IN 2000 JAMES CONNELL, a U.S. Embassy officer in Moscow, worked his way up the slope of an extinct volcano on Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula. The former Navy captain carefully stepped around .50-caliber rounds and an unexploded 500-pound bomb, each marked with yellow warning flags, and headed toward the flattened tail of a wrecked aircraft.
Connell was part of a team from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Affairs Office seeking the ruined airplane. Acting on information from a Russian researcher who discovered in a 1962 document a reference to a crashed World War II airplane, the team was deployed to identify the airplane and determine if any remains of U.S. servicemen could be recovered.
Picking through the crash site, Connell lifted the left vertical stabilizer, found the number 34641, and checked it against his list of missing aircraft. The team matched the number to a Navy PV-1 Ventura bomber that during World War II had been stationed 750 miles east, on Attu Island in the Aleutians, a curved chain that extends from Alaska toward Japan.
The discovery of the Ventura, 56 years after the bomber’s seven crewmen had gone missing, finally gave surviving family members some knowledge about how the men had died. It also provides a dramatic reminder of World War II battles that today may not have the familiar ring of “Midway” or “Leyte” but nevertheless played a pivotal role in winning the war in the Pacific.
Just after midnight on March 25, 1944, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Walt S. Whitman and his copilot, Lieutenant John W. Hanlon, looked over their bomb-laden PV-1 Ventura, bureau number 34641. The snow crunched underfoot as they inspected their warplane. Relentless wind blew damp, cold air through even the best parkas, making the pre-takeoff check hard on Whitman, who hailed from sunny Miami. In the air it was worse; the pilots and five crewmen greased their faces to prevent frostbite.
Pilots based in Attu, a flyspeck island at the end of the Aleutians chain, flew long sorties against Japanese installations in the Kurile Islands. The elements and the enemy claimed pilots’ lives. By the end of this day, nearly a dozen men would lose their lives to both.
As Whitman was warming his engines, squadron mate Lieutenant James H. Moore’s Ventura lumbered onto the runway end and shut down beside a fuel truck. After topping off the tanks, Moore restarted the engines and released the brakes. His props churned loose snow into a billowing cloud as the PV-1 swept down the 4,500-foot runway.
Instead of climbing, the airplane stayed level. Wings heavy with ice, the Ventura hit the surface of Massacre Bay, became airborne again, then plunged into the frigid surface. “Water was coming in,” recalls Moore from his home in Lake City, Florida. “I had flight boots on, and one was jammed under the rudder [pedal]. I pulled my foot out of the boot without unzipping it. I surfaced and started yelling, ‘Let’s get to the life raft!’ ”
Only three of the seven men made it. Everyone aft of the cockpit was killed. Whitman and his crew must have watched from the runway as the airplane was consumed in flames, wondering if their mission would be scrubbed. Instead, they received word to fly.
When it was Whitman’s turn to take off, 50 minutes later than scheduled, their PV-1 rumbled into the air and skimmed above the rescue boats, still circling where Moore had gone down.
The long delay getting airborne would place Whitman and his crew over the target at first light, something that had not been tried since a spate of disastrous daylight raids the year before.


Comments
I was amember of VB 137 a Navy PV 1 Ventura squadron from March of 1943 until July of 1945. We served 2 tours of duty in the pacific conducting patrols and bombing missions from the central pacific to the China Coast. We had some tough times but nothing like what those sent to the North Pacific had.The PV1 was a good tough aircraft It brought me home after 91 combat missions. I would like to see more stories about the units that flew the the aircraft and the plane itself.
Posted by Frank Eklund on March 27,2008 | 06:42AM
Great article! However, the photograph shows PV-2 Harpoon aircraft, successors to the PV-1
Posted by Dr Ian L Jones on November 18,2008 | 06:16AM
Dr. Ian Jones is correct, Photo here is of PV-2 harpoons, same theater of opps but late in the war. Very similar aircraft but the tail in the forground gives it away, one of the key differences between the aircraft was the tail. Both are great aircraft, served their units well and deserve more press then they get. I've had the privilege to work with one for a few years and fly with her. Great article.
Posted by Craig Heavener on June 24,2009 | 08:31PM
In response to the first comment - My dad was a navigator on a PV-1 in VPB-128 that uniquely operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. In 2006, a documentary film maker, Wendy Wolfe, made a 45 minute documentary about VPB-128, with photos and specific stories, and also video of the squadron members reminiscing It is available on DVD.
Posted by Cindy Coping on July 3,2009 | 05:48AM