Please forgive me for taking so long to file this report on my "Vacation" to the islands of Palau. I could whine about how tired and jet lagged I was after the trip or even fuss that Dan, Cynthia and Tom forced me to go to Las Vegas three days after returning from Palau. But in truth I have written about a dozen versions of this thing trying to capture the wonder of the eleven days in Palau. While I doubt I could EVER do the trip justice, the time has come to just do it and send this out. So with no further ado:

The real adventure of course began well before even arriving at the airport. Like any other remarkable endeavor it went through several phases of being planned and cancelled and finally a trip that was to encompass a team of five explorers and four film team members was whittled down to Dr Scannon traveling alone for ten days to refresh relationships and interview potential witnesses. A far cry from the intended 21 days of hard core searching.

Once Pat's plans were set in stone they once again began to change. CILHI (the US Army Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii) decided it would send a representative to travel with Pat for one or two days to determine if they should send a "Phase One Team".
Short story long I mean long story short: This expedition included Pat and a four person "Phase One Team" from CILHI. The CILHI team had planned on staying five days, they were there for seven.

Seven days before Pat left on his trip Dan contacted me about my joining the trip. "PostStar has to be there!"

Next thing I know I am in Palau.

We have now been working on this project with Pat for one year, what started out as a children's book has grown into a documentary film. Most every weekend has been spent listening to Pat's stories of Palau. We have traveled to meet the veterans of the war on and over Palau and spent hours pouring over books articles and other historical records. You could say we have been obsessed and you would be correct. But all this goes to give you a sense of how it felt to be in Palau.

Now you are starting to get an idea of why it has taken so very long to formulate this report.

After an approach and landing that I am in no hurry to repeat (737's like more runway than that provided by the Koror airport. Besides that the airport isn't located on the island of Koror, it is on the largest island, Baublethaup just north of Koror) Pat kindly picked me up at the airport. As we drove to the hotel on Koror Pat pointed off into the dark "Down that road is where Wallace Kaufman was executed" "Over that ridge is where Cowboy Stout was last seen".... It went on and on. Suddenly I understood what the word haunted really means.

The next morning we left on our first mission. The search for the "Bert Smith" wreck. Smith was the radio man on a TBM Avenger that went in on Nov 10th 1944. Pat found the wreck on November 11th Veterans Day 2001. If that doesn't give you chills then nothing will. I frankly was too stunned and sleep deprived to take in the importance of the moment. Not since I was five years old and waiting up all night for Santa have I had a harder time sleeping for all the excitement. That the final and decisive clue came from an old man repairing his boat just off an idyllic "Gillian's" island adds to the experience. The fact that the clue was: "Yes, just out there on the rocks between here and that other island" only adds to the surrealness of the moment. The family staying on the island invited us to lunch and served up green coconuts to drink from. The strongest image I have of my first day in Palau is that of a young man walking out to our boat (low tide and thus only about 18" deep) to offer us coconuts. Upon our excepting his offering he whacked off the tops of the coconuts with his machete. Palau's version of the welcome wagon:-)