It has been a while since I have finished reading any books.

The story of this incredible long-forgotten, rescue is the subject of Bas Kreuger’s 2020 book KAIS (translated from Dutch to English). Kreuger, a Dutch aviation historian, conducted extensive archival research and spent years tracking down and interviewing the families of the B-25 crew and the rescue team. In 2019, he travelled to West Papua with a small group of Dutch researchers to locate the remains of the wrecked plane. Kreuger’s account of the many unforeseen obstacles the group faced in their attempt to find the crash site is told in the last section of the book.

For me the book provided an interesting insight into the processes in place to rescue downed Allied airmen in the later part of the war in the Pacific.

“On Thursday 27 July 1944 a B-25 bomber of the 418th Night Fighter Squadron is on a routine mission over the waters surrounding New Guinea near the Birds Head Peninsula. The crew sights a Japanese schooner and start their attack run, flying low and fast over the water. The attack succeeds but the bomber is hit and it’s pilot, 2Lt Ira M. Barnett, cannot fly it back to base. He decides on a crash landing in a remote swamp area, some 300 miles behind enemy lines. Barnett puts the plane down safely, air gunner Harold “Chief” Tantaquidgeon takes over command in the swamp.

Navigator Tom Wright wrote: “At the second attempt he slid over the water and grass and we heard tsching, tsching, bushes hitting the wings. Suddenly the plane swung to the left, breaking in two just behind the bomb bay. Chief and Pete were thrown out. The wing had hit a tree, too thick to break”

A rescue team, led by Dutch 2nd Lieutenant Louis Rapmund and Australian Army Captain ‘Mac’ Gillespie sets out from the island of Biak to save the crew. Flown in by Catalina flying boat, river Kais is their only way in and out of this green hell of jungle and swamp. For three weeks their small group of Allied soldiers use the Kais to fight both their human enemy and nature to find the crew and bring them back to safety.
This is an extraordinary story of survival and heroism of Allied soldiers and air men; American, Australian, Dutch and Indonesian, supported by the local Papua’s“

From the Publisher

In 2019 the author followed in the footsteps of the rescue team, trying to find the wreck of the bomber. With a group of five he travelled up the Kais river and into the swamp. It resulted in an unexpected meeting with the sole survivor of the rescue mission, a Papuan named “Paulus”, who was one of the locals with the expedition. They did not find the plane and a planned second expedition was cancelled due to the worsening relations between the Dutch and Indonesian government.

The book was a good read and informative about downed airmen rescues but suffers somewhat with the translation from the Dutch,