I need some direction.  I am looking to find an MACR for a plane (unknown) transporting men who were going on R & R (in late November or early December 1944) to Australia that apparently went down.  I do not know who piloted the plane or what kind of plane it was.  I have a date (14 December 1944) but I do not really know what that date represents.    I do not know it is the date listing those aboard MIA.  The name I have is Isadore LaMica 32490262 who was with the 868th Bombardment Sq. (H).  10 men were lost.  Any help as to how I should go about trying to obtain the report or how to find a number for the MACR would be much appreciated.  Thanks.

LAMICA, ISADORE G 
32490262
 AAF 
T/SG 
11/24/1944



























































































































































































































































 
Terry T.
 

What does 11/24/44 represent?  There is a C-47 MACR for that date.  And I believe C-47's were used for that purpose.  Thanks Terry

a C-47 with the 868BS went down on that day.,.maybe thats your plane:
 
42-93504 C-47A 868BS  13AF 441124 So Pac MACR #10897
 
Terry T.

That is what I am wondering but where did you get the November 24 date?  What does it represent and what does this number mean 441124 in your reply?

Hi, Romeo.
 
Good to hear from you again.
 
This loss is in the "Small World - Heartbreaker" category.
 
MACR 10897 describes the loss of a C-47 (military version of the DC-3 - a two engine transport) which was lost over New Guinea on Nov 24, 1944, transporting 2
Snooper crews and a few others going on leave in Australia.  The 868th was based at Noemfoor at the time.
 
I did not realize that LaMica was on this flight.  He had survived the crash of Gay's B-24, along with Toole and Dyer on 20 APR 44 flying out of Los Negros in the Admiralties.
 
Also lost on that flight was John Meisenhalder.  Meisenhalder replaced my Dad's cousin, Gerry Westerland, as the navigator on the DeLand crew after Gerry was lost over Truk on 25 June, having volunteered to fly a mission with Wilmer Haynes.  John Meisenhalder joined the DeLand crew as navigator when they were half way through their tour.  When the DeLand crew reached 41 missions, they were rotated home.   Meisenhalder was about half way through his tour at this point, and was eligible for leave.  Unfortunately, he was lost on the C-47.
 
Everyone else in DeLand's crew survived the war.
 
The material I have been able to pull together on Gerry Westerland's loss is described in my message of 10/17/05 in this forum.
 
I will order MACR 10897 from the Natl Archives if you  have not ordered it.  Just let me know.
 
               Mark
 

ROMEO;
441124 is written this way for my database to sort dates easier.
44 Nov 24 aka 24 Nov 1944..
 
The date I found was on the mia list on DPMO Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.
 
 
Terry T.

ORIGINAL: markwest00

Hi, Romeo.

Good to hear from you again.

This loss is in the "Small World - Heartbreaker" category.

MACR 10897 describes the loss of a C-47 (military version of the DC-3 - a two engine transport) which was lost over New Guinea on Nov 24, 1944, transporting 2
Snooper crews and a few others going on leave in Australia.  The 868th was based at Noemfoor at the time.

I did not realize that LaMica was on this flight.  He had survived the crash of Gay's B-24, along with Toole and Dyer on 20 APR 44 flying out of Los Negros in the Admiralties.

Also lost on that flight was John Meisenhalder.  Meisenhalder replaced my Dad's cousin, Gerry Westerland, as the navigator on the DeLand crew after Gerry was lost over Truk on 25 June, having volunteered to fly a mission with Wilmer Haynes.  John Meisenhalder joined the DeLand crew as navigator when they were half way through their tour.  When the DeLand crew reached 41 missions, they were rotated home.   Meisenhalder was about half way through his tour at this point, and was eligible for leave.  Unfortunately, he was lost on the C-47.

Everyone else in DeLand's crew survived the war.

The material I have been able to pull together on Gerry Westerland's loss is described in my message of 10/17/05 in this forum.

I will order MACR 10897 from the Natl Archives if you  have not ordered it.  Just let me know.

              Mark

 
Hi Mark:
 
Thanks for the information.  How is retirement? 
 
Where did you get the category information and who were the 2 Snoopers Crew?   Thanks.

Romeo:
 
Retirement is wonderful!

My sources for the background to MACR 10897 are ...

1. Messages in the 2004 "Snoopers News" vol. 47, pp. 18-24, concerning correspondence between Don Dickerson and Dick Phelps.  Robert W Dickerson was a bombardier with the Snoopers and was on the C-47 when it disappeared..
   
2. A section by Art DeLand in Perrone's "Snoopers", p. 216, commenting on Meisenhalder's loss.

The Snoopers News message noted that the C-47 was overdue getting into Port Moresby.  It was the practice at Port Moresby to log aircraft arrivals by the last 3 digits of the A/C serial number.  Another aircraft with the same last three digits in the serial number landed, and it was mistaken for the Snooper aircraft, so the search was cancelled.  It was only later that it was realized they had the wrong aircraft.  The practice was then changed to log the complete a/c number.   No one knows whether the delay made a difference.

The passage in Snoopers News lists 10 people as lost, all from the Snoopers.  It does not list the crew of the C-47, so I guess that aircraft was not part of the 868th roster but was a normal SoPac logistics flight.

I will order the MACR and pass on to you whatever I find.


                         Mark

November sounds about right to me.  I can remember as a youngster trying to get my Dad to say something about "the war".  Sometimes he would get to talking, and invariably he would mention Lamica to me, and I can recall him kind of "grunting" in pain about the loss, decades later, to him personally.  Lamica was the one man he talked about and described him a such a "good man" with a great life ahead of him.  He told me he was from upstate NY. 
 
Lamica tried to talk my Dad into going with him on leave, but Dad was still not feeling "recovered" and decided he didn't much like flying, apparently (for good reason).  So, Dad stayed at the base and Izzy left, and the flight was lost with no details.
 
My Dad is still alive and doing pretty well at 90, but he has lost his hearing and is hard to talk to as he won't wear an aid.  You hafta yell at him and he still doesn't understand what you say.
 
I was in email contact with his nephew Arly Lamica, who was a commander in the Navy, in 2005, and sent him some photos of the crew.  A previous message about this crew put me in tentative contact with Arly's cousin, and I would like to send you the same materials I have on this if you can get me your address etc.
 
On a personal, very sad note, while I was going back and forth with Arly, I received news that my own son, Lance Corporal Chris Dyer, was killed in action at Barwannah, Iraq, on 3 August, 2005, with 13 other Marines when their AAV was destroyed by a large IED.  Understandably, this has turned my world upside down and I sort of shut down for a while.  I mention this by way of explanation to the relative few who read here as to why I stopped posting anything.
 
Chris is at Arlington, in Section 60, 8205 - there is a holly tree at his feet.  He's in good company there, but ... it's very very hard to understand war.

I received the MACR file from the National Archives.  They will be posted in the next series of messages.
 
The documents which follow are....
 

• MACR 10897 (3 pages) briefly describing the details.
  
• NOV 25 letter (6 pages) to the Chief, Casualty Branch, describing the results of various investigations and searches.  Major Barlow as referenced was the CO of the 868th at the time of the loss and until March 10, 1945.  It confirms that 3 days were lost in searching for the C-47 because of a different C-47 landing at the destination with the same last 3 digits in the serial number.  It was common practice at the time to refer and log aircraft by the last 3 digits.
  
• FEB 16 letter (2 pages) from AAF Western Pacific to the Adjutant General in Washington DC, reclassifying people from MIA to deceased.  It indicates which of the victims were crew and which were passengers.  The crew were members of the 868th, probably from a combat crew.  I know Art Deland and Phil Hoffman flew a few of these runs in a C-47 from Sept 29 through October 26, then went back to combat operations. 

Page 1 of the MACR follows.
 

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MACR page 2.

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MACR Page 3

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NOV 25 LTR  Page 1 of 6
 
 

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NOV 25 LTR  Page 2 of 6

 
 

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NOV 25 LTR  Page 3 of 6
 
 

 

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NOV 25 LTR  Page 4 of 6
 
 

 

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NOV 25 LTR  Page 5 of 6
 
 

 

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NOV 25 LTR  Page 6 of 6
 

 

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FEB 16 LTR  Page 1 of 2.    Confirms that both crew(5) and passengers(15) were in the 868th BS 




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