If we are correct that the B-24 was in fact 44-42431 (MACR 14925), lost on 25 Jun 45, a B-24M from the 2nd Bomb Squadron / 22nd Bomb Group then it went down on land, not in the sea. KIA does not quite describe what happened to the crew. Here are three newspaper articles related to the incident.
The Sydney Morning Herald Wednesday 14 November 1945 American Airmen Beheaded In Lonely Jungle Cemetery Less than a fortnight ago exhumations made at alonely cemetery hidden from general view a few miles out of Makassar, capital of the Celebes, revealed further revolting Japanese crimes. The victims wereAllied airmen, whose bodies were headless. One skull was still blindfolded, and the ankles were bound.
A touring investigation party visited a native village of hovels known as Daja, about 12 kilometres from Makassar. A narrow track led from the main road for a mile and a half through bamboos, and in a small clearing was a Japanese execution and burial ground. There were 24 small ,wooden crosses, all unmarked, in one corner of the area, but several unmarked graves were also discovered. In one shallow grave, in the reddish earth, was a body with ankles tied thrice with blackened cord. It was crouched forward, knees up to chin,and clad in military trousers. A medical man and a dentist were with the visiting party, and for almost two hours they carried out the grim task of learning of life from death. The trousers were those of an American airman. Medical opinion was that multiple blows, probably with as sword, had been rained on the victim. Two had severed the third cervical vertebra, another the right cheekbone, and another the first right rib bone. The American airman had been beheaded.
Search for Evidence From another slightly deeper grave,further human bones were recovered and skulls. The quiet cemetery began to yield its grim secrets. Nowhere was there a sign of a coffin. In one grave, only a skeleton was found. The head was missing. The cemetery in the lonely, quiet bamboo grove is one part of the terrible story. The earlier part of the record comes from Makassar itself. It was there that the Tokki Tai (naval Gestapo) had their Headquarters. At the rear of their residence they constructed small stone prison cells, just high enough for a man to stand, and with little room to swing an arm.
Allied airmen captured in several adjacent areas were carried to the cells and kept there after ill-treatment. They were given a cell each. There are bloodstains on the walls One dying, starving captured airman had scratched: "God be with me, mother." in blood. Sooner or later one, or two or more airmen were taken blindfolded and with legs bound to the unseen execution ground, the cemetery in the bamboos. But the prisoners were not taken quietly to their deaths, the Japanese made a festival of the executions. Natives tell the story of convoys of armed officers and guards in cars and motor cycles, with a prisoner bound and blindfolded in an open truck, proceeding through Daja to the little cemetry. From the examination of the skeleton and the position in which the body of the American Airman was uneathed, the scene at the cemetery was reconstructed. The prisoner, surrounded by ghoulish Japanese officers and guards. all heavily armed, was made to kneel at an open grave, still blindfolded, while a gleaming sword was swung ruthlessly upon his bared and bent neck.
Laredo Times , January 28, 1947 (Also appearing in several local newspapers in Iowa, Arizona and Oklahoma) Jap Navy Officers Are Convicted Three Found Guilty of Beheading Four US Air Force Corporals MANILA Jan 28 1947, An American military commission today convicted three Japanese naval officers of war crimes for beheading four U S 13th Air Force corporals who bailed out of a bomber over Celebes on June 25, 1945. Capt Minoru Toyama, second in command of the Makassar naval base, was given life imprisonment and Jr Lieutenants Yoshiyuki Nakamura and Toyaki Inagaki were sentenced to 25 years. The base commander was given a life sentence in an earlier trial . The corporals, only survivors of a crash which killed six others were Gerald D Carson , Durant Oklahoma, Eugene L Farthing, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Wayne J Geltz, Keokuk lowa and Richard S Peyron, Tucson Ariz. Prosecutor Thomas J O'Connor, Bronx NY, traveled thousands of miles to gather evidence.
Ottawa Citizen, Feb 14 1956 TOKYO (AP) - The U.S.Government notified Japan's foreign office it has granted a parole to Minoru Toyama, a war criminal sentenced to life in Toyko's Sugamo Prison.
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