Читать книгу Flight of the Forgotten - Mark A. Vance - Страница 28

Standing at the scene where Buster and the others had lost their lives invoked the deepest emotional experience of my entire life. I had made him a promise to find out what happened and share it with all the families. Now, actually being at the place where it all happened so long ago brought feelings that were undeniable and virtually overwhelming. The hardest thing was remaining objective and not allowing the investigation to get side-tracked by emotion.

The sensation we each felt as we reached the main impact point the next morning is something none of us will ever forget. Working with local guides, we reached the crash site after a forty-five minute climb from the small fishing village at the base of the coastal mountain range. My endless quest for answers had carried us to a small, shallow loch nestled inside several rugged cliffs that towered above us like graveside monuments. In the distance, pieces of the airplane glistened in the sunlight. It was the holiest of holy places. The man who had nurtured me all my life and saved me many times from certain disaster had died here with his friends and comrades. This was the place my life was all about! That mysterious veil originated here and I had come to lift it.

Walking slowly down the trail to the loch that day, it was as if invisible doors suddenly parted and I could hear a voice behind me say “Welcome Mark.” None of the others with me heard it or seemed aware of an intense, ghostly presence that literally surrounded the loch that day. They were, however, well aware of the incredible sense of foreboding that still permeates the stricken bomber’s crash site.

The final resting place of the Jack Ketchum crew is a small, shallow loch with an overpowering unearthly component that absolutely exudes a feeling of sudden, violent death. It is an area devoid of sound, where a pervasive sadness fills the air, crying out over the injustice of it all. The scene is quite literally the domain of the dead, where intense local superstition and folklore date back for centuries. According to the locals, the area has been inhabited by leprechauns and other creatures of the forest since the beginning of recorded time. Since that tragic day in 1945, many in the area have reported seeing lightning strikes in the loch out of a clear blue sky and countless ghostly images of men in flight suits that push and shove the unwanted down the hillside. Decades after the crash, it remains a local dare to enter the crash site alone and remain any length of time during the day. Entering after dark is never even considered.

None of that was any concern to me. I never felt more welcome anywhere than I did right there. It was, however, quite clear to me during the entire time that we were not alone. High above us on a surrounding peak, a huge ram stood motionless, watching over us. It was as if he was saying, “Who are you? Why are you here? No one comes here.” and I wondered if he understood that we were trying to help. The strange ambiance and sun glistening off the aircraft wreckage in the bright sunlight made the whole place quite surreal, like the gateway to another dimension. Near the shoreline, the bomber’s stainless steel landing gear struts still shone as brightly as they had that fateful day in 1945. Nothing tarnishes stainless steel, not even sudden death.

It was obvious right away that a great deal of the wreckage had been moved at some point by heavy equipment. Those struts didn’t get on the side of the loch by accident. Why anyone would do that and not actually remove the wreckage seemed odd. The loch had also been drained at some point. A deep trench had been dug, allowing the water to drain into an adjacent loch below the main one. That trench had then been refilled by the heavy earth-moving equipment. We would later learn from the locals that the U.S. military returned to the crash site six months after the crash with scores of heavy equipment, blocking access to it for weeks as they worked there in secret. That too seemed odd since there was still armament at the site and nothing from the airplane appeared to have actually been removed. All the bodies had supposedly been accounted for and buried at Cambridge within days of the crash. What could the U.S. military have been looking for?