Welcome to the Lost Clipper blog post
On Monday, April 8th, I had the honor and privilege of speaking about the Hawaii Clipper to the Northern Virginia Chapter of the American Aviation Historical Society at the Smithsonian Udvar Hazy Museum. The time “flew” by but I think we had some excellent discussions about the mystery and the status of my research.
Thank you again to my new-found colleagues and I hope to see you all again soon!
A postcard from the past. Thanks everyone for your offers of help and information. I received this from a dear friend and it just keeps me engaged in this story.
Maybe, just maybe, this is how the local Chuukese saw the clipper arrive July 30, 1938?
I am tipping my hat today to the Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum today for their top-notch support for the Hawaii Clipper effort. I had the pleasure of learning more about the production of the M-130 only yards from where it all happened and was given copies of some of the best preserved images I have come across in the past decade.
Thank you gentlemen for your efforts, your passion and your kindness. Anyone reading this who happens to be near Baltimore should spend a little while and visit “tucked-away” treasure. It has the distinction of being the oldest airport in the world (yes, it’s true) and the home of the worlds first commuter airline.
On the left you see the Hawaii Clipper: X14714 during her early sea / air worthiness trials at the Martin Baltimore plant on November 30th, 1934. Interestingly for me, this was also the birthdate of my late father so it adds an interesting connection for me. Look foreword to even more upcoming imagery that was literally rescued from garbage dumpsters by the museum to come back to life on my blog. This photo is posted with the permission of the museum and any other posting or copying of the image is forbidden without the express consent of the Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum charity organization.
Hello Friends,
As we all turn the page from 2012 to 2013, I would like to first thank you for your constant support and belief in this project. I am most humbled by your kindness and generosity in helping to solve this long lost mystery. Together, we will actually fulfill that ambition this year. In the meantime, here is a short video to show our progress.
Warm regards,
Guy
To read in higher detail and better resolution, double click the image and then click again when you see the “+” sign.
While finishing off a new chapter In the upcoming Lost Clipper book, I sat back and reflected about what it must have been like for the US Army personal manning the rails of the USAT Meigs (yes, this was an Army cargo transport ship, not a US Navy vessel) and smelling the noxious vapors coming off the water at dusk.
Taken off course en-route to Honolulu from Manila, it was dispatched to search for the vanished Pan Am Hawaii Clipper. Around 5:10pm local time (1:10am PST), it spotted an approximated 1500 foot oil slick at Latitude 12.1 North – Longitude 130.33 East. As soon as she was on station, a small boat was lowered to retrieve samples of the “thick” slick (a mix of lubricating oils and fuel) and test. The ship kept a vigil on the oil thru the night firing flares at fifteen minute intervals and checking for debris with search lights. Much later int he evening with choppy seas, the patch slowly dissipated into the ocean current. Soon there after both samples (kept apart) were analyzed and any connection to the Hawaii Clipper was ruled out due to the nature of the fuel (was not aviation petroleum).
Lost Hawaiian Clipper Found
The Meigs was not alone. The Navy had dispatched the USS Penguin from Guam and other vessels and aircraft to locate any sign of debris or survivors. But then, an odd message was sent out from a very unlikely source; an Imperial Japanese Navy Cargo vessel, the IJN Canberra Maru. Allegedly the message was either misunderstood, mistranslated or was changed however something made the ship report “something” when it arrived at Douglas Reef.
USAT Meigs & IJN Canberra Maru
Was something really spotted, perhaps an M-130 painted in Japanese colors while sitting out a storm, or was it nothing but a flat reef? Whatever it was, the story was changed and the rest was history.
Speaking of history, fate was not kind to either the Meigs or the Canberra Maru as both were sunk by each others dive bombers in 1942.
In the end, nearly a week had passed by since the initial loss of the clipper and a possible sighting, which may figure into a timeline of landing the flying boat at Truk Lagoon, offloading its passengers and crew, disguising the clipper and then flying it to Japan for reverse engineering (so the legend goes).
But only if it is the right depth, width, length and age.. THEN, yes, a lovely thing. In seeking these surprisingly many objects of my affection, I enlist the help of local guides, translators and helpers to navigate me in and around the islands with safety and ease.
Bill and friends help in the search for the elusive Lost Clipper
On my second journey, I had the luck of covering multiple islands from the air, the land and sea. More to come!
A Chuukese warrior from the island of Weno
A Needle in a haystack? Yes, please! But no, I got the worse-case scenario of a rusty bent needle in a hayfield that hasn’t been harvested in over seventy years. How do I say “Ugh” in Chuukese? BTW, if you went “huh??” with the word Chuukese, the definition is as follows: Ahem…
Chuukese (also called Trukese) is a Trukic language of the Austronesian language family spoken primarily on the islands of Chuuk in the Caroline Islands of Micronesia as well as on the on the islands of Pohnpei and Guam. Estimates place the number of speakers at about 45,000 including second-language speakers. Chuukese has the unusual feature of permitting word-initial geminate (double) consonants.
So, if you happen to speak Chuukese, please feel free to add or correct the above. Mr. Wikipedia and I would be most grateful. Now back to that needle… hmm, where did I put that… hmmm, oh yes.
I don’t know where it is.. yet! You see, the needle is the location of the fifteen passengers and crew of the Hawaii Clipper, lost presumably at sea on July 29, 1938. Do I buy this? No, not with my money and not even with yours. For the past decade, I have become more and more convinced Martin M-130 flying boat did not meet its end in the deep waters of the South Pacific but rather on the shores of Japan. The proof is finding those remains in the hayfield that is Tonoas Island, which has been over growing with jungle for what seems like a bah-zillion years. Lucky for me and the lost souls are some excellent folks that have been working with me behind the scenes. Armed with tenacity, patience and a few pre-WW2 maps with ground penetrating radar, we have been steadily eliminating places where they could be… to places they most definitely are not. The good thing is that we have crossed may of those places off the map.. the bad is that there are still plenty left.
A Japanese Hospital on the island of Dublon / Tonoas prior to WWII
So, with wild abandon, I will return to these wondrous islands and once again take up my Scythe. However this time, I know where I need to go and how I will finally (gulp) clear away the ages of growth and experience a revelation and bring a close to this very tragic story.
For illustration, the images shown here are a sample of locations visited, checked with maps, historical records, cross references with village elders and plotted on GPS / World War II era Japanese, British and American maps.
To this effort, I will be looking at crossing the rest of the cement slabs that have been evaluated to be of the proper age, size and location if the lore and eye-witness accounts are true. I have no genuine reason to believe they are false so the only way to really know is to return and begin the hay-hacken.
What a nice surprise to find the only remaining JRS-1 on the planet in front of me. This particular aircraft was serving in the US Navy at Pearl Harbor and escaped being destroyed by the attack.
This type of aircraft flown as the civilian version was known as the S-43, a “Baby Clipper” used by Pan Am Airways and others for short haul missions to Cuba, Latin America, the inter-Hawaiian islands and other short hops. It was smaller than the S-42 and could accommodate up to 25 passengers however during its military service, carried depth charges and some cargo. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the ten undamaged JRS-1′s were launched in an effort to locate any enemy submarines or ships near Oahu. Initially not armed, the first missions included riflemen positioned on board near open windows and doors to shoot potential adversaries in case any were discovered. Later, these ten JRS-1 craft were armed with depth charges, one under each wing that could more effectively attack Japanese submarines. Thank you Smithsonian for being such an important part of saving our aviation heritage!
