Pictured above is a collection of rusted .50 caliber machine guns found at the site of Capt. John “Blackie” Porter’s crashed plane. The site was discovered in 2011.
(Photo submitted|MIA Recoveries, Inc.)
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An Arizona man with no ties to the City of Marysville may be responsible for bringing two of its sons home.
Clayton Kuhles, of Prescott, AZ, a self-proclaimed “professional adventurer” is in the process of organizing a team of explorers to go to Southeast Asia to recover the remains of Marysville natives, Capt. John “Blackie” Porter and Sgt. Harold Neibler, whose plane went down in the middle of World War II.
Kuhles runs an organization called MIA Recoveries, Inc., that specializes in locating and recovering downed aircraft and crews, specifically in the China-Burma-India Theater.
He started his mountaineering career in the 1990s climbing professionally in Colorado. Over the years, his fascination with exploring and mountain climbing led him to Asia where he ran across an airplane crash site that would change the course of his life.
Finding the first plane
“I had been exploring in Burma (now Myanmar) every year since 1999 while on my way home after mountaineering expeditions in Nepal and Tibet,” Kuhles said. “I decided to return to Burma in 2002 to climb Hkakabo Razi, the highest peak in mainland Southeast Asia.”
While at his basecamp, Kuhles overheard locals discussing the site of a downed airplane.
“My interpreter asked if I might be interested in visiting an old aircraft wreck located high in the border-mountains to our southwest,” he said. “I was curious to know whose aircraft it was and why was it flying in such a remote area.”
It was there Kuhles discovered the wreckage of a WWII-era C-47 cargo plane.
“I took what I found to the U.S. Embassy and it was later confirmed that yes, in fact, it was a downed World War II plane that had crashed while flying over the Hump,” said Kuhles.
“The Hump” was a name given by U.S. airmen to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains where American aircraft flew from India to China to supply Chinese forces against the Japanese. The area was notorious for its dangerous flying conditions.
“I would say 90-95% of planes were brought down by weather—particularly by ice and snow,” Kuhles said. “It’s terrifying to imagine flying over those mountains, especially at night, and feeling the weight of the aircraft change as ice collects on the wings and fuselage.”
Without the technology used in modern aviation to keep ice from forming on airplanes, the WWII aircraft would freeze over and become too heavy to fly.
“After a while, ‘The Hump’ was also nicknamed ‘The Aluminum Trail’ because of the number of downed aircraft you could see from the sky,” Kuhles said. He added that there’s no way to know for sure, but estimates have the number of downed planes being well over 500. With crew and passengers, that’s something like 1,000 airmen.
“That’s one of the things that makes Blackie’s story—the crash of his plane and loss of lives—so compelling. His aircraft may’ve been one of the very few or only one to actually get shot down by enemy fire,” Kuhles said.
Blackie’s Gang
Three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, John Porter, a 1934 graduate of Marysville High School, married his college sweetheart, Ellen “Jane” Watson.
On December 10, 1943, two years to the day of their second wedding anniversary, Porter’s plane was shot down over The Hump. He was 27-years old.
During the war, Porter, nicknamed “Blackie” by friends and family back home, led a crew of five aboard a B-25D bomber. The crew included another Marysville man, flight engineer Sgt. Harold Neibler. Together, the men were known as Blackie’s Gang after they became the first search and rescue unit during the war, patrolling the Hump for downed planes. In their career they are credited with the rescue of more than 120 U.S. military personnel from more than 50 crash sites.
“Capt. Porter and the crew were flying over Burma on Dec. 10 when they were attacked by Japanese Zero fighter planes,” Kuhles said. “The right engine caught fire after the main attack was over. Then another Zero pulled up and shot out their left engine, setting the aircraft on fire.” At this point, Porter gave the order to bailout but only the co-pilot, Lt. James Spain, had his parachute fastened.
“Lt. Spain’s clothes got caught while he was trying to exit the overhead hatch in the cockpit and he was freed by Capt. Porter pushing him out,” Kuhles said. The plane crashed and exploded moments later, killing the remaining five members on board.
The plane crashed in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh where it has been for 76 years.
Discovering Porter’s plane
“I was up north in India on the Tibetan border when I heard about another crash site,” Kuhles said. This was during another expedition to the area in 2011. “I went with my porter (a person employed to carry luggage and other items) to the town of Gandhigram which was a two-day trek from the site.”
The village is primitive with locals gathering much of their food source from the surrounding forests and mountains. Kuhles said it was essentially a hunter-gatherer culture and he connected with the locals, specifically, a hunter in the village whose father had discovered what he thought was the wreckage of a WWII-era plane.
“We went out and set up camp. One of the first things I did was to get water which I had to boil and treat with iodine,” Kuhles said. “The next morning is when we reached the site.”
Kuhles came upon a steep, rocky ravine in a forested area having what he describes as a moderate elevation. Extending down the ravine, more than 300 yards among the trees was the burned and rusted metal of a B-25 aircraft.
“There was massive wreckage in a fairly consolidated area,” Kuhles said. “Pieces of the aircraft were everywhere but one of the first things I noticed was a collection of 10-12 .50 caliber machine guns. That’s not something you find on a cargo plane so I knew it was the B-25.”
He said there have only been a handful of times where the weight of exploring the crash sites has gotten to him.
“You look at that area, the remains of something that likely hasn’t been seen by American eyes in more than 70 years and it affects you,” Kuhles said. “With the number of planes I have been able to recover, you can’t help but think the spirits of the guys are there guiding your way. I certainly felt that there.”
Kuhles searched around the crash site, finding both of the plane’s engines.
“Then I found something I have never found at a site: an ID tag,” he said. With the exception of a rust spot or two, the 70-year old tag was almost perfectly preserved. The name on the tag was SSgt. Harry D. Tucker of Palmyra, AR: a gunner on Blackie’s plane.
“With the tag and a found plate with serial numbers, I was able to confirm it was in fact Blackie’s aircraft,” Kuhles said.
What now?
Since finding the crash site, Kuhles made contact with Ellen Vinson of Penscecola, FL—the daughter of Ellen “Jane” Watson who remarried after Porter’s death. Vinson has been trying to raise funds to bring the remains of her mother’s first husband back to Ohio.
“Ellen has had some success but has reached a point where she feels stalled,” Kuhles said. “She has been in contact with the U.S. government who say they could send a team over there in 2022 but I don’t know if she trusts that.”
The government has retrieved remains from crash sites but the process of identifying and locating them can take decades. Kuhles said that he has put in bids to the Department of Defense in the past for contract work recovering these sites.
“They have a long list of sites to look into so it’s just not a quick process,” he said.
Kuhles told Vinson that if they could raise the money to go, he would assemble a team and go retrieve the remains himself.
“I’ve done a number of these recoveries and this is the first time the families have been willing to fund this privately,” Kuhles said. “So we’re in the process of doing that. We think we can get at least $20-25,000 and go from there.”
Since the decades-old crash site will need completely excavated to find and collect the remains, Kuhles is bringing on an archeologist who will serve as the principle investigator. The archeologist will have to be certified with the Department of the Interior and they will likely have an assistant with them who will also have experience in the field.
Kuhles will have two mountaineering associates of his own and at least one medic with EMT, paramedic and/or wilderness survival training.
“This area is littered with poisonous snakes and anything can go wrong,” he said. “So we want someone on the team with that training.”
There will also be a series of locals such as a guide and interpreter to get the team of 12-15 people from place to place.
“We will essentially set up camp near a water source to start with. When it comes to the site, we’ll need to create a site perimeter and go from there,” Kuhles said. “This is really a massive undertaking.”
The plan is to have funding in place by September and reach the site sometime in October, which will be after the region’s rainy season.
“We’re assembling an American team to go over there and do this work, funded privately by the family and donors,” Kuhles. “This is an American story, an important one, of American heroes that deserve to be found and brought home.”