I'm a fifty-three year old American living in Cary, North Carolina, married, with two sons and two daughters. I've always been fascinated by the history of World War II -- my father served in the Marshall Islands as a Navy Seabee, and was on Kwajalein Atoll when it was bombed by the Japanese. My uncle Irwin ("Zipper") was a B-24 navigator who served with General Claire Chennault's 14th Air Force in China until his aircraft disappeared over the Hump in 1944, en route from Kunming to Chabua, Assam. Some of my favorite books and films have been about World War II: "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "The Longest Day", "Twelve O'Clock High", and "The Guns of Navarone", for example. In my spare time, I'm reading Churchill's history "The Second World War". But, apart from my work, most of my time these days is taken up with getting the US Defense Department to send a recovery mission to my uncle's crash site in Arunachal Pradesh. The crash site was discovered a whole year ago by a private American investigator, but the US Government has done nothing to get a recovery mission underway, giving the surviving relatives all sorts of flimsy excuses for its inaction. Anyway, I'm very happy to be a member of this forum, and hope to contribute to the discussions in any small way I can.
Welcome on board - sounds like you come with some useful resources! But we welcome enthusiastic beginners as well.
Welcome Gary. Yep, we're certainly a happy bunch. We can even sound intelligent! Hope you enjoy it here and I wish you every success in returning your Uncle home.
Welcome Cary hope you enjoy your time with us. Governments are keen to send people overseas not keen on bringing them back once they're found. It took a long time to get the Australian Govt. to become interested in bringing our MIA's back from Vietnam but they've been shamed into it and are now actively involved. Good luck getting your uncle home seeing it's election time over there perhaps some timely advertising can obtain some action. Rod
Welcome Gary, Glad to have you on board. An interesting association with ww2. I have been to Majuro in the Marshall's quite a few times in my travel's around the Pacific and think your dad would have enjoyed his time there. Cary, I know was the birthplace of Walter Hines Page who as US ambassador to Great Britain, was most likely responsible for bringing the United States into WW1. Look forward to your posts. How did you come across this forum? Cheers Geoff
Hi Geoff, I didn't know that about Walter Hines Page..But I knew that Cary's most important landmark is the Page-Walker Hotel, which is located on Ambassador Loop, not surprisingly. It's interesting how I came across this forum. I was doing a Google search on "Arunachal Pradesh", the Indian state where my uncle's B-24 crashed, and I got a hit on the post made by Andy in West Oz about the B-24 wreckage found in the Lower Dibang District of Arunachal Pradesh. I knew that wasn't my uncle's plane, because my uncle's plane had crashed in the East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
Many, many thanks to everyone for your extremely warm welcome ! I know I'm going to enjoy the discussions.
We started this forum to be different to others and include details on many forgotten or ignored parts of different theatres, pre during and post ww2. Seems to be working. Welcome aboard again.
