[Josh Gates] Tonight, the search
for missing World War II heroes continues.
February 1944, if you're here,
you'd probably be running for cover.
That's when the US launched a major carrier-borne attack.
[Josh] On a group of remote Pacific Islands,
an eyewitness reveals buried secrets.
[Mason] After they tied them, he heard the explosion.
[explosion]
The men were dead.
[Josh] Our team explores in the jungle.
There could be bones, dog tags, anything.
[beeping]
Hey, guys, come here.
Look at this.
And we scan the ocean floor.
-[Mark] Wow. -[Josh] That's a plane,
for sure.
To find those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
My name is Josh Gates.
Hello.
Explorer...
Here goes nothing.
Adventurer...
Woo-hoo-hoo!
Oh, that's a long way down.
And a guy who ends up
in some very strange situations.
I'm alive for now.
With a degree in archeology
and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the earth
investigating the greatest legends
in history.
Ready to rock and roll.
This is Expedition Unknown.
[Dan] Collected a lot of data.
That's the big question. You got data?
Yeah. Good data. It looks really clean.
Okay. So what's in it?
-That's a plane. -[woman] It looks a lot like a plane.
That's a plane, for sure, right?
Could this be the plane that we're looking for here?
[Dan] It's in the right area.
We are in the right spot
and we can dive that.
We can dive that tomorrow.
[Josh] I'm in Chuuk, Micronesia,
reviewing sonar data with Project Recover.
A group of scientists and historians
dedicated to finding missing American servicemen.
And their current mission is daunting.
In the middle of the vast Pacific,
more than 3,600 miles west of Hawaii
sits the islands of Chuuk
once known as Truk Lagoon.
This remote atoll shelters 16 islands
and more than 800 square miles of water,
an area the size of Rhode Island.
During World War II,
Truk was Japan's biggest naval base
in the Pacific,
with five airfields
defending as many as 1,000 ships.
It was their Pearl Harbor in more ways than one.
To defeat imperial Japan,
we first needed to neutralize Truk.
In February of 1944,
the US Navy launched Operation Hailstone.
One of the largest aircraft carrier task forces
ever assembled
descended on Truk Lagoon
and our war planes obliterated
the island stronghold.
-[gunshots] -[explosion]
[Josh] But 200 American airmen
paid the ultimate price.
And 42 of their planes are still lost
somewhere in the lagoon.
[gunshots]
Eight decades later
and no American plane wreck has ever been found here,
which is why this sonar hit is so exciting.
So whatever that is,
nobody's been down there to look at it?
Not in 80 years.
Wow.
That's awesome.
[rain pattering]
[thunder rumbling]
[Josh] The next day, we take to the stormy waters
to investigate the coordinates
of the target.
Leading the charge
is Project Recover co-founder
Mark Moline,
as well as lead historian
Colin Colbourn,
and archeologist, Dan Davis.
We motor out 14 miles
from Project Recover's makeshift headquarters
on the island of Weno
to the strait between the islands
of Udot and Fana Panges.
[Josh] How we looking?
I think we're getting close.
That's good. I was worried about getting wet.
[thunder rumbles]
It's a soggy ride,
but it will take more than a little rain
to deter our efforts.
Ooh, it's coming in.
Nobody said it was gonna be easy or dry.
As to the identity
of the plane-shaped sonar hit we're chasing,
we may have a clue.
Previously, a local tipped us off
to a family story
that a downed airman washed ashore
on nearby Fana Panges Island
shortly after Operation Hailstone.
So your grandfather was able to protect this guy.
What about a name?
What did your grandfather call him?
The name of the airman was Frederick.
-Frederick. Oh, my God. -Is there a Frederick?
-Yes, there is definitely a Frederick. -[Josh] There is?
-Among the missing? -Oh, yes.
[Colin] It's actually... It's an Avenger.
It's a three-crewmen torpedo bomber.
So that means that in this strait
between these two islands,
there may be an Avenger and two crewmen?
Our subsequent sonar scan of the area
revealed the undeniable signature
of a plane.
If it is an Avenger,
then Frederick's crew,
Radioman Stanley S. Stump
and Pilot Newton B. Burkes
may still be inside.
[thunder rumbling]
Now, we need to position ourselves
exactly over the coordinates of the target
to investigate with our own eyes.
There we go, 300 feet.
[Josh] The team readies a shot line,
a weighted rope that will guide us
down to the wreck.
[Dan] 50,
40,
30, 30 feet,
20.
Throw it.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Colin] Okay. Here we go, guys. Are you ready?
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] The object sits in over 100 feet of water,
so we'll need to find it quickly
to avoid risking decompression sickness,
a potentially deadly condition
caused by a buildup of nitrogen,
which can emerge as bubbles in the bloodstream.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
The wreck is inverted,
but the preservation is stunning.
Despite resting upside down on the sea floor,
she almost looks like she could take off.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Engines are like fingerprints
that can help ID
the make and model of a plane.
We just need to look beneath the protective engine cover.
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] The TBM Avenger engine
has 14-cylinders radiating outward
like spokes on a wheel,
but so do other planes that saw action in Hailstone,
including the American F4F Hellcat
and the Japanese Zero.
We continue to look for identifying features
working our way down the fuselage.
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
But what I don't see tells us more.
There's only room here for one seat.
This was the cockpit of a fighter,
not a larger three-man torpedo bomber.
We can rule out Frederick's Avenger,
but this mystery plane is still a major discovery.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
This is a solemn site
to be treated with deep respect.
We move around the plane carefully
to not disturb any of the wreckage,
which is frozen in time.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
-[Mark speaking] -[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
A picture of the crash
begins to emerge.
The pilot likely taking heavy fire,
tried to slow the plane just before impact.
And as each new forensic detail comes into focus,
so does the identity of the mystery craft.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
A flared machine gun sounds like it could be Japanese.
Over.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
The Type 99 machine gun on the wing
with its signature flared barrel
is conclusive.
There is no question
that this is a Mitsubishi A6M Zero.
The Zero was the preeminent fighter plane
at the beginning of the war.
A lethal machine feared
for its range and maneuverability.
Seventy-nine Zeros were among the Japanese force
that attacked Pearl Harbor.
With this wreck now IDed and photographed,
we make our way topside.
[tense music playing]
Woo! Really incredible, huh?
-I mean, amazing. -That was... That was amazing.
-[Josh] Stunning. -Yeah.
-To just see an entire plane... -[Mark] Yeah.
-...just laid out like that. -[Mark] It was beautiful.
-Yeah. It was. -It really was.
Eerie, but beautiful.
Nobody has seen that.
Yeah, until us.
-[Josh] Yeah. -Yeah. Amazing.
It just shows you how much there is in this lagoon
that's still undiscovered.
-[Mark] Yeah, -Absolutely,
another piece of the puzzle.
We will deliver all of our data
on the newly discovered Zero
to the Japanese embassy.
They may be able to identify the pilot
and recover any remains.
The airmen inside was our enemy,
but he was also a soldier
who made the ultimate sacrifice
for his nation.
And one who may have family seeking closure.
The next morning, I'm back on the water
to continue the search for MIAs
with Project Recover Historian, Colin Colbourn,
Archeologist, Dan Davis,
and local investigator, Mason Fritz.
But today's mission is a bit different.
We're going to be heading over to Tonoas.
And in World War II, the island was called Dublon.
And what was Dublon's function during the war?
It was the headquarters of the Japanese fleet.
It was the administration center.
There were multiple hospitals on the island.
It was the center of gravity for the Japanese
in World War II.
What are we looking for there?
So we're looking for American POWs
who were executed on Dublon during World War II.
[Josh] After the war, US investigators heard rumors
of POWs being killed on Dublon,
but they couldn't elicit a single statement from anyone
about wrongdoing on the island.
That is until we sent
a Korean-American sailor undercover.
His name was Da Young Park,
and he exposed harrowing stories
of torture and executions
of American prisoners.
Behind these shocking crimes was Hiroshi Iwanami,
the commanding officer in charge
of the military hospital on Dublon.
Thanks to the intel Park uncovered,
Iwanami was tried and convicted of war crimes
in 1949.
Any idea how many Americans were killed on this island?
Investigators after the war added it up to 23 Americans.
-That have never been found? -That have never been found.
We don't know their names,
but they were executed on this island.
How do we figure out where these POWs were executed
or where they're buried?
Well, Josh, I found an eyewitness.
-You found an eyewitness? -Yes.
-A living eyewitness? -Yes.
[Mason] Well, Josh, I found an eyewitness.
-You found an eyewitness? -Yes.
-A living eyewitness? -Yes.
[Josh] I'm in Truk Lagoon in Micronesia
working with the team from Project Recover
as they hunt down information
that could lead to the lost location
of executed American POWs
on the island of Tonoas, once known as Dublon.
But to hear a story from an actual eyewitness
alive during World War II,
we need to begin halfway across the atoll
on the small island known as Eten.
Today deeply overgrown,
only an old Japanese dock jutting out of the jungle
hints at what was once here.
[Colin] Josh, I wanna show you something here.
Take a look at what's under your feet.
[Josh] Concrete?
[Colin] Here, all over this island.
-This was all concrete? -This was all concrete.
[Josh] Today it looks like pure wilderness,
but there's a reason
this corner of the island
is so squared off.
It was terraformed.
Eighty years ago,
the Japanese turned Eten
into an aircraft carrier shaped island
with nearly every square inch coated in concrete.
Is there any infrastructure left
or just the remains of the runway?
-Oh, no, there's still some here. -Okay.
It's a little ways away. Well, I'll take you to it.
Yeah. Let's see what's here.
You know, when the Japanese were here,
there wasn't a tree on the island.
-Literally? -Not one tree.
Wow.
In terms of POWs,
some captured soldiers were brought and processed here.
And while it may seem that nothing remains,
Eten still hides its secrets.
What is this?
The Japanese got bombed almost every single day.
So they had to find a safe way to move around.
-Tunnels? -Tunnels inside the mountain.
You got a light?
-Of course, you do. -[Colin] After you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, here we go.
Wow.
How far back does this go?
Josh, there's a maze of these tunnels
all throughout the mountain.
[Josh] Eerily preserved as though Japanese troops just left,
it is a claustrophobic and miserably hot labyrinth.
Okay. We got a junction.
-Left? -I think it's right.
Well, as long as you think, then that's good.
We emerge near an eerie
and massive concrete fortress.
This is crazy.
Yeah. Josh, this is the radio communication center.
This is the air traffic control
for Truk Lagoon.
[Josh] This building was the nerve center
of the Japanese operation in Truk,
which is why its walls
are four feet thick in some places.
Evidence of Operation Hailstone's bombing campaign
can be seen everywhere you look.
Prisoners of war that were processed through Eten Island
weren't kept here, though.
There was another destiny for them.
We return to the boat
and follow the trail of the POWs
across the lagoon,
past dangerously shallow reefs.
Our destination is another island
known today as Tonoas,
where an eyewitness may be able to identify a site
where American POWs were executed.
Josh, that's Tonoas right there.
-Right ahead of us? -[Dan] That's it.
[Josh] Okay. That is an imposing looking island.
From afar, it looks
like the kind of place King Kong would call home.
But up close, Tonoas reveals herself.
Dotted with simple structures,
the island is home to a few thousand people
making new lives amidst the remnants of war.
Some villagers live in old Japanese barracks.
Even the bell at the local church
is a recycled cannon.
[bell tolls]
We hike inland
and soon spine-tingling ruins come into view.
Amidst the ghostly buildings are stairs to nowhere
and the foundations of an old hospital.
And it's here that we meet Seichi Konik,
who witnessed the horrors of war firsthand.
-Hello. -Josh, I want you
-to meet Seichi. -Seichi.
-[Mason] Yeah. -Very nice to meet you.
[Mason] He's a witness
to the killing of the Americans here in this area.
Seichi, you must have been very, very young
during the war, yes?
[both speaking native language]
[in English] Yes. I was six years old.
Can he describe what he saw here?
[speaking native language]
-[Mason in English] Yeah. -[continues in native language]
[Mason in English] He saw an American plane shot down.
The pilots bailed out of it,
parachuted out,
and they could see the plane went all the way out
and landed somewhere out on the reef.
[speaking native language]
[in English] Yeah. They were brought to the naval hospital here.
And so what ultimately happened to them?
[speaking native language]
-[in English] They were killed. -They were killed.
And where did that happen, do you remember?
[speaking native language]
-[in English] Yeah. It's up in the hill. -Can he take us there?
-[speaking native language] -[in English] Yes.
[Josh] Seichi leads us through the sweltering jungle
to an area behind the ruined hospital grounds.
While his steps may be slow,
he never wavers in where he's going.
[Mason] Right in this area.
This is the spot?
Yes, this is the place.
Tell us exactly what you saw,
what you heard, what happened here?
[speaking native language]
[Mason in English] They brought them walking over
and then they tie 'em up.
After they tie them,
he left walking down the road,
he heard the explosion.
When you say explosion, do you mean gunfire?
[both speaking native language]
[in English] Yeah. He's sure
it's an explosion of a dynamite.
The men were dynamited?
Yes, they did.
Wow.
It is an act of unimaginable horror.
The American airmen were bound,
marched behind the hospital,
and forced to their knees
as the Japanese soldiers rigged the explosives.
[dramatic music playing]
[dynamite explodes]
[dramatic music playing]
Hearing the detonation,
six-year-old Seichi returned
to a traumatic scene of carnage
he would never forget.
So when he came up the hill,
the men were dead.
They just went
and buried them right in this area right here.
-[Josh] Right on this site? -Yeah.
[Josh] Despite covering their tracks
by disposing of the dead,
after the war, the truth emerged.
Nineteen soldiers were convicted of war crimes
committed in Truk,
Surgeon Captain Hiroshi Iwanami,
who ran the hospital,
received the death penalty
for ordering this
and other sadistic experiments.
So, Seichi, can you show us exactly where that happened,
where you saw the men sitting,
and then where they might have dug a hole?
[both speaking native language]
[in English] Yes. He remember that
it was next to that mango tree
because that mango tree was already there.
About in here?
[speaking native language]
[Mason in English] Yes, in this area.
Seichi, thank you very much.
[Josh speaking native language]
[speaking native language]
[in English] You're welcome.
[Josh] Mason helps Seichi home
while we prepare to search
for any evidence of the executed airmen.
Dan and Colin prepare a test pit
at the foot of the mango tree Seichi pointed out,
they start by gridding out the area
and then we dig.
How far down do you think you need to go?
Well, the war crimes trials revealed
that they were digging pits
three to four feet deep or deeper.
[Josh] Yikes. There could be...
-[Dan] Yup. -...anything around here, you know.
There could be bones,
uniform buttons, dog tags,
anything, I guess, scattered around here.
Exactly right.
[Josh] While Colin and Dan expand the test pit,
I start scanning the surrounding area
with a metal detector.
[metal detector beeping]
[Josh] I got a hit in here.
Strong hit in here.
[suspenseful music playing]
[metal detector beeping]
Thin, thin sheet of metal.
I mean, this could be part of a roof, anything, right?
Yeah, I'd say so.
[Josh] As the pit slowly grows,
my metal detector keeps sounding off.
[metal detector beeping]
[Josh] Ooh. Something there.
[intense music playing]
[metal detector beeping]
Strong hit here.
Hey, guys, you need any AA batteries?
[Colin laughs]
[Josh] Soon I might actually need a new battery
because with every sweep, we find more metal.
-[metal detector beeping] -[Josh] Okay. I got a hit here.
-Yup. Something. -[metal detector beeping]
Standby.
[metal detector beeping]
It's just like there's tiny pieces of metal in the soil.
There's almost like scrap metal everywhere here.
You think about all the troops that were here,
all the activity, the movement here,
I mean, it could be from anything.
Still we press on in the jungle heat,
hoping for some evidence of the POWs
who perished here.
[tense music playing]
[metal detector beeps]
What is that?
Hey, guys.
Oh, my...
Guys.
Hey, guys, come here.
-Look at this. -Oh.
[Josh] It's burned.
[intense music playing]
-[Josh] Look at this. -Oh.
[chuckles]
It's burned.
Old, old machete.
Handle, which would have been wood is completely rotted out.
[Dan] Yeah.
[Josh] But that,
that is really cool. Look at that.
That is an artifact of the war.
[Josh] We're investigating the ruins
of a Japanese naval hospital on the island of Tonoas,
where a local witnessed the brutal execution
of two American POWs...
by dynamite.
You could really imagine this being connected
to this site back in World War II.
This could be from a Japanese soldier.
That's kind of spooky, just seeing that, isn't it?
[Dan] It's haunting in the sense that we're finding
a long-edge weapon at an execution site.
Right. I keep thinking about these two guys.
The fact that their story is
almost vanished into thin air.
It's just this tiny thread of this eyewitness who...
who's kind of brought some attention to this place
that we're standing, which otherwise would have
just been totally reclaimed by the jungle.
This project is about memory.
This is about keeping those memories alive.
We don't know the names of these guys,
but they died here in service to our country.
And we have to keep looking for 'em.
[Josh] That's right.
[dramatic music playing]
We continue searching until late in the day,
and then we head back to the boat
to steam to Project Recover's headquarters.
Today was a powerful reminder that sharing
these stories is what this mission is really about,
so that our nation's heroes are not forgotten.
The next day, we're back on the water.
In 2019, Project Recover conducted their first search
for American MIAs in Truk Lagoon
using sonar-equipped AUVs
or Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.
They mapped the seafloor
between several islands in the lagoon.
But then, the pandemic hit
and Micronesia was put on COVID lockdown.
Now, we're finishing the work they started.
We've already investigated two targets.
We discovered an anchor, likely cut
from a fleeing Japanese ship
and a mooring buoy.
Now, we turn our attention
to two additional targets.
This is the first target we're gonna go through.
-And you can see the shadows? -Yeah, for sure.
[Mark] This definitely looks manmade.
It has very distinct angles to it.
And the whole pile's about 30 feet,
so, it's a... It's a big chunk of something.
-Something significant. -[Mark] Yeah.
That could be part of a plane.
Whatever it is, it's deep.
Resting at 150 feet,
our bottom time will be limited to about
four minutes before we risk decompression sickness.
It's therefore essential that we find it quickly.
We carefully position the boat
exactly on top of the coordinates.
Throw it.
[water splashes]
[intense music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[tense music playing]
[Josh speaking]
Divers, topside, what do you see? Over.
[Josh speaking]
The target is clearly manmade,
but is it aviation?
With just two minutes of bottom time remaining,
we have to make the ID fast.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
Divers, topside, look Japanese to you or modern? Over.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
We've discovered and photographed an undocumented wreck
that likely sank during Hailstone.
Another lost piece of history
that can be added to the map.
Out of bottom time, we swim back
toward the surface where we'll move on
to our next target.
[dramatic music playing]
The final sonar hit we haven't yet investigated
turns out to be one that Project Recover
has a high degree of confidence in.
Hey, Josh, we have one final target
we need to interrogate.
And what's special about this target?
We think it's a plane.
-[Josh] You do? -Yeah.
But your hope is that it's American?
[Mark] Yeah. We don't know much about it.
So, we... We're gonna go down and fully document it,
do photogrammetry on it,
and collect as much information
on that site as we can.
So, for folks who don't know photogrammetry,
basically you're gonna take a huge amount of photos
-high resolution that you can stitch together. -[Colin] Yeah.
So, hopefully, if we can get more data, we can put
the pieces together and figure out
-which aircraft this is. -[Josh] Okay.
-[Mark] Yeah. -Let's dive it.
-[Mark] Let's do it. -[Colin] All right.
All right. Come on.
We make our way to the coordinates
and deploy the shot line.
If we can positively identify the plane
as American, it would be historic.
The first US wreck
ever found in Truk Lagoon.
[water splashes]
[intense music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] There are 42 missing American planes
in the lagoon. The question is,
could this twisted pile of metal be one of them?
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] The debris field is littered with metal.
Most of it pancaked to the ocean floor,
except for one telltale object.
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] The Hamilton Standard propeller
had three bolts securing each blade.
It is a designed fingerprint
that allows us to ID our suspect.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Eight decades after World War II,
we just located an American plane wreck,
the first ever found in Truk Lagoon.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] It's a historic discovery.
Now, we need to gather as much information
as we can to determine which missing plane
this is and who was in it.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] The puzzle pieces are starting
to come together.
We're looking at an American dive bomber,
but which one?
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] The Douglas SBD Dauntless
was the main US carrier bomber
for most of World War II.
Famous for delivering one of the most devastating
defeats in military history
at the Battle of Midway.
Its successor, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver,
was faster but harder to handle.
Over 7,000 Helldivers were built,
yet there is only one left on earth that flies.
The question is, which plane is in front of us?
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Which leads to a sobering realization.
The pilot and crew may also still be inside.
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
This wreck is a war grave,
the final resting place of American soldiers.
This is hallowed ground.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Mark slowly circles the wreck,
snapping hundreds and hundreds of photos.
We surface and head back
to Project Recover headquarters.
We know this is an American plane,
one of 42 lost in combat here.
Now, the question is, which one?
-[Mark] Hey, Josh. -[Josh] Hey.
Okay. How do we do on the photogrammetry?
We spent some time on it
and I think you're gonna be amazed.
-We got some really good stuff. -[Josh] Really?
-Yeah. -Okay. Take me through it.
-What do we got? -We took over 2,000 photos
-to put this thing together. -Okay.
So, this is individual photos that are then stitched
to give us a perspective of the entire site.
And what you end up with
-is a picture like this. -[Josh] Wow. Look at that.
You can see the entire wreck.
[Mark] The entire wreck.
It gives us a much wider view of this
certainly than I had down there diving around
and I didn't even see
some of these outlying pieces of debris.
[Colin] Yeah. And we can even now dial down
into the anatomy of the crash itself.
The thing I guess to me that jumps out right away
is just the complete and total destruction here.
[Colin] Yeah. And what's striking about this photo,
Josh, how far off the seafloor
-is that aircraft? -It's pancaked on the bottom.
[Colin] That's right. It is barely coming off of the seafloor.
This must have been a really dramatic crash.
Yeah, that's right. This is an aircraft
that hit the water at extremely high speeds.
Right.
Taking the forensic analysis a step further,
the steep angle of descent at high speed
suggests that this plane didn't just crash,
it was shot down.
And the thousands of photographs we took
not only enable us to see the full scope
of the wreck site, they also reveal
minute details that help identify the plane.
So, when we talk about really pressing down into the anatomy
of this, what do we see in the photogrammetry?
What jumps out at a granular level?
-[Mark] Here's the rudder. -[Josh] Yes.
I do remember seeing this down there...
-[Mark] Yeah. -...laying in the sand.
And take a look at this from a manual.
[Josh] So, this diagram is from what aircraft?
An SBD Dauntless.
That is an almost perfect match.
[Mark] Yeah.
Well, we have another part here.
This is the elevator torque tubes.
[Josh] So, you see these kind of cross pieces here
are the same as these two here.
[Mark] Exactly.
This is the landing gear strut
with the shock absorber,
which is you'll see right here.
[Josh] Mmm-hmm. And we saw those
-perforated air brakes, right? -[Mark] That's right.
[Josh] Which were both under the wings
and under the belly of the plane.
[Mark] That's from the manual.
[Colin] Exactly the same.
Your confidence that
this is an American aircraft is?
100%.
Yeah. That... That's exactly what this is.
This is a SBD-5 Dauntless.
[Josh] Armed to the teeth with four machineguns
and more than 2,000 pounds of bombs,
the Dauntless is credited with 138 aerial victories
and sank more than 18 enemy warships
and six carriers.
In short, the plane is an absolute legend
of World War II.
So, if we now know this is a Dauntless,
and obviously we know where it is...
-Mmm-hmm. -...now what?
I've been doing a lot of research, of course,
on all the aircraft that crashed here,
and there are two Dauntlesses that crashed
into the lagoon, and one of them
had a crash profile that looked very similar to this.
[Josh] Wait, you're telling me you know who was flying that plane?
I have a confidence of 100%.
-Wow. No doubt? -[Mark] No doubt.
[Josh] With an average year-round temperature
of 81 degrees, no one in this part
of the Pacific dreams of a white Christmas.
Instead, they dream of a holiday splashdown.
[intense music playing]
In 1952, the US military
started a tradition here
known as Operation Christmas Drop.
Boxes packed with toys and clothes
are loaded onto C-130 transport planes...
Go!
...and parachuted to remote islands
throughout Micronesia.
It's the longest running humanitarian airlift in the world.
Ho, ho, ho,
and Merry Chuuk-mas.
So, if we now know this is a Dauntless, now what?
There are two Dauntlesses that crashed into the lagoon,
and one of them had a crash profile
that looked very similar to this.
[Josh] Project Recover has just identified
a Dauntless dive bomber,
the first American World War II wreck
ever found in Truk Lagoon.
And Colin may have identified its crew.
-[Josh] Okay. -And I have a document
that I found that I'd like to show you.
[Josh] Okay. So, this is an account from who?
This is an account from David J. Cawley.
He was the backseat gunner on another Dauntless
in the same squadron.
And so, Cawley says in this account,
"We dropped low over the water
and we're taken under fire by a rusty hulk
of an old cargo ship or tanker.
It was covered with anti-aircraft and machineguns
and they were all firing at us."
And at this point, this squadron is probably
dive-bombing on the Heian Maru.
That's right. Those two main ships
in the area were the Heian Maru
and the Tonan Maru No. 3.
[Josh] "I spotted one of our SBDs, the Dauntless,
about a half mile behind us
still in his vertical dive,
and he dove almost vertically into the water.
As our planes joined up, we soon figured out
that it was Donald Dean and J.J. McGorry.
I have always thought that they were hit by AA,
anti-aircraft fire, just before pullout."
Yeah.
[intense music playing]
This guy is describing
another Dauntless just behind them
in this area in a vertical dive.
So, we have their names here.
Donald Dean and J.J. McGorry.
Gunner J.J. McGorry and Pilot Donald Dean
were members of the VB-10 Bombing Squadron
stationed on the USS Enterprise.
Dean was a quarterback in college and father
of a newborn that he never got a chance to meet.
They flew dive-bombing missions
in the Marshall Islands and two successful missions
in Operation Hailstone before they were shot down.
Not only are we now able to tell more of their story,
but Project Recover's efforts
may finally bring them home.
This is invaluable
for the next phase of MIA recovery.
The detail of this photo will be analyzed.
They have an image of the entire site
at such high resolution that you can actually dive
into the picture without even being there.
This becomes a tool then for figuring out
how to plan and ultimately extract
maybe remains from the wreck in the future.
-[Mark] Exactly. -Right.
And once those remains
are recovered, what happens?
-They'll be brought back home. -They'll be brought back home.
With honors.
-With honors. -[Colin] Yeah.
So, when we started this,
there were 42 missing American planes
here in Truk Lagoon.
Now, there's 41,
and the first American aircraft
ever located in Truk Lagoon, we can check it off the list.
I'm so touched and humbled
to have been able to be here to document this
to play just a small role in what you do.
It's extraordinary work.
Leads to this.
Well, thank you for having me out here.
-I really appreciate it. -No, thank you, Josh.
-You guys are awesome. -I appreciate it.
Keep up the amazing work and, uh...
here's to these guys and to...
And to many more to be found soon.
And brought home.
[Josh] On the main island in Chuuk,
there is a memorial to the thousands of Japanese
who died here during the war,
but there's no memorial
to the Americans who perished until now.
We worked with the entire Project Recover team
to have one made and presented in a ceremony
with the Lieutenant Governor.
I wanna thank Josh and Expedition Unknown.
It's because of your team
that we are able to actually do this.
So, I really wanna extend a warm thank you
to you for helping do this.
So, without further ado.
[applause]
So, the plaque reads,
"In remembrance of over 200 United States servicemen
who made the ultimate sacrifice on
and around the islands of Truk Lagoon in World War II,
today known as Chuuk,
the Federated States of Micronesia."
[applause]
And it cites a passage
from the poem by Laurence Binyon,
"For The Fallen."
"They that shall not grow old,
as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning,
we will remember them."
♪ Although I never met you ♪
♪ You mean so much to me ♪
♪ My service was To serve you ♪
♪ You and your family ♪
♪ To ensure your sacrifice ♪
♪ Goes down in history ♪
♪ And I feel so unworthy ♪
♪ But I'm here To tell your story ♪
♪ You are not forgotten ♪
♪ This I promise you ♪
♪ I'll never let you go ♪
♪ Your story only grows ♪
♪ Whoa, whoa ♪
♪ You are not forgotten ♪
♪ I'll let everybody know ♪
♪ About your legacy ♪
♪ And what you mean to me ♪
♪ Always remember You're not forgotten ♪