The George 1
Repatriation Project
“Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be.”
Repatriation Project
“Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be.”
Admiral Gary Roughead - US Navy - Chief of Naval Operations -
August 2009
OUR MISSION
“…the support of our veterans is a sacred trust…we need to serve them as they have served us… that means bringing home all our POWs and MIAs,” those who have “…given this country the full measure of their devotion" Barack Obama - President - Memorial Day May 25th 2009
“…the support of our veterans is a sacred trust…we need to serve them as they have served us… that means bringing home all our POWs and MIAs,” those who have “…given this country the full measure of their devotion" Barack Obama - President - Memorial Day May 25th 2009
Interview with Richard Lopez, Eugene (Gene) Litz, (US Navy ret.) and Lou Sapienza
24 October 2007 - ABC Channel 7 News - Washington - DC
The George 1 Repatriation Project
The Return of 3 US Navy Air Crewman from an Antarctic Grave
The George 1 Repatriation Project was founded by the families of 3 young US Navy servicemen who died when their U.S. Navy Martin Mariner PBM-5 flying boat codenamed George 1 crashed on Antarctica's Thurston Island on December 30, 1946. The George 1 Repatriation Project is committed to the recovery and repatriation of the men’s frozen, well-preserved bodies from a 63-year-old temporary grave before the glacier in which they are entombed falls into the Bellingshausen Sea. The men will be laid to rest with their parents in their hometown cemeteries.
• Ensign Maxwell A. "Val" Lopez, Naval Aviator - Age 20
Newport, Rhode Island
• Chief Petty Officer Wendell "Bud" Hendersin, Aviation Radioman 1st Class - Age 25
Sparta, Wisconsin
• Chief Petty Officer Frederick W. Williams, Aviation Machinist Mate 1st Class - Age 26
Huntingdon, Tennessee
The Return of 3 US Navy Air Crewman from an Antarctic Grave
The George 1 Repatriation Project was founded by the families of 3 young US Navy servicemen who died when their U.S. Navy Martin Mariner PBM-5 flying boat codenamed George 1 crashed on Antarctica's Thurston Island on December 30, 1946. The George 1 Repatriation Project is committed to the recovery and repatriation of the men’s frozen, well-preserved bodies from a 63-year-old temporary grave before the glacier in which they are entombed falls into the Bellingshausen Sea. The men will be laid to rest with their parents in their hometown cemeteries.
• Ensign Maxwell A. "Val" Lopez, Naval Aviator - Age 20
Newport, Rhode Island
• Chief Petty Officer Wendell "Bud" Hendersin, Aviation Radioman 1st Class - Age 25
Sparta, Wisconsin
• Chief Petty Officer Frederick W. Williams, Aviation Machinist Mate 1st Class - Age 26
Huntingdon, Tennessee
The Lopez - Hendersin - Williams Commitment
Broken Promise - Firm Resolve
The Lopez, Hendersin and Williams families remain fervently committed to the homecoming of Val, Bud and Fred.
For nearly 60 years - from 1947 to as late as 2006 - the US Navy promised the families of the George 1 crew that they would bring the men home. In 2006, letters written on behalf of President George W. Bush by James A. Aiken, Navy White House Liaison Director to the families state: “that a recovery may be tangible when safety, logistical, and operational requirements facilitate such a mission. If the safety, logistical, and operational prerequisites allow for such a mission in the future, every effort will be made to bring our Sailors home.” The current plan developed by polar recovery/survival experts, approved by leading Antarctic scientists and comprehensively reviewed by the military's own authority, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), demonstrates that conditions for a safe recovery have been met. An offer to Navy to underwrite the first $200,000 of Phase 1 by JPAC's underscores mission viability. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is a joint task force within the United States Department of Defense (DOD) whose mission is to account for United States military personnel who are listed as Prisoners Of War (POW), or Missing In Action (MIA), from all past wars and conflicts.
Contrary to all the overwhelming evidence, expert scientific opinion, U.S. military policy, US Code, the Fullest Possible Accounting Effort and the tradition of “Leave No Man Behind,” the new Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus inappropriately upheld his predecessor's decision to reverse the Navy's 59-year promise to the families to recover the men before the air crew's well-preserved bodies fall into the sea. The question that haunts the families: "Why, after 59 years of promising to bring the men home, does the Navy, when handed the very items they said they needed to recover the men, reverse their decision, citing incorrect policies while making incorrect analogies to the USS Arizona?"
The Private Expedition
Encouraged by the research and evidence and the JPAC review, the families will pursue a private recovery by the same recovery/survival experts that would have performed the recovery for Navy/JPAC.
The George 1 Repatriation Project will be timed to take full advantage of favorable austral summer weather conditions. A cold weather anthropologist will, with assistance from the George 1 Repatriation Project Team, recover the frozen men’s bodies for transport to the Hickam Field, Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command for positive identification even though the men should be able to be identified by just visual identification due to their their frozen preservation. JPAC’s support of the families and the operation over the past 9 years has been nothing short of stellar in their 2 offers to Navy to undertake the recovery.
US National Guard Reservists and team members will preside as an honor guard over the men's bodies 24/7 from the time that the men arrive at the surface until they arrive at JPAC's Hickam Field, HI identification lab.
The commercial infrastructure to safely undertake a private mission exists. A recovery team could be on Thurston Island in January for Phase 1 of the recovery pending its financing. A private mission is an expensive proposition that will cost up to 5 times what the Navy recovery would be. To help fund the private recovery mission the families have established the Fallen American Veterans Foundation, now in the 501c3 non-profit charitable status filing process. Please see the "Donate" page for more information.
The mission's expert National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Science Foundation (NSF) Antarctic scientists, US Geological Survey (USGS) personnel all concur on the mission's viability. "We owe it to the families. We owe it to the courage of these and all people who wear or who have ever worn the uniform of this country, to return them home to their families and their native soil," says Lou Sapienza, the polar recovery expert, expedition leader and executive director of the families’ George 1 Repatriation Project. "If Navy had said, "Yes" to the JPAC offer, the NSF, with elaborate infrastructure already in place, would have supported the recovery like any other science mission in the Antarctic. Navy/JPAC would only have to reimburse NSF for cost. But a private team cannot use NSF infrastructure unless NSF receives the request from Department of Defense (DoD) or Congress.”
The location of the crash site is known though an ice penetrating radar (IPR) site survey will be necessary to refine the actual location. In 2004 the Navy sent a specially equipped P-3 Orion Submarine Hunter over the area and, using aerial borne IPR, found the crash site where it was expected to be 90 to 150 feet below the accumulating ice and snows of Thurston Island. Jerry Mullins, U.S. Geological Survey Manager of Canadian and Polar Programs and his team plotted the position of the initial crash site using original rescue photographs. According to JPAC the men are well-preserved, cocooned in parachute silk by their crew-mates, frozen by the intense Antarctic cold and buried under the starboard engine nacelle.
Dr. Robert Bindschadler, NASA Chief Scientist, Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center with over 15 Antarctic field missions under his belt, confirms that the bodies are moving in tandem with the wreckage.
The History
In 1946, the fourth and largest ever of Admiral Richard Byrd’s Antarctic expeditions, the US Navy Operation Highjump, was underway to explore Antarctica. It involved 4,700 sailors, 23 aircraft and 13 ships, including an aircraft carrier and submarine. In an unexpected whiteout, the Martin Mariner PBM-5 flying boat “George 1” grazed a ridge line, ruptured a fuel cell, exploded and crashed three seconds later on Antarctica’s Thurston Island during the 1946/47 U.S. Navy classified, hazardous and volunteer-only mission called Operation Highjump. Six crew members survived burying the three men beneath a specific and well-marked area under the starboard leading edge of the large flying boat’s wing.
Broken Promise - Firm Resolve
The Lopez, Hendersin and Williams families remain fervently committed to the homecoming of Val, Bud and Fred.
For nearly 60 years - from 1947 to as late as 2006 - the US Navy promised the families of the George 1 crew that they would bring the men home. In 2006, letters written on behalf of President George W. Bush by James A. Aiken, Navy White House Liaison Director to the families state: “that a recovery may be tangible when safety, logistical, and operational requirements facilitate such a mission. If the safety, logistical, and operational prerequisites allow for such a mission in the future, every effort will be made to bring our Sailors home.” The current plan developed by polar recovery/survival experts, approved by leading Antarctic scientists and comprehensively reviewed by the military's own authority, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), demonstrates that conditions for a safe recovery have been met. An offer to Navy to underwrite the first $200,000 of Phase 1 by JPAC's underscores mission viability. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is a joint task force within the United States Department of Defense (DOD) whose mission is to account for United States military personnel who are listed as Prisoners Of War (POW), or Missing In Action (MIA), from all past wars and conflicts.
Contrary to all the overwhelming evidence, expert scientific opinion, U.S. military policy, US Code, the Fullest Possible Accounting Effort and the tradition of “Leave No Man Behind,” the new Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus inappropriately upheld his predecessor's decision to reverse the Navy's 59-year promise to the families to recover the men before the air crew's well-preserved bodies fall into the sea. The question that haunts the families: "Why, after 59 years of promising to bring the men home, does the Navy, when handed the very items they said they needed to recover the men, reverse their decision, citing incorrect policies while making incorrect analogies to the USS Arizona?"
The Private Expedition
Encouraged by the research and evidence and the JPAC review, the families will pursue a private recovery by the same recovery/survival experts that would have performed the recovery for Navy/JPAC.
The George 1 Repatriation Project will be timed to take full advantage of favorable austral summer weather conditions. A cold weather anthropologist will, with assistance from the George 1 Repatriation Project Team, recover the frozen men’s bodies for transport to the Hickam Field, Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command for positive identification even though the men should be able to be identified by just visual identification due to their their frozen preservation. JPAC’s support of the families and the operation over the past 9 years has been nothing short of stellar in their 2 offers to Navy to undertake the recovery.
US National Guard Reservists and team members will preside as an honor guard over the men's bodies 24/7 from the time that the men arrive at the surface until they arrive at JPAC's Hickam Field, HI identification lab.
The commercial infrastructure to safely undertake a private mission exists. A recovery team could be on Thurston Island in January for Phase 1 of the recovery pending its financing. A private mission is an expensive proposition that will cost up to 5 times what the Navy recovery would be. To help fund the private recovery mission the families have established the Fallen American Veterans Foundation, now in the 501c3 non-profit charitable status filing process. Please see the "Donate" page for more information.
The mission's expert National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Science Foundation (NSF) Antarctic scientists, US Geological Survey (USGS) personnel all concur on the mission's viability. "We owe it to the families. We owe it to the courage of these and all people who wear or who have ever worn the uniform of this country, to return them home to their families and their native soil," says Lou Sapienza, the polar recovery expert, expedition leader and executive director of the families’ George 1 Repatriation Project. "If Navy had said, "Yes" to the JPAC offer, the NSF, with elaborate infrastructure already in place, would have supported the recovery like any other science mission in the Antarctic. Navy/JPAC would only have to reimburse NSF for cost. But a private team cannot use NSF infrastructure unless NSF receives the request from Department of Defense (DoD) or Congress.”
The location of the crash site is known though an ice penetrating radar (IPR) site survey will be necessary to refine the actual location. In 2004 the Navy sent a specially equipped P-3 Orion Submarine Hunter over the area and, using aerial borne IPR, found the crash site where it was expected to be 90 to 150 feet below the accumulating ice and snows of Thurston Island. Jerry Mullins, U.S. Geological Survey Manager of Canadian and Polar Programs and his team plotted the position of the initial crash site using original rescue photographs. According to JPAC the men are well-preserved, cocooned in parachute silk by their crew-mates, frozen by the intense Antarctic cold and buried under the starboard engine nacelle.
Dr. Robert Bindschadler, NASA Chief Scientist, Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center with over 15 Antarctic field missions under his belt, confirms that the bodies are moving in tandem with the wreckage.
The History
In 1946, the fourth and largest ever of Admiral Richard Byrd’s Antarctic expeditions, the US Navy Operation Highjump, was underway to explore Antarctica. It involved 4,700 sailors, 23 aircraft and 13 ships, including an aircraft carrier and submarine. In an unexpected whiteout, the Martin Mariner PBM-5 flying boat “George 1” grazed a ridge line, ruptured a fuel cell, exploded and crashed three seconds later on Antarctica’s Thurston Island during the 1946/47 U.S. Navy classified, hazardous and volunteer-only mission called Operation Highjump. Six crew members survived burying the three men beneath a specific and well-marked area under the starboard leading edge of the large flying boat’s wing.
Just 11 days after the survivors were found, James Forrestal, the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense, wrote to Senator Wiley of Wisconsin: "No operations planned for recovery because of extreme hazards to personnel and equipment." We interpret this statement to mean that the Navy would have recovered the men if safety were not an issue. This is consistent with the statements made by Navy as late as 2006.
For 25 years Operation Highjump remained classified and made it all but impossible for the families to know of and communicate with each other. The introduction of the Internet changed all that and today over 40 family members have united to see that their men are not left behind. In the late 1990s, Senators Russ Feingold (WI) and John McCain (AZ) fast-tracked the repatriation with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. Now, numerous other members of Congress are involved in the matter.
In 2001 and 2004, high-level feasibility and planning sessions were conducted with the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation, NASA and other Antarctic experts. In 2004, the Navy specifically sent the P-3 Orion Sub Hunter over the area to find the debris site exactly where it was calculated to be. At the time, the Navy postponed the mission due to technological and unknown safety issues but promised the families in 2006 that “…resources were available… and that once these concerns were addressed …every effort will be made to bring our Sailors home.”
In July 2007, the families located a member of the team that developed the technology to successfully recover a WWII P-38 Lighting Pursuit fighter plane now known as "Glacier Girl" from 268 feet (82 meters) below the surface of the Greenland ice sheet. A new team comprised of core Greenland Expedition Society members and new specialists developed a viable recovery plan. Vetted by Antarctic, polar specialists and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in 2009 the mission is considered to be well thought-out and risk-mitigated.
After seasoned experts supplied Navy with the appropriate plan, then Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter, in 2007, declared the crash site to be the men's final resting place. Can a moving glacier making its way into the sea be declared a final resting place?
NASA and National Science Foundation assets currently maintain a high presence in the area during the austral summer as they support the intense study the of the adjacent Pine Island Glacier. The Pine Island Glacier is Antarctica’s fastest-moving glacier.
Planning, logistics, budgeting and most every last detail are complete. Commercial air transportation to the remote site is available. As soon as fund raising is complete the recovery team will launch the mission. In an effort to maximize the impact of the recovery the team will work with scientists from prominent universities to provide data and to install satellite reporting weather stations. The team plans to provide live streaming video off the surface for distribution to educational facilities around the world.
This singular mission has unburied countless stories of survival, courage and intrigue involving the surviving crew mates and family members of three courageous young men as documented in the book “Where Hell Freezes Over” by David Kearns, son of the co-pilot Lt (j.g.) William Kearns who was at the controls of the George 1 at the time of the mishap. This recovery will close a chapter on American history and bring to life a renewed belief in a country that deeply honors the service of all those who serve in the military.
Your
support is vital to the effort. Help make the mission a reality.
Become a part of the mission. Please take a moment to:
Sign our Petition and ask your friends to sign.
Help us return Val, Bud and Fred home.
Sign our Petition and ask your friends to sign.
Help us return Val, Bud and Fred home.
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