On Jan 6, 1945, as World War II was raging, William K. Scherer, a 1st Lt. in the US Army Air Corps, was returning from Kunming in China to Chabua in Assam when his aircraft disappeared over Arunachal Pradesh.
The aircraft, which had four crew and nine passengers, was not found. For the Scherer family in New York, there was no closure.
But on December 19, 2021, something unexpected happened on the icy heights of Arunachal. An intrepid researcher and his team stumbled upon metallic parts on a snow-clad mountain at Dapha Bum inside Namdapha National Park/Tiger Reserve.
It was C-46A#42-9621, the very aircraft that carried William Scherer on that fateful day 76 years ago.
Days later, in the first week of Jan 2022, William's son Bill Scherer, a retired police detective in New York, received news about the find; phone calls followed. It was hard to believe but it was true.
Now, Bill is finally relieved and has some hope of performing the last rites of his father.
The man behind the effort is Clayton Kuhles. An independent researcher from the US, Kuhles's non-profit organisation MIA Recoveries, Inc has so far helped family members of at least 27 US soldiers who had gone missing in action during the WW-II, including India.
"It was an extremely difficult expedition," Kuhles said in an email to DH about the aircraft hunt that was launched after Bill reached out to him five years ago.
Kuhles along with tribal hunters belonging to the Lisu community had trekked for eight days before they located the remains of the aircraft at an altitude of 13,000 feet.
"We set up a camp at Dapha Bum after wading across the Dihing and Namdapha rivers. The river depth was chest-deep in some locations, making these river crossings extremely dangerous while carrying heavy packs. My Lisu team members wanted to flee downslope when it started snowing."
The Scherer aircraft was returning from Kunming to Chabua after offloading supplies when it disappeared reportedly due to bad weather.
According to Kuhles, it is not the only one. More than 500 US aircraft and 1,200 personnel reportedly disappeared in the China-Burma-India theatre, of which over 400 personnel are still missing in Northeast India, mainly in Arunachal Pradesh.
The majority of the episodes that led to the disappearance of 400 Americans in India during World War II are believed to have occurred over parts of Arunachal since the main air re-supply route from India to China during the conflict.
Kuhles, however, did not find any human remains in the aircraft but said the "Lisu hunters reported seeing human remains amongst the wreckage during the previous summer".
"Now the family can request the US government to recover the remains," Kuhles said.
For Bill, the discovery of the remains of the aircraft finally ended the suspense of his father.
"We have been eagerly waiting for recovery of the mortal remains for decades now," Bill Scherer told DH in an email.
Kuhles said the crewmen and the passengers who were in the aircraft included: 2nd Lt. Sydney L. Murphy (pilot), 2nd Lt. Delmar K. Brown (co-pilot), Cpl. Alvin P. Palecek (radio operator), Pfc. Edmund T. Murphy (flight clerk) and 1st Lt. William K. Scherer, 2nd Lt. Carl D. Moyes, T/4 Prayor D. Collings, T/4 O. G. Dishman, T/4 Robert F. Sherman, Sgt. Raymond F. Brunner, Sgt. J. V. Dolton, Sgt. Kenneth Hart (all passengers).
Gary Zaetz, president of Families and Supporters of America's Arunachal Missing in Action, told DH on Tuesday that the government of India now has the responsibility to make sure that the crash site is searched and the remains be returned expeditiously to their families in the US.
The details of his mission and the identified aircraft will soon be posted on his website, www.MIArecoveries.org, said Kuhles.
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