We have all seen them. Those of us looking and those not. They have a powerful elegant line. One VMF 114 veteran describes them as the sexiest machine he ever saw. The Corsair was one of his reasons for joining the Marines. Chicks dug it.

The Corsair was the baddest flying machine of her time. Her gull wings are her most memorable feature but her power was unprecedented. Simply amazing in flight. In the course of Pat's work he discovered 30 minutes of color footage taken by a Corsair pilot (Lt "Smiling" Jack Conger, Executive Officer of VMF 114) on his way to the islands of Palau. Much of this footage is in flight with some actual combat thrown in for good measure. Surely not just the pilots on this list can appreciate the skill it took to fly a two handed airplane while filming, oh and in formation no less. Yes occasionally Conger was lead man but more often than not he was second trail, filming the entire time...

What does this have to do with the trip? It is one thing to see a beautiful airplane in flight, or to find a hunk of landing gear and disassociate the image of a once beautiful aircraft from a crash site. It is another to stand next to the wreckage of a nearly intact yet tore to bits Corsair. The name of Pat's web page and our documentary is "The Bent Prop Project". The Corsair in question went in under power as evidenced by her bent prop. She is spread over an area greater than a football field in dense jungle.

I still hadn't recovered from the previous days of driving the "roads" of Baublethaup when we headed back to the island by boat. The bad news was the waters were far from calm and the boat ride closely resembled the car ride in terms of smoothness. Flat bottomed boats have their own special way of handling rough seas. Things got smoother when we hooked up with Lazarus our guide for the day.

You should know that we (Pat, myself, Clem, the CILHI Team of four, Joe and his crewmate Ernan who would stay with the boat) were on a 35 foot dive boat. Laz was in a 12 foot put-put that appeared in eminent danger of sinking. We headed up the mouth of a river and watched the mangroves slowly close in to the point where the engine was idled and we were propelled by the guys pushing and pulling at the trees that threatened to block our path. It is at this point that I was assured that there are salt water crocks in the mangroves. Still bummed to tell you that I didn't see a one. NOT ONE! Bah humbug.

Our trusty dive boat made it to the point known as "The old Japanese Bridge" and the end of the line for her. We then embarked in a shuttle mission four at a time in Laz's boat. In this little boat we traveled another ten to fifteen minutes up the river until the river became a creek at which point we were left as Laz headed back for the others.

Once our group was whole again we headed off to the site of "The ridge Corsair" as she has hitherto been known. The last thing I want to do is bore you with details. How do I make this short? We hiked for an hour and forty minutes through the jungle. Can't tell you how many creeks we forded nor what was rain and what was just the breeze blowing water from leaves. We walked along a road the Japanese dug out complete with bombed out Ford trucks in revetments and small caves to either side. Within fifteen minutes of starting out on our little "hike" we were drenched and caked in mud. There were hidden sink holes waiting to snap a femur and vines to snag an innocent ankle. I could go on and on and still not cover every element of the trek. Laz was barefoot and Joe wore dive booties.

So click your heals together and we are there, on site. The ridge corsair. A place Pat had found (With Laz's help of course) and filmed the year before. I had seen the footage and read all of Pat's notes. You guessed it, nothing comes close to being there.

The reason for the return was several fold but most importantly for CILHI to determine if it was a combat or operational loss and if there are remains present. Also to determine which (whose) Corsair it was. Pat had found a partial Bu Number but was unable to confirm it via the abysmal (it's my report and I can put in my editorial comments if I want to) records left behind.

I can reveal that the return mission was a success and it appears that Pat and the CILHI Team were able to identify the aircraft. I'll send out a note when it is confirmed and ready to be released for public consumption.

The return to the "put in" point seemed to only take about half the time it took to get to the Corsair site. From there it was back to our boat and I can honestly report that Coke-a-Cola and Oreos never tasted so good! We departed early enough for Laz to go about his normal business of hunting fruit bats for soup...
but that is another story all together!