Greetings ~

I recently discovered that I have a cousin unknown to me before. Harris KAMIS (known to AAF as Harry) died on 8 Aug 1946 along with 7 other men when their PBY/OA-10 caught fire at 500' after take-off and crashed into the sea off O'ahu's Makapu'u or Makopu Point (spelled many ways in the report - don't know which of the 2 Points it is). One of those routine training missions on which he's called the CP (co-pilot?) in a hand-written note. Sharks were in the area of the crash, no survivors were found, and the plane was a total loss. The victims are memorialized in the "Tablets of the Missing" in Honolulu.

I received the "Individual Deceased Personal [sic - not 'Personnel'?] File" through the ABMC. There's no plane nick-name or serial number given and the 1947 request from the Headquarters, American Graves Registration Service for a MRCR and Form 317 was not responded to in the file I have. He was in the 7th Emergency Rescue Squadron and his Army Service Number is O-775385.

In addition, I saw an old message in these archives that stated he was a "B-24 pilot from the 761st BS of the 460th BG that flew out of Spinazzola, Italy from late 1944 to May 1945." Futhermore, he supposedly "went through training at Casper (WY) AAFld before going to 15th Air Force." [Great! MORE military stuff to try to figure out! >_< ]

If anyone here is from the 7th ERS and remembers this crash or Harris, or from the above B-24 group, I will love to hear from you about what his AAF job or aircraft would have been like, what Harris was like, and a photo of him would be gold!

Thank you for your time. Militarily ignorant, Julia

Jay -
Website:
www.1st-7therspby.org
Mike

Thank you, shooshoobaby ~

But I already found that site a few days ago. They have very little info about the 1st Emergency Rescue Squadron and none about the 7th. However, I e-mailed they anyway and am eagerly looking for a reply.

Yours, Julia

Julia:
You will want to get a copy of the Form 14 Accident Report from AFHRA or any of the 'pay per Report' websites. The aircraft serial number is 44-33963 and the pilot was Benjamin F Colson. The crash occured 4 miles NNE of Kalama, THI. The Form 14 filecode # is 47-08-08-503.  Ted51

Julia:
Email Sparky 460th BG Historian
dlbjb460@aol.com
Julia - To be a Pilot he would have had Training at Several Bases.
Stages were Primary , Basic , Advanced , 2 Engine , 4 Engine. He would have
then Gotten His Crew and Trained with Them before Shipping Over.
Mike

Hello, Ted51 ~

THANK YOU, but how do you know this stuff? Did you know these men; were you in the 7th Emergency and Rescue Squadron? Do you know if the plane had a nickname?

The IDPF I was sent has 20 pages, but none mention a "Form 14 Accident Report from AFHRA". What does "AFHRA" mean?

Yes, there was a 2nd Lt Benjamin F Colson on board as well as:

2nd Lt Vincent G Badalato
1st Sgt Joseph G Ritchie
Sgt Stanley R Kelly
Cpl Bedford K Metzger Jr
Pfc Richard K Albert
Pfc Riego Migual

Hello, nebraskawings ~ (He e-mailed me privately - he may have a group photo with Harris in it when he was flying the B-24 in Italy.)

Hello, Mike ~ I e-mailed dlbjb460@aol.com yesterday. I'll check my e-mail again right now.

Thank you guys for your wonderful help. I appreciate it so very much! Julia

Julia -
AFHRA - Air Force Historical Research Agency
Mike

Julia:
 
We cannot be of much help with regard to the crash of the Kamis plane, but you might be interested in his time with the 460th Bomb Group in Italy during WW II.  I am a bit involved with other requests at the present time, but will get back to you as soon as possible.
 
Sparky and Betty Bohnstedt
460th  Bomb Group Historians
 
dlbjb460@aol.com

They have very little info about the 1st Emergency Rescue Squadron and none about the 7th.

 
You should be able to find more information in USAF Historical Study 95, Air-Sea Rescue, 1941-1952, by Frank E. Ransom (1953). 215 pages.  If you go to http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/numbered_studies/studies2.asp and scroll down to 95, you can link to a .pdf file of this study.  HOWEVER, this link is about to change, since the AF Historical Research Agency is in the middle of migrating its web page to another server.
 
The 7th Emergency Resuce Sq was activated 25 Jan 45, and was originally intended to serve in the CBI Theater, being stationed for a while at Argatala, India.  However, it soon moved to the Pacific and served at Okinawa before returning to Hawaii (Wheeler Field?) before inactivation 15 May 47.  Postwar it was redesignated the 7th Rescue Sq and activated 1 Sep 49 at Wiesbaden AB, Germany.  It was redesignated the 7th Air Rescue Sq 10 Aug 50 and the 7th Air Rescue Group 14 Nov 52, moved to Wheelus AB, Libya at about the same time and was inactivated 8 Dec 56.
 
 

Bernie Shearon
Push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. Pull the stick back, the houses get smaller (unless you keep pulling -- then they get bigger again)

Hi Julia: 
I found your posting concerning Harry Kamis interesting.  We have researched this crew so may have a few things of interest to you. 
 The Harris W. Kamis crew was assigned to the 761st Squadron of the 460th Bomb Group on 5 December 1944 as a replacement crew per SO 340, 15th Air Force .  We do not have a lot of information about the Kamis  crew, or the missions they flew. There are not a lot of records available when a crew was lucky enough to fly its missions without being shot down, or involved in some incident that required a lot of paperwork. The Kamis crew seems to fit in this category.  For those who were unfortunate enough to have been shot down we have all sorts of records, U.S. and German.  I guess when you consider the consequences of being shot down and becoming a POW or worse, not having too many records is a small price to pay.
 I will list the members of the crew and tell you what we know about them.
 HARRIS W. KAMIS   pilot.  Deceased 8 August 1946 as the result of the crash of a PBY/OA off of Makopu Point, HI.
 LYNN JOHNSON   copilot.  The last contact we had with him he was living at 1436 State Hiway, Essex, IA  51638.  Phone: 712-379-3318.  After the war he went back to his farm.
SAMUEL CARLSON   We have no further information.
 
EMMET CUMMINGS   bombardier.   No information.
 
CLEDDIE SMITH  flight engineer.   Deceased   
 
ALFRED  â€œFRED” BEHM   radio operator/left waist gunner.  Deceased.  Spring of 2006.  You were looking vfor van e-mail address for his son Bryon.  Try     byronbehm@cox.net
 
ROBERT CHASE  right waist gunner.  Deceased.
 
IRWIN K. WECHSLER   nose gunner.  No information.
 
JAMES STITT   ball turret.  No information.
 
BYRON DAVIS   tail turret.   No information. 
 
 
 This is not a lot of information, but we hope that it adds a bit to what you know about your cousin. 
 
 There is a 460th Bomb Group History available which covers our time in Italy in great detail, it is a 208 page, hardbound book, 8 pages are in color, six are illustrations that I did for the book. There are about 500 photos, a very complete written history of the Group from its activation until we shut down in September 1945. There are poems and personal stories along with a listing of known aircraft assigned to the 460th. There is a list of our missions along with the names of about 4900 individuals who served with the Group at one time or another.  Harris is listed.  Let us know if this would be of interest to you and we will send further information.
  
I have other information which I believe would be of interest about our base and time in Italy, but do not want to use space here to post it.  If you will send us your e-mail address we will do this.
 
 
Sparky and Betty Bohnstedt
460th Bomb Group Historians

Hello, Sparky ~

Yes, I'm the person who e-mailed you around Feb 25th after Mike (shooshoobaby) gave me your address. Thanks for responding to me. Using this forum was a good idea, because others, like me, completely dumb to the entire military experience (ESPECIALLY all those acronyms!) can learn too. So far, it's been an intensive course in establishing a toe-hold in this completely foreign territory.

Yes, I would be interested in learning more about the 460th Bomb Group History book you created.

It's really odd to me that with the Army's reputation for record-keeping and forms for everything in triplicate that there are so many gaps you guys had to fill yourselves with your organizations and histories.

I truly appreciate the sharing, Julia

Hello ~

Hello, shooshoobaby -

I never saw a response from www.1st-7therspby.org. Perhaps they are an inactive group now. Alternately, I get lots of spam every day - maybe it got tossed out in the trash.

Hello, Sparky -

I spoke with Mr Behm, whose father was a part of the Kamis crew in Italy. He told me about what the camp was like and how Harry and his father were writing to each other after the war. He sent me some photo copies of photos he had with Harris and Italy in them. (Harris was a pretty good looking guy, I must say.) He has been interested in this crew for a long time and knew about the crash that killed Harris in 1946.

Mr Behm said that a family of one of the crew had erected a monument on the shore of O'ahu opposite where they crashed. If I ever get to Hawaii, I'll have to check for it.

I also spoke with Mr. Johnson and his wife. They are extremely sweet and were looking forward to my call. I got a few more details about Harry - he wanted to become a commercial pilot eventually, so he was given all the WW2 piloting to do in order to accumulate hours. He was a very good pilot, too, per Mr. Johnson.

If you don't mind sharing those extra details you mentioned in post #10 and the book-ordering information with me, please e-mail or private message me (click on my user name and you'll go to the page where you can do that).

Hello, Ted51 -

I got the 'Form 14 Accident Report' from AFHRA like you had told me about in post #3. Thanks!

Harris wasn't the pilot the day his PBY/OA-10 crashed. The report blamed the crash on "low-flying". There are eye-witness reports by about 10 people. Some didn't actually see the crash, but the fire and smoke immediately afterward. Then the others have accounts that vary in the details. 2 off-duty police officers at the beach said the plane was flying about 6 feet above the water for miles until they hit a big wave. That seems to be the version the USAAF adopted. Another stated they caught fire shortly after take-off and then crashed into the sea. There's no mention at all whether or not they spoke to the control tower via radio about what was happening to them.

A diverted aircraft saw the wreckage before it sank too deeply, the water on fire, and a person in the water who gestured to them. They made another pass and dropped a life raft. With succeeding passes, they saw the raft, but not the survivor. By the time rescue boats arrived at the site, there was a shark seen. No bodies were ever recovered. I know it's selfish, but I hope the survivor wasn't Harris.

Apparently, I think the day before, a PBY had crashed (per headline search results I was sent, NewspaperArchive):

"PBY patrol plane that crashed last Wednesday in the ocean north of Point Arena Bodies Ordnance Man Ic Warren Zinkel, Mate Ic George A Burlingame, Calif; Lt Og Ralph W Butler, pilot, San Francisco; Ensign Charles L Coler Millbrae, Calif; Mate Warren ardt Bancroft, Neb; Radioman Ic Truman M Mueller, Wichita, Kan."
Sunday, August 11, 1946 Oakland, California; Albuquerque Journal. [punctuation mine; spelling errors are due to the occular character reader, not my non-typing]

- so maybe that was why the USAAF was so sensitive about the crash that killed Harris and his team.

Thank you, everybody, for your help. Even though I can't truly know my cousin, I have a sketch of him in my mind now. I feel a lot better about him. I guess that's closure.

Yours always, Julia

ADDITION DETAILS FOR POST #12:

Hello, there, everybody ~

I found an additional brief newspaper item about the other, non-Kamis, PBY crash:

"PBY Coast Guard plane crashed into e sea and Point Arena lifesaving station 140 north of here The plane crashed yesterday af and Army and Navy air craft began an immediate search foe possible survivors Darkness called a halt to the search"
Friday, August 09, 1946 Huntingdon, Pennsylvania; News-Palladium, The

So, it crashed on the 8th, too, and wasn't a USAAF or Navy plane, but belonged to Coast Guard.



[I have a proposal to make:
Although the item above isn't too bad, the are some documents transcribed using optical character readers (OCRs) that are downright indecipherable. Who needs fancy encryption computers when these OCR babies are all over the place? And if a message comes out too legible, run it through again! Are you listening, Pentagon? ]

Jay -
I know Bonnie had monitored the ERS Site and that she is a Forum Member.
Haven't seen any Posts from her in awhile , don't know why. 
Mike

I hope all is well with her. All the members here have been wonderful.

Yours, Julia

Julia:

    This is Bonnie Farmer from the 1st & 7th web site.  Sorry I have not monitored the board fora long time. I have the war diaries of the 7th Emergency rescue squadron but have yet to get them on the web site.  I will go through them to see if there is any thing about your cousin.  I will get back to you asap.  Hi to all sorry I have been gone so long.

Bonnie

Thank you, Bonnie. I'm very happy to hear from you.

<------ This is Harris (Harry) Kamis. It's a scan of a photocopy, overexposed to bring out details in his face. It's a group photo of his B-24 crew in WW 2.

Sorry to delay my reply, but I tried logging in a few times since receiving your message and kept having problems. Mr. Burris helped me overcome whatever the heck was wrong (thanks, Mr Burris!).

Yours, Julia

44-33963 was a PBV-1A built by Candian-Vickers in Canada. "Canso-A" dilivered to the USAAF as  OA-10A.
 
Ted-51 aka Ted Darcy born 1951 one in the same???
 
Terry T.