Clayton Kuhles pictured with guides and porters on a search expedition in the Himalayas.
By GUY KOVNER
On a grassy slope more than 13,000 feet high in the Himalayas, Clayton Kuhles found the metal wreckage he was seeking in October, 2003.
Little did the mountaineer from Prescott, Ariz. know that he also had discovered his calling.
“It's my passion,” said Kuhles, 57, who has trekked to 19 crash sites on seven expeditions to the mountains of India, Bhutan and Burma, now known as Myanmar..
He mostly pays for the trips, which cost about $15,000 each, describing himself as a self-employed entrepreneur and adventurer.
Kuhles' first documented crash site in the northeast corner of India, complete with GPS coordinates, was the one in 2003. He found the wreck of a C-87 Liberator Express four-engine cargo plane that crashed on April 24, 1943 during a World War II airlift over the world's tallest mountains.
The aircraft's metal pieces lay in plain view on the mountainside, along with human bones and leather remnants of the aviators' uniforms.
Some of the bones subsequently were identified by the Army as the remains of Mervyn Earl Sims, a 23-year-old Army private from Petaluma who was buried with full military honors Friday in his hometown.
For Kuhles, it was the first funeral that has resulted from his recovery of remains from 182 missing Americans who perished in the airlift of wartime supplies between India and China.
“It's come full circle, that's how I would describe it,” Kuhles said at the funeral.
Nearly 600 aircraft and more than 1,600 people were lost on the 500-mile route nicknamed the “aluminum trail” for the prevalence of downed planes.
Worldwide, there are more than 72,000 Americans unaccounted for out of the more than 400,000 casualties of World War II, the Defense Department said Friday.
Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Gary Medvigy, who attended Sims' funeral, thanked Kuhles for his efforts. “It's so important to all of us,” said Medvigy, who is also a Sonoma County judge. “We really do appreciate it.”
The Himalayan crash sites aren't hard to find, Kuhles said, because native guides and porters have known about them for decades.
Kuhles said he gets leads on the sites from his trekking contacts in Southeast Asia. The hikes are arduous, he said, but not hazardous and the landscape is stunning.
“It's kind of like stepping back into the stone age,” Kuhles said, describing tribal villages without electricity or running water and few, if any, metal objects.
It took two days of combing the C-87 crash site to find the critical piece, the aircraft's serial number on a crumpled metal plate. It was the only way to determine who was aboard, Kuhles said.
The mountaineer said he is planning two trips later this year, one to Yunnan Province in China in August and then back to northeast India to look for 10 crash sites in the fall.
The U.S. military organization that looks for missing troops is currently not allowed in parts of India because of objections raised by the Chinese, Kuhles said.
“I can go wherever I want,” he said. “I plan to do this until I die.”
via THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
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