Remains of US airmen killed in 1945 crash 'could still be on Hong Kong hillside'
The historian who discovered the wreckage of a US bomber that crashed in Tai Tam believes bodies may remain on the hillside of Mount Parker. Stuart Heaver reports
Seventy years ago this Friday, in the heavy swell of the South China Sea, a flight of United States Navy TBM Avenger torpedo bombers took off in stormy weather from the aircraft carrier USS Hancock bound for a target some 150 nautical miles to the north. Their mission was to destroy key military targets and shipping in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong.
Two of the young pilots in Torpedo Bombing Squadron Seven (VT-7) were close friends. Only the previous day, the handsome Lieutenant, Junior Grade Richard L. Hunt Jnr had escorted his buddy's aircraft back from an assault on the port of Kaohsiung, on the west coast of Taiwan, after engine trouble had forced Lieutenant (JG) Richard C. Scobell to abort his bombing run. Being wingmen, the two Richards looked out for each other in the air, one usually flying on the starboard side and slightly astern of the lead aircraft.
Although both in their early 20s, the pilots were battle hardened and highly decorated. Scobell had been cited after being shot down during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which took place in and above Philippine waters, the previous October. His citation describes his "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity" while "fearlessly plunging through a sheet of concentrated and withering anti-aircraft fire". He was forced to ditch his aircraft in the sea and spent more than 24 hours in a tiny inflatable life-raft with his gunner before being rescued. Twenty-three-year-old Hunt, from Kansas City, Missouri, had joined the navy in February 1942 and had already won the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Gold Star and four medals for his courageous torpedo attacks on Japanese warships.
Neither would return to the USS Hancock.
January 16, 1945, were radioman and bomb aimer Eugene "Gene" Barrow, born and raised in Harrison, Ohio, and gunner Louis Gahran, from Boston, who was celebrating his 20th birthday. Hunt's usual gunner was a close friend of Barrow, Alfred Dejesus, but he had received shrapnel wounds during an attack on the Japanese air force in Taiwan the week before and was still confined to sick bay.