. There then, was laid the foundation of the sometime(s) intense deriding by Gillespie and his acolytes of the East New Britain Project which began in 2004.
In one breath in Feb 1996, Gillespie dismisses the Jungle Wasp, but as soon as he finds out in 1997 that the full bottle of the cryptic message is 600 HP S3H1 C/N1055, he is immediately interested, finds it “intriguing” and contacts me but none of this reaches his members and followers.
It is to be noted that normally under all circumstances where mention of Earhart, Noonan, Electra, P & W Wasp or anything to do with the loss appears in the Media, it is picked up by TIGHAR and appears in the Forum quick smart. Not so though, in regard to Donald Angwin’s contact to Gillespie in 1990, or the Andre Malo confiding to TIGHAR about the S3H1 and the 1945 find which was then made known to Gillespie again in 1997. Not until my first website appeared in 2004 did the East New Britain Project make it on the TIGHAR Forum. In 2004 Gillespie had to admit he had known about the project but had never told his members and followers. That total time span is 14 years or 7 years if you count the defining of the engine as an S3H1 Wasp…
After that time in 2004, the ENB Project has been derided and sneered at by TIGHAR Forum posters, all allowed by Gillespie. The worst period was when the Veterans were basically accused by some on that forum of being liars. Gillespie allowed that too. It was incredible, even the Priest had a go.
What became of my letter to the P & W President at Big Pratts ? You may have already guessed. Gillespie’s FAX to me gives the clue… I received a letter back from a minion at P & W telling me that my Confidential letter had been forwarded to Richard Gillespie of TIGHAR and that he, as an expert, had said that it was not possible that the engine could have come from the Electra. So, the Big Pratts had given Gillespie all the information I had told them in a Confidential letter. He had not mentioned any of this to his members and in respect to that, you have to ask “Why” ?
Is it any wonder then, why I write what I hope are somewhat humorous posts on websites which often take the mickey out of the TIGHAR Scientific Methodology, the Preposterous Preponderance of a Collection of “non-evidence” or draw cartoons highlighting the idiocy separating the Fact from Fiction of “the World’s most foremost aviation archaeology site” which has not recovered one single solitary historic aircraft while flowing ten million under the bridge ?
Is it any wonder why Monty Fowler writes a very informative and succinct, descriptive piece giving an insider’s view of a non-profit organisation which seems to be from his perspective, more involved with profit than it should be. His view is the view of a man who had followed TIGHAR for eighteen years and had dropped “checks” like confetti into the TIGHAR till and who is now so very disillusioned as to write a treatise condemning the organisation he believed in. The light went on and I tip my hat to Monty.
Is it any wonder why “chucked-off and abused” former members of TIGHAR start their own forum website and in return throw brickbats and stormy vitriol at Gillespie and his antics ? It is no wonder at all.
Therefore, after reading this, readers of this epistle can judge for themselves if I am obsessed or if I am following my nose in trying to solve the biggest and longest running Aviation Mystery or if I am squandering my time and mostly my own money on a “bit of evidence” likened to a Rorschach blob ?
RPM, FF, TGT…The East New Britain Project – Part 1
Yes, that is my project and it is the only Electra search project that has J Boyles “one bit of evidence”. It is one bit of evidence written on a map edge and it is believed to be a true bit of evidence “by me” and a few other people involved with the project. It is me who drives the project and it is me who has, in the main committed to the project and it is me who has spent the most time and money to try to re-locate an aircraft wreck seen in 1945 which is basically a square peg in a round hole as a P & W Wasp powered aircraft should “not be” where it is….
I originally set out in my spare time whilst employed in Papua New Guinea to identify a couple of aircraft of WWII origin which I had heard about from pilots of helicopters who had been on task near to villages and had been told of wrecks nearby. The first wreck I went to was at 10,500 feet in the Finnesterre Range above the village of Tauta. The second was on top of a low hill near Yalu village outside of Lae. Both were B-24’s. Note that I did not say “find” these wrecks. I would say that 99% of the missing WWII aircraft in PNG are found by local people and a very big percentage of these are found by logging company personnel as rainforest is brought down. There is an awful amount of rainforest which is disappearing in PNG.
Why did I do this ? I did it out of a feeling for fellow “aircrew” as I was very nearly a casualty in the category of “lost aircrew” myself when I went down into trees in North Borneo while on board a helicopter as a Flight Engineer Crewman in 1967. I had trained on and flown in four-engined transports as an F/E only to find myself and a whole bunch of other Flight Engineers on four-engines, posted onto helicopters during a little “Police Action” in Borneo called Confrontation during the time “Malaysia” was created..
When I read a newspaper article in December 1993 about the “possibility” that Earhart’s Electra may have been seen by a WWII Australian Army Patrol in the Jungle of East New Britain in April 1945, I made some enquiries and eventually made contact with the small Veterans group of four surviving Vets from the patrol who had brought their recollections to life in the early 90’s. One Vet knew that the aircraft engine that had been seen, had been reported to the U.S. Army and that the U.S. Army had replied to the report by saying that the engine they had seen was a “Wasp” engine and that it did not belong to the U.S. Army Air Force. There was also a recollection that the reply had said that the parent aircraft to which the engine had belonged ‘could be’ a Lockheed as Lockheed were big users of Wasp engines.
How the “Wasp engine seen in the jungle” became the possibility that it could be from the missing Electra was because one veteran had been watching an Earhart documentary on TV in 1990 and had heard that Earhart’s still missing Electra was powered by Wasp engines and that Earhart was last seen leaving Lae, in New Guinea, now Papua New Guinea. That point was the start of the Project. Early research was done by that one veteran out of interest and at that time, there was no aircraft seen, only an engine seen and there was no map, no paper of any kind.
That Veteran was Donald Angwin who had become a successful businessman in later life and was an honest and very likeable person. In 1990, Don wrote to Richard Gillespie with his sincere thoughts and in his words to me, Don told me that he received back a “rude and arrogant” dismissive letter from Gillespie and he wanted nothing more to do with that person.
I joined the Project out of interest in early 1994 and that was the year that the detail on a WWII tactical map came to light and we then had the Patrol references which tied in to the Vets and the one standout piece of writing: “Ref: 600 H.P. S3H1 C/N1055”, written in indelible pencil on the map lower border. This was writing which had been hidden under old crinkly masking tape as the edges if the map had been folded in to make the map, when then folded twice, fit an Australian Army mapcase. How the map managed to exist was at the hands of a veteran who had been the Company Clerk during WWII and who had plucked it from a pile of discarded equipment at the end of the war to have as a keepsake, a memento. The pile of discarded equipment was intended to be burnt along with the map in a map case.
1994 was also the year that the Patrol Leader, Lieutenant Ken Backhouse confirmed that the aircraft was also on site covered over by vines and tree debris. The aircraft itself was a twin-engined aircraft, was all-metal and was unpainted and had no military insignia on the fuselage. The visual descriptions of the detached engine and nacelle and the aircraft itself did fit with the appearance of the Electra. The early appraisal of the “Ref:” on the map was now backed up and the “possibility” was getting much better.
In 1995 we went in twice and on the second visit I took in a PR guy from the PNG Museum in Port Moresby named John Rei. In front of me the Director of the museum swore John Rei to secrecy about the project but after we came out of the Jungle it did not stop Rei from “spilling the beans” to Gillespie for I have a copy of a fax sent by Gillespie on February 20, 1996, in reply to Rei in which Gillespie says (and note the “We”): “We are of course, familiar with Corporal Angwin’s story and agree with you that whatever he saw in the bush was certainly not part of Earhart’s aircraft”. He goes on to say to Rei that he would like Rei to try and “corroborate” the story of “the aerial loss at LAE which he is sure happened because of examination of take-off film” (that would be by Glickman, I suppose). So, therein is proof that Rei ratted to Gillespie about the Project and Gillespie says he knows about the Angwin find of a Wasp.
I had joined Air Niugini in 1992 and as part if my duties I visited Singapore many times in the years after that until I left Air Niugini in 2002. During one visit to Singapore in 1997, I visited the Pratt & Whitney Field Office and spoke to the Representatives there in order to find out if the S3H1 Wasp was rated at 600 Horsepower as I could only find references to 550 Horsepower. The two P & W Reps. could not tell me as they were both “jet men” and had not worked on Wasps. They asked why the enquiry and I told them of the “possibility”. They suggested that I write to Pratt & Whitney at “Big Pratts” at Hartford Connecticut. Hartford is the Executive HQ of P & W and I wrote to the then President. My letter was headed “Confidential”.
Unknown to me, one of the P & W Field Reps., named Andre Malo, contacted Gillespie and informed him of my visit to his office and the detail “600 H.P. S3H1 C/N 1055” that we had on the WWII Map edge. Gillespie made contact with me by sending a FAX to Air Niugini Head Office in Port Moresby and this fax filtered down to the Engineering Office in a company mail envelope and Gillespie introduced himself as the Executive Director etc., etc., and he wanted to know if the S3H1 Wasp that I had spoken of to Andre Malo was the same Wasp that Corporal Donald Angwin had informed him of, back in 1990 (?). Remembering Don’s words that he wanted nothing more to do with Gillespie, here was that man who had been described to me as “rude and arrogant” and who had sent a dismissive letter to Don and who was now enquiring, ”with interest”, if the S3H1 information we had was the same engine that had been reported to him in 1990.
Continued…
RPM, FF, TGT…Oh, that Meeting… WOW !
Och Aye ! … Reminds me of the film title “Great Expectations”…..’Twas that meeting where the big moolah coulda, shoulda, woulda have been expected but which never eventuated and which seemed to all hinge on “The Bevington Object”, the indistinct blob on a photo, which in the end could not be proven as a Mainwheel and which some saw as the stern of a skiff.
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…Money sent but no Product
Monty: “I agree that TIGHAR’s method for publishing books is odd, but it is not unheard of. At least in the case of Finding Amelia, a book was published in part with member’s assistance.”
Yes, authors do receive an “advance” from a publisher but only when the publisher has assessed the subject of the book and has estimated sales success. Advances of over $1M are not unheard of for red hot titles but in this case, where is the interest in the Lockheed Electra 10E ? The interest is only in a hand-full of enthusiasts worldwide who are interested in the association between the 10E and Earhart and Noonan… If the subject of a book is good enough and a film deal follows then the author nominates what he/she wants for the rights to the story as told…money is paid for the story which then gets varied by Hollywood into something more fantastic which ruins it…. TIGHAR alone only “boasts” of 1200 or so members, a number which former insiders to the “pay to post club” dispute. Look how many paid members post on Tighar even now after the disastrous decision of “Pay to Post”… there are a couple of posts a week at most yet the TIGHAR Leader states his site is the foremost site in the world. What a joke that is. Threads on Key about Earhart do not generally last longer than five minutes so there is not a terrific amount of interest in the U.K. and Europe so advance book sales expectations for a book about the 10E are not exactly sparkling and yet the TIGHAR Leader wants money in advance to write a book with little prospects of success outside of a small enclave of “fans”.
Monty: “Not so the case with the promised Niku VIII video. That was to be a first for TIGHAR, an in-house video of the expedition so the organization wouldn’t have to give up most of the profits to media rights. To help make it happen, they offered the Your Name Up In Lights campaign, where everyone who contributed at least $49 would get a copy of the video and their name listed in the credits. No one knows how many people pledged to help, or how much money was eventually raised – Gillespie hasn’t released specifics.”
The principle of trying to hold onto the “rights” is a good one. The expected “find” of the Electra did not materialise so there became “no subject matter” for a video except people getting sunburned….. There could be a case there that the TIGHAR Board are responsible for garnering all monies put forward for expected productions (videos or books) and placing it into a Solicitor’s hands for safe keeping “escrow” until actually needed for the promised product and drawn down according to need. If I pay up front for something to be delivered to my doorstep there are laws which protect me from non-delivery and I will get my money back unless there is a case of abject bankruptcy, then I most probably will not. Surely there are laws in the United States that protect Customers in that way. I have read that some TIGHAR Members who paid into the second “Literary Guild” did ask for their money back when the book title changed to the Electra 10E and after a bit of time passed through negotiations, they succeeded.
Monty: “The video has never happened. Other than saying in January 2016 it is “indefinitely delayed,” Gillespie refuses to discuss it. It has now been, what, two-and-a-half years since Niku VIII? TIGHAR made a promise, hasn’t kept it, has no schedule to keep it, and is keeping the money in the meantime.”
Individuals or a Class of individuals should then ask for their money back. If money went “in” and there is a record of same, going out, through a bank, it is accountable. As this sum is $49 and since it was asked for and received there will have been a large turnover of TIGHAR Members through the revolving door so my best guess there would be that ex-Members, “They who, verily, have seen the light”, will just write off the $49 as a bad experience.
Regards,
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…WAIT ! More funding is required… !
The TIGHAR leader is writing what is hoped to be the definitive book on the Lockheed Electra 10E, but has faced many delays in use of the quill, due to other commitments involved with agreements and other “stuff” about projects in the previous year. The latest post this year states that how quickly the much needed concluding Chapters of the book get written depends on more fundraising…. the theory put forward earlier in the piece was that no fundraising by the leader for the vital projects (White Bird, Devastator, P-38, Amelia and Glenn Miller) can be done if the scribe has to write “the” book, therefore fundraising is required to enable the writing of the book.
After trying to understand the logic of that, I now realise that the TIGHAR Leader wants to be earning from fundraising for writing his book before it is accepted for publishing. Have I got that right or can anyone see a differing picture ? If the leader is short on time, why not go back to working 80 hours a week again, like he used to…. ?
Regards,
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…TIGHAR Salary
J Boyle says:
“So looking at that, it does not appear salary cuts are consistent with the amount of revenue decreases…as it might if they were set by a fixed percentage (or commission).”
Weel, I guess that’s what you get when you are allowed to order up your own remuneration…quote: [“We tell the Board what TIGHAR can afford to pay us”] unquote. 174K out of 251K is 69.3% [70% to all intents and purposes]… So you are correct, the figures do not lie……and never will.
As Monty Fowler has said the life style of a country gentleman, squire, laird, gamekeeper ‘et al’ or just plain swashbuckling, horse-riding, sabre-wielding buccaneer and so on, seems to be enjoyed and there is a hat on a peg for every occasion ranging from tricorn hats to pith helmets….!!! There will be a large mirror involved in all of that somewhere.
Regards,
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…The Lean and Good Years….
Hi Monty,
So what appears in your graph is that Dear Leader compensates for the lean years by porking (Sorry, pigs !) in the good years, is that it ? So what happened to boost revenue in the porking years of 2001, 2012 and 2015 which really hit the whistle ? Where did the Mellon Million fit into those years ? Surely the TIGHAR Board would be able to see through the mist of the lean years , if they knew that on average (according to your graph) that the leaner years 2002-2012 had only returned a paltry 34,000 per year average over that 10 year span, so what’s wrong with that…. Were they able to buy new cars with that or what ? Can a Mom and Pop live (“eat”), in America, on US$34,000 a year with 4 horses to support ? Doesn’t leave much left to pay for the farm does it ?
“Gotta be a ‘nuther angle….”
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…The Leaders cut from Revenue
Yea, there was a change of accountant IIRC…. After adding up all the revenue that goes into TIGHAR over a ten year period and then totalling what Dear Leader pays himself I reached a figure of 26.7% as the “entitlement” or in his words “what TIGHAR can afford” to pay him. There seems not to be any control of this figure by the TIGHAR Board which surely would be dereliction of duty by the Board. You only have to read the responses that two Board Members gave at the Mellon Court Case to see that they were clueless on the subject. Seemed more of a “Boy’s Own Club” than a properly run ORG.
What next is the question ? If I recall what was said when Dear Leader moved to PA from Delaware, the arrangement with what was named “Lochaber Farm” was a lease for five years and then the property was to be paid out and then it became fully owned. The expectation at the time was that the Electra was going to be found and all would be hunky-dory. That didn’t quite work so “ACME Removals” may be needed again shortly…!
Maybe the hope now is finding Glenn Miller’s unheard song sheets !
Regards,
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…What happened to J Boyles post ?
J Boyle posted after #29….Whidego ? J Boyle affirmed that US Residents are terrified of IRS Audits…. Is that still correct JB ?
Rgds,
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…TIGHAR versus The IRS ?
Sabrejet asks: “But how long before someone brings a case against Gillespie? There must be some evidence of taking money under false pretences?”
Already been done… Under one of the links posted by J Boyle (at post #26 above), you will find depositions and witness statements from the Court Case where one donor to TIGHAR (involving $1 M) took TIGHAR to court. The donor named Mr. Mellon also sent a complaint to the IRS (also viewable in the link)….. Nothing has happened as yet. Hence my comment in a post above where i said I had always thought Americans were terrified of an audit by The IRS… maybe the fear of the IRS is a Myth after all.
At about the time of the Court Case being sprung by Mr. Mellon, a video appeared on YouTube under “Lochaber Equestrian”. Lochaber is a place in Scotland where Gillespie’s family originally come from and his “leased farm” in Pa. is named “Lochaber Farm” as described by Monty Fowler in the Tell All…. The video is called “Saber Drill ” and can be viewed at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrdioloWiu0&list=UUjqX8Jp73dDR8XqzqaIYu6Q&index=12
The connotation that may be drawn, between the target in the video “Saber Drill” and the nominee plaintiff in the Court Case, is amazing….! Happy viewing…. There is also a Flintlock Pistol display to be seen which is somewhat enlightening…. “I like his collection of hats…. he has a thing about hats !”
Regards,
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…TIGHAR and AVIATION MYSTERIES
J Boyle says:
“Interesting stuff.(in regard to TIGHAR’s finances and the latest expose…)
It should be noted that The group has not disputed anything posted on the Aviation Mysteries forum on this topic.”
Nor will He/They respond. Usually there appears a roundabout way of attempting to deflate criticism, usually done by the chief acolyte.
On the Aviation Mysteries there are two former Moderators, from the TIGHAR Forum, one who criticised the statement that the “Pelvic bone remnant is from Earhart” because the person’s Medical Training in the U.S. Forces told him the Dr. Hoodless sketch and dimensions were “Male” and the second because of the “Aluminum patch ” which he had been showed proof that it could not be from the Electra even though he had promoted it as such to start with… this led to disagreement with “You know who” and he resigned.
Both of these persons know what goes on within TIGHAR. TIGHAR May whine a bit and if it becomes too much to bear advice from a lawyer will be sought… Modus Operandi No. 1. That happened at WIX, when the thread “Is tighar still at it ?” got too much to bear… and was on the ball. “AM” has quite a lot of ex-TIGHAR Members, most of whom (Like Monty Fowler) left in disgust.
Regards,
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…The TIGHAR Shell Game
TIGHAR in full flight was a never ending Shell Game…. you would never, ever, find the pea. Looks to be right now though, that the shells might be broken and the pea permanently lost. Monty Fowlers “tell it like it is” has been known to a lot of people for a long time but it takes guts to come out and say you have dropped $50,000 on the Tighar Scientific Methodology shell game only to find that it was all a bunch of crap. Monty left them some time back when the light bulb went on.
Disagreement with the TIGHAR Leader has always only had one pathway and that was towards the door. Paying Members have been denigrated in public, had their Log-ins cancelled and “moderation ” applied until they gave up in disgust.
Other former members have just bitten their lips, taken the pain and mainly stayed silent, except for a few on another “Mystery” Forum. I have been reading the TIGHAR Forum since 1994 and what has really, really, surprised me out of this whole fiasco is that I have always thought Americans were terrified of the United States Internal Revenue Service…. and here we have a perfect example in TIGHAR where the IRS should be interested in this “Non-profit” organisation but nothing has happened.
Of late, since TiGHAR made it compulsory to be a paying member in order to “post”on the Forum, weeks go by without any posts at all as if the organisation is mummified, maybe it is. Certainly, it looks as if the search for Earhart , Noonan and the Electra has dropped off in favour of the Glenn Miller attempt at gaining funds and members. Surely an act of desperation
Fowler’s expose says it all. Well done…
RPM…
RPM, FF, TGT…Deleted (duplicated0
RPM, FF, TGT…plough:
Yes, given the time on site. What we were doing was orienting where we were and I had Waypoints on my GPS from previous visits and from set points to mark the search ‘squares’. I identified where the search area started and as you probably know, GPS is accurate to around 30 Metres depending in where the Satellites are switched in alignment… as they belong to people beyond my control… in the least.
What we have had to navigate in there have been very accurate SAT pictures which have an Adobe Acrobat base which is tied into Latitude and longitude. So I can look at a SAT pic and run the mouse over the picture and obtain a Lat/Long on the screen which I can log into my hand held GPS as a Waypoint. The system is very accurate. I even have a 1943 Aerial Photo taken by a Lockheed F-4 [P-38] of the area which can produce the Lat/Longs in the same manner. That photo from 1943 taken by the USAAF F-4 PR aircraft was the basis for the 1943 Map which was used by the Australian AIF patrol “A1” in April 1945 and is the map which has the “600 H/P S3H1 C/N 1055” written on it.
The ridgeline we saw of late did not look anything like I remember from 1996 or from 2011 or from 2012…. time and vegetation growth seemed to have gone mad but the GPS was telling me that I was there in the same place where I was in 1996 and 2011 and 2012. So. we were correct to the area and I could recognise the curve in the bulldozer track and the start of the NW line going up the ridgeline. I just needed more time on site. Some areas were done but not enough. before we had to pull out.
The over-riding factor in this last trip was the need to get back over the Mevelo River and to get the funding group on their way… which in a way capped the “T” so to speak.
The vehicles performed splendidly, virtually swam through mud, forded a tough river and got us back but we can’t use vehicles again until more bridges are in place so we are back to “More Funding”, to pay for Helicopter rides which really are very expensive and carry less versus the vehicles. A dilemma if you like.
Regards,
David
RPM, FF, TGT…
http://www.earhartsearchpng.com
RPM, FF, TGT…Searching for the Electra
The date is November 19th 1967, near Kota Belud , Sabah, North Borneo…..
“Confrontation” had ended, but the Royal Air Force and British Army presence remained in Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah just in case anything further was to come out of Indonesia. Malaysia was a fact and had to be protected.
Whirlwind XP358, the Gnome engine dead, descended into a very small clearing on the side of a hill and chopped the trees down on the fringe of the clearing before it hit the ground with an almighty thud. The whirlwind lost its’ tailboom, chopped off in the landing and the rotor blades were left as stubs.
I assessed that if I had not seen the tiny clearing, slightly lower than the helicopter and out at 2 o’clock, 200 yards away, there would have been no other choice but for XP358 to go into very large trees somewhere below us.
Put simply, I most probably would have been killed if we had gone into the bigger trees in the jungle below. From that day onwards I wondered that if that had happened, who would have come looking for me ?
That thought stayed with me and also the thought that there were hundreds of aircrew who were missing and who had never been found. I thought that if ever i got the chance to do something about that, then I would do it.
Fast Forward to 1988
Twenty years later I was working in Papua New Guinea and a company pilot was telling me that he had been to a remote village and the local people told him of a large aircraft on top of a hill above the village that had been seen by some trekkers but which had not been identified.
A few weeks later a team I organised jumped out of a helicopter from a few feet off the ground into a small clearing on a sharp ridgeline at 10,500 feet and after two attempts we were able to locate the reported wreck and identify it as a B-24 Liberator from WWII missing since 1944. It was the Drewelow Crew, 10 men in all. A short time later CILHI went in and recovered the remains and they were buried at Arlington about ten years later after the identification process. There was another one reported near Yalu village outside of LAE, that I went to, but I could find no identification on that one as it had blown up on hitting the top of a 2000 foot hill possibly on approach to Nadzab in bad weather….
Shortly after that, I left PNG for Australia, not expecting to return. I did return in 1992, to work for Air Niugini and remained there for ten years. In 1993, while on leave and back in Australia. my lady friend (now my wife) was reading the Brisbane Courier Mail newspaper. This was an exceptional occurrence as she never, ever, to my knowledge picked up a newspaper. I would buy one and within a day after my reading of it, it would be thrown out. It was close to Christmas, 1993. My lady friend knew of my previous search exploits in PNG and she nudged me and said, “Look at this, this is right up your alley !” What she showed me was a one inch high, two column by-line with a small photo of Earhart in the flapping flying helmet. What it said was: “…it is a possibility that Earhart’s missing Electra aircraft is in Papua New Guinea …”.
So began a 23 year odyssey and for that, I blame my wife.
Plough:
We did try again but failed.
Regrettably, a few circumstances that happened caused us to have to pull out early.
We decided that we would drive down from Kokopo to Wide Bay on what is euphemistically called “The East New Britain Highway”, which in actuality is a very rough track, two vehicle wide in the most part getting down to one vehicle wide in the latter district of where we wanted to go. Satellite pictures told us the roads were there. There would be one main river to ford provided it was low enough for the Toyota Hilux 4WD vehicles we would hire. An alternative ford site was found on the Satellite pictures but would mean a further fording of another river if we used it. We decided to use vehicles this time because I had been told that the road was open for one reason and secondly, we could take as much gear as we wanted in the vehicles and thirdly, about ten years ago a WWII wreck had been found near to the IP River and we decided we would venture the extra 20 kms from our search area to identify that. In the event we were unable to do that.
The funding group had four people who wanted to be there, plus the six of my team, 10 in all. This required three vehicles for people, bags, rations and equipment. The funding group could only stay for 6 days on site and had to be returned to Kokopo to catch flights out. This meant that two vehicles would require to return to Kokopo, one vehicle would be returned to the hire company and one vehicle would then return for a further week on site. We would go back in the remaining two vehicles after a further week on site.
The Hilux will take a lot of punishment but the roads dictated a speed of around 20 kms per hour over the terrible rough tracks and half way into the journey there was a complete washout of the road and it was a sea of mud with ruts 500mm deep as a minimum, but the Hilux coped with that. One main river was crossed (SAMBEI River No. 2) and then the second which we found had been bridged. We had met a local in a Landcruiser who knew a better road and we followed . When we got to the turn-off we were supposed to take we found the track was completely overgrown which then forced us to take the road to the Mevelo river and we had seen from the Satellite pictures that a bridge was being constructed over this quite large river. We had never planned to go to the Mevelo River.
On arrival at the Mevelo all hopes of a bridge to drive over were dashed. Sometime previous, obviously in a time of flood, the supports for the bridge had shifted and the roadway over the bridge had fallen into the river. We were then faced with a decision as to whether to attempt to ford the Mevelo or turn back. Fortunately I had seen a Landcruiser exit the track from the river and sure enough there were the wet tracks from his wheels as he left the ford. Now it was up to the Hilux again. We did successfully ford this river even though one vehicle had water onto the bonnet for a short period. I have great respect for the Hilux. Fording it meant that we would also have to go back over it again to get out and so this river, in particular, changed the whole concept of the operation of the expedition. We had to ford it when it was at the same height or less, the water had been over the wheels and on the bonnet of one of the vehicles during the ford. If it rained and the river rose, we would be stuck on the south side, unable to get back to Kokopo.
We camped on a river bank and prepared to go into the Jungle the next day. Overnight it rained. We went into the bush and climbed up to the ridgeline the next day in the afternoon to locate our search area and found that the bulldozer track I had been on in 1996 and of late in 2012 had almost disappeared and was now a maze of vines, felled trees and tree roots where water pools gathered making the former track completely overgrown and a sea of mud. It rained a little while we were in there. Overnight, from 12 midnight until 3 am there was a tremendous electrical storm, lightning, rolling thunder and lashing rain. We could not go into the jungle for a day as it would be too slippery and dangerous. Instead we cleaned up the camp and rested. We climbed the hill the next day and did sweeps of the ground with the metal detectors and dug up in a few places where the detectors had sounded off. On the Sunday we went in again and searched with the detectors in more areas with no result. It rained heavily again while we were in there.
Meanwhile while we were in the search area one team member was collecting lengths of 125mm round tree branches that would fit into the Hilux Trays of the three Hilux vehicles. It was anticipated that we would need those logs for ballast when we forded the Mevelo and we would need to carry these logs to put down into the ruts of the “mudslide” stretch we had got through when we returned on the way back to Kokopo. We assessed the Mevelo River Ford and it seemed to be slightly lower than before.
In the event, it was decided to end the Expedition and return to Kokopo the Next day, Monday 12th June. This decision was forced on us by the circumstances and was unavoidable. The U.S. Team had to get back on their scheduled day and the vehicles crossing the Mevelo River at the ford were the biggest worry for the entire team. If the road we had intended to use had been open, we could have got out at any time with the vehicles but the road was completely overgrown.
I retrospect, helicopter access is the only way to get into the search area at present and will remain so until the road improves and until bridges over the rivers are built.
Yes, we did need the logs at the mudslide as when we reached it some ruts were 900 mm deep. With the rightside Hilux wheels in the rut filled with logs and the other left side wheels on the center buildup we got through.
So, it is not for the want of trying…… Oh, by the way, June is supposed to be the “drier” month….
Regards,
David Billings
RPM, FF, TGT…
http://www.electrasearchpng.com
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