[Kyle] Think of it as the Pearl Harbor of Japan.
It is their most important base.
[Josh] Take me back in time.
What would've it been like if I was standing
on this dock in February of 1944?
You'd probably be running for cover.
That's when the US launched
Operation Hailstone.
[man] Wow.
[Josh] We obviously routed
the Japanese forces here
but not without a cost.
[explosion]
[Kyle] We're talking about 200 who were killed and missing.
Nobody has found any of the US planes.
None of them?
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] We document the site so that their human remains
can ultimately be recovered.
[Josh speaking]
-You have an eyewitness? -Yes.
-[Josh] A living eyewitness? -[Mason] Yes.
[Colin] They died here in service to our country
and we have to keep looking for them.
[Josh] There could be bones,
dog tags, anything.
[metal detector beeping]
[Josh] Hey, guys, come here!
Dive, dive, dive.
Okay, she's down.
Oh, wow.
[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
December 7th, 1941,
a day that still lives in infamy,
the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor
was blindsided by Japanese forces.
In only 90 tragic minutes,
the course of history was forever altered.
[explosion]
[Josh] The attack killed over 2,400 American
service members, crippled our Navy
and pulled the country into World War II.
Few, however,
know of America's ferocious counterattack.
In February 1944,
a fleet of aircraft carriers launched Operation Hailstone,
a daring offensive targeting
a crucial Japanese base
on a remote collection of Pacific Islands
called Truk Lagoon
where US forces decimated Imperial Japan's fleet.
It was a critical victory but it came at a cost.
More than 40 American planes were lost in the assault,
as well as 200 servicemen
who went and remained missing in action.
Not a single lost US plane
from Hailstone has been located.
But now, a group of scientists
and historians called Project Recover
is determined to find our lost heroes
and help bring them home.
Using cutting edge sonar technology
and groundbreaking artificial intelligence,
they're scanning the vast ocean floor
for undiscovered wrecks.
And on land, they're making
major breakthroughs,
locating actual eyewitnesses
who could lead them to the remains
of American POWs.
So all hands man your battle stations
and join me on a historic expedition
into World War II's Pacific theater,
seeking warriors who may be gone
but must never be forgotten.
[dramatic music playing]
My name is Josh Gates.
Hello.
Explorer...
Here goes nothing.
Adventurer...
Woo-hoo-hoo!
Oh, it's a long way down.
And a guy who ends up
in some very strange situations.
I'm alive, for now.
With a degree in archeology
and a passion for the unexplained,
I travel to the ends of the Earth
investigating the greatest legends in history.
Ready to rock and roll.
This is Expedition Unknown.
[country music playing]
[Josh] I begin my mission
to find lost World War II heroes
in an unlikely place,
a genteel Southern charmer,
Charleston, South Carolina.
Well, we are obviously a long way from the Pacific
theater and the waters of Operations Hailstone,
but there's a reason for that.
I'm here in Charleston to visit
with one of the great heroes of that battle
who retired here after completing
active service in 1970.
She is one America's most decorated veterans,
her name, the USS Yorktown.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] 872 feet long
and weighing in at 27,000 tons,
even in retirement, this aircraft carrier
is an imposing sight.
On the flight deck, I meet professor
of military history, Kyle Sinisi.
[Josh] Dr. Sinisi, how are you doing?
-[Kyle] I'm doing fine. -I'm Josh, nice to meet you.
-Pleasure. -I gotta say,
this is an incredible ship.
This is an airport on the water.
[Josh] And this was purpose-built for World War II?
They actually started construction
on the Yorktown six days before Pearl Harbor itself.
Wow.
[explosion]
[reporter] On December 7th, 1941,
Japan, like its infamous Axis partners,
struck first and declared war afterwards.
[Josh] Everyone knows that Japan attacked us
at Pearl Harbor.
I don't think as many people know
why Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor.
Well, Japan had a destiny,
or at least they believe they had a destiny,
and that was to rule East Asia and Southeast Asia.
And what does taking us out at Pearl Harbor do?
They saw us an obstacle to the conquest
of all those islands between Japan and Australia.
Right. 'Cause those are full of resources?
Yes.
[Josh] Six months after Pearl Harbor,
Japan has control over almost six million
square miles of territory,
including The Philippines,
Thailand and Korea.
I think we have some understanding
of what it takes to fight a land war,
but an ocean war is entirely different.
What do you need to be success in the Pacific theater?
You need to be able to project power.
-Okay. -You need a Navy,
you need battleships,
you need aircraft carriers,
something like the USS Yorktown
and the planes that she carried aboard.
You wanna take go take a look at it?
-Love to. Yeah, come on. -All right.
[Josh] Kyle takes me below deck
to see some of the legendary aircraft
that carried out Operation Hailstone.
Wow, this is extraordinary. Look at this.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] They were high tech for their day,
at a time when using aircraft flown from carriers
was a radical new approach to warfare.
[Kyle] Josh, here, I think we got an airplane
-you're quite familiar with. -[Josh] Yes, this is
the Avenger, right? This...
I actually had a chance a few years ago
to take a ride in one of these,
which was a huge thrill.
Unbelievable.
This is sick.
Oh.
This thing's a beast.
It is a torpedo bomber
and one of the things that really tips you off
to how big this thing is are the folding wings.
[Josh] Right. That's the only way this thing could fit
on an aircraft carrier, right?
-[Kyle] Pretty much. -[Josh] Incredible.
[Josh] Along with the Avenger,
Kyle shows me other planes
that flew at Truk Lagoon,
including the Hellcat, Corsair
and the SBD Dauntless dive-bomber.
[Kyle] It was one heck of a rugged
and effective aircraft during the war.
Although many of the air crew thought
that SBD stood for Slow But Deadly.
It would eventually wind up sinking
more Japanese shipping than anything else
that we had in our inventory.
Wow. So a very successful plane?
Absolutely.
[Josh] From 1941 to 1943,
American planes launching from carriers
like the Yorktown
were used to roll back
Japan's advance across the Pacific
in places like Midway and Guadalcanal.
By February of 1944,
we're closing in on Japan itself,
but a major obstacle remains,
the Japanese Naval Base at Truk Lagoon.
And let's talk about how this and these other planes
were used at this place, Truk,
Operation Hailstone.
Truk Lagoon, it's hard to find on a map.
But think of it about 2,000 miles southeast of Japan.
[Josh] How important was this base to the Japanese?
Oh, it is their most important base.
Think of it as the Pearl Harbor of Japan.
You could find up to 60% of their combined fleet here.
[Josh] So take me through it, what happens?
[Kyle] We put together one of the largest
naval forces ever assembled,
nine aircraft carriers,
seven battleships, dozens of auxiliary vessels
and ultimately, 560 aircraft.
We fly in and we will sink dozens of their ships.
We will knock out 275 of their aircraft.
And we will kill up to 4,600 of their soldiers,
sailor and airmen.
Wow. And US losses?
They were fairly minimal,
we're talking about 42 aircraft
and about 200 who were killed or missing.
We have a lot of these guys
who are just simply MIA, missing in action?
That is a characteristic of all of our causalities.
And especially in the Pacific, because we're there in planes,
and then we're gone.
[Josh] Our nation made a promise
to these missing servicemen,
no man left behind.
And now, a new effort is underway
to make good on that promise.
Well, I'm headed out to Truk
to meet with the group that's trying
to recover some of these lost planes
and hopefully bring some closure to these MIA stories.
Well, thank you and good luck. It's a long flight out there.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] This mission requires
a journey of more than 8,000 miles
from Charleston to the middle of the Pacific.
It begins with a two-hour flight through Chicago,
and then nine hours across the US,
and thousands of miles of ocean
to a critical layover
on the island of O'ahu, Hawaii.
It is a few minutes before 8:00 AM
on December 7th, 1941,
just another sunny day
here at the US Naval Base in Pearl Harbor.
And then, the distant sound of engines.
-[dramatic music playing] -[airplane engine whirring]
[Josh] Hundreds of Japanese planes
launched from six aircraft carriers
in one of the most audacious surprise attacks in history.
[explosion]
Almost our entire Pacific fleet
is gathered here and caught unaware.
Our aircraft on nearby runways
are also sitting ducks and are quickly destroyed.
In fact, only six US planes
will make it the air to repel the first wave.
Nineteen American vessels in the harbor
are damaged or destroyed,
including eight battleships.
But the USS Arizona takes the most lethal blow.
An armor piercing bomb penetrates
the ship's ammunition stores,
setting off an explosion
that will kill 1,177 men.
A day later,
134,000 Americans
would enlist in the military.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] In 1962, a memorial was built
over the ghostly remains of the wreck.
Today, it's a hollowed tomb.
A lasting reminder of the greatest sacrifice
our servicemen and women make for this country.
The attack on Pearl Harbor decimated our Pacific fleet,
and yet, within two years,
the US roared back and turned the tables,
striking Japan at their most critical base.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] There's only one way to get there,
aboard a famous route that's considered
the least direct flight on Earth.
Welcome to the Island Hopper. Here we go.
[Josh] This is United Flight 154,
originated by Continental in 1968
as a vital mail and supply run.
It's a great way to earn those valuable
frequent flyer miles.
Coolest airplane route ever.
[Josh] The 20-hour circuit departs from Honolulu
and hops across the Marshall Islands,
Micronesia, the Caroline Islands,
and onto Guam before going back to Hawaii
to start all over again.
Four pilots are aboard this 737,
as well as, and I'm not kidding,
critical spare parts and a dedicated mechanic
since the islands have neither.
Oh, and there's even an additional navigation
instrument in the cockpit.
[tropical music playing]
[Josh] The first leg is a jaunty little hop
over a stretch of ocean
nearly as wide as the United States,
which requires a slight watch adjustment.
All right. We are approaching the International Date Line.
It is about 10:00 AM on Wednesday,
wait for it.
It is now 10:00 AM on Thursday,
we just lost 24 hours.
The worst part is, and this is true,
it's one of my camera guy's birthdays on Wednesday.
Oh.
What a rip.
[tropical music playing]
[Josh] The first speck of land
is the 3.7 square mile island of Majuro,
capital of the Marshall Islands
where we're on the ground
just long enough to take in the sights.
Welcome to Majuro!
Beautiful here.
Okay. Let's go.
[Josh] The next destination
is only an hour away,
the island of Kwajalein.
It was one of the first Japanese territories
to fall to Allied Forces.
Unfortunately, I don't get to disembark here
because it's now a top secret missile test site.
Okay. Moving on.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] Another hour to the volcanic island
of Kosrae, where we touchdown
just long enough to take off again
for another hour in the air
as we fly to the stunning capital of Micronesia.
[Josh] All right.
We've got about 10 minutes
to take in the beautiful
tropical island of Pohnpei.
[Josh] Island hopper pro-trip,
always keep an eye on your pilot.
Come on. Let's go.
Time to take off.
Coming.
Jeez.
Short one.
We're almost there.
-Hey. -[Josh] Thank you.
[Josh] Next stop is where I get off,
the remote Truk Lagoon,
though today, it's known as Chuuk.
Turns out that in the '40s,
we got the name wrong and it stuck.
The Chuuk Atoll should be coming into view.
[dramatic music playing]
Wow. Look at that.
[Josh] However, you pronounce it,
Chuuk is a stunner,
a 145-mile diameter atoll,
a circular barrier reef
protecting an 800-square mile lagoon
with 16 tropical islands.
We're landing on this one,
Weno,
on a runway built by Imperial Japan,
and it's here that our tour of paradise
gets a little bumpy.
[pilot] Okay. Ladies and gentlemen,
down straight ahead is the airport.
We'll be landing shortly.
[Josh] The airfield here is perfect
for World War II fighter planes,
commercial airliners, not so much.
In fact, in 2018,
an Air Niugini 737
shorted the runway and ended up
in almost a hundred feet of water.
Now, it's my turn to roll the dice.
Next stop is either Truk...
[tires screeches]
...or Truk Lagoon.
Brakes, brakes, brakes, brakes, brakes.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] I'm flying over the Pacific Islands
of Micronesia,
hunting for the remains of missing in action
servicemen from World War II.
We're coming in to land on a short air strip
originally built by the Japanese
before the age of jet airliners,
which means we need to slow down fast.
[tires screeches]
Brakes, brakes, brakes, brakes, brakes.
[exhales]
[flight attendant] We hope you enjoy your time
in Chuuk or wherever your travels take you.
Well, we're here.
[Josh] Happy to not be in the water just yet.
I disembark from an awesome flight
aboard the island hopper
and am immediately transported into the past.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] World War II may have ended decades ago,
but here, the wounds are still fresh.
Ghostly shells of Japanese ships,
derelict structures
and rusted out artillery batteries dot the shores.
Hidden in the depths
lie the remains of American servicemen
and their aircraft.
I head down to a dock to meet the team from Project Recover
that aims to find these heroes
and help bring them home.
-Hey, guys, how are you? -[men] Hey, Josh.
-What's going on? -Good to see you again, man.
Very good to see you again as well.
Last time I saw you, we were on a different island,
-off the coast California. -Anacapa Island,
-you got it. -That's right.
[Josh] I first worked with Colin
on the hunt for a World War II torpedo bomber
lost off the Coast of California,
and now, half a world away,
I'm meeting more members of this remarkable team.
And Josh, I wanna introduce you to Mark Moline,
the co-founder of Project Recover.
-Nice to meet you, Josh. -Great to meet you, Mark.
[Colin] And Dan Davis,
the lead archeologist for this mission.
-Nice to meet you, Josh. -[Josh] Awesome.
[Josh] Project Recover's mission
takes them all over the world.
To date, they have helped repatriate
more than 17 MIAs
and located more than 65 World War II aircraft.
And so, let's talk about your mission here in Chuuk.
This was once known as Truk Lagoon
and this island here
and the other islands we see out here,
these were all occupied by the Japanese.
There would've been Japanese ships
and planes all over the place here, right?
Yeah, this was a major Japanese naval base
that we actually didn't even know that much about.
The guys who were flying in here on 17th February
were really flying into a mystery.
[Josh] That mystery turned out
to be the most formidable Japanese naval base
in the Pacific.
Within the barrier reef of the atoll,
the Japanese transformed the islands of Truk,
along with dozens of military buildings.
They built five airfields
supporting hundreds of aircraft,
including a vast fleet of deadly Japanese Zeros.
There were also facilities
for sea planes and submarines.
And the lagoon itself often had
as many as a thousand ships
all defended by anti-aircraft guns on shore.
[Josh] Take me back in time.
What would it have been like
if I was standing on the dock
in February of 1944?
Yeah. If you were here 17th February 1944,
you'd probably be running for cover.
That's when the US launched the Operation Hailstone,
a major carrier-borne attack on Truk Lagoon.
[Josh] In a reverse of Pearl Harbor,
it was now the Japanese who never saw it coming.
An armada of carriers,
battleships, destroyers and subs
descended on Truk in a series of attacks.
And our flyboys got the drop on enemy forces,
sinking more than 50 ships
and destroying over 400 planes.
And in terms of the numbers,
we obviously routed the Japanese forces here,
but not without a cost, right?
So between Hailstone and the subsequent operations,
how many US personnel went missing here?
We lost 42 planes and around 200 people.
[Josh] Two hundred people are missing here.
And presumably, many of those remains
are sunk out here in the atoll, yes?
-[men] Yes. -Now, there are of course
known wrecks out here. The Japanese lost
a ton of ships in this attack,
many of which are plotted out here.
What about these American planes though?
Up until now, nobody has found
any of the US planes.
-[Josh] None of them? -No.
[Josh] Wow. That's incredible.
That's remarkable.
[Josh] Somewhere in these waters
lie the lost heroes of Hailstone,
their stories untold
and remains unclaimed almost 80 years later.
[Josh] It's a big mission. Where do we begin?
We have over five years now
conducting archival research of action reports,
war diaries, you know, declassified documents
from World War II.
And in fact, we actually have some targets
to get started with already.
-We have targets? -[Mark] We do.
And our mission today is to go figure out
what those are.
Okay. Should we get on the water?
-Sounds like a plan. -Can't wait.
Lead the way, please.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] While it may be called a lagoon,
the waters here are about the size of Rhode Island.
In 2019,
the Project Recovery team deployed cutting edge
autonomous underwater vehicles
to sonar scan sections of the lagoon
that had never been searched.
They got back promising data.
Unfortunately, COVID stopped their mission short.
Now we have an incredible opportunity
to interrogate these targets for the very first time.
How many targets would you say there are that are promising?
[Mark] Ten, ten or twelve.
Can we take a look at the data?
-[Mark] Sure. -[Josh] Yeah. Here?
[Mark] Right here. Yup.
This is the first one
that we're thinking about diving on today.
[Josh] So something there for sure,
-very distinct shape. -[Mark] Yeah.
So, we call this rabbit ears
based on previous experience.
Looks like a propeller
where one of the propeller's vertical.
It's casting a vertical shadow
and the other one sort of casting this angular shape,
and it definitely looks like this sort of rabbit ear.
-So looks like a propeller? -[Mark] It does.
Might not be a propeller but...
-Might not be. -...that's what we hope it is?
-Yeah. -Okay.
-Let's go see what it is. -Okay.
[Josh] We motor about a half a mile
across the lagoon toward our mystery sonar hit,
until we arrive at the coordinates
that Mark has waited years to investigate.
-Yeah, we get... we get-- -To the right.
Okay. Slow down.
[Josh] When our vessel is directly
on top of the target...
Now!
[Josh] ...Colin tosses a weighted shot line
over the bow.
This will be our guide
down to the target
and our lifeline back to the boat.
Dan and I drop in
while Mark monitors the coms topside.
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] Hopefully we nailed the position.
As the saying goes,
off by an inch, off by a mile,
and at this depth over a hundred feet,
our bottom time is limited
to about fifteen minutes
to avoid decompression sickness.
This is topside.
What are the conditions down there? Over.
[Dan speaking]
[Josh] Time is tight.
So we drop down fast
making a beeline to the ocean floor.
[Josh speaking]
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Topside, copy.
[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh speaking]
All right. What does it look like?
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] I'm with Project Recover
on a mission to find missing World War II Airmen
in Truk Lagoon, Micronesia, 100 feet down.
We're investigating a promising sonar target
that looked like a bent propeller.
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] As the Allied Armada descended
on Truk Lagoon, Japanese ships fled,
cutting anchor to escape the bombardment.
That's great.
Take as many photos as you can and come back up
to the surface.
[Josh] The anchor is an important find
giving battlefield archeologists and historians
another puzzle piece
to reconstruct the story of Operation Hailstone.
[exhales sharply]
Monster anchor down there.
-Nice job. -[Josh] Huge.
We got one sonar target down.
-[Mark] Yup. -Several more to go.
That's right.
[dramatic music playing]
[boat engine whirring]
[Josh] Back on the boat,
we return to our sonar targets
with barely enough time to dry off
before we're on top of another one.
[Josh] So next target, what do we got?
Uh, for the next target I think we should focus on,
uh, this debris field,
looks to be about 25 feet in length.
[Josh] Now, when you look at that,
-you don't immediately think that's an airplane. -[Dan] No.
But sometimes that's what this stuff looks like, right?
Yeah. These planes sometimes hit the surface
at high speeds.
And so what you have is a distributed debris pile.
[Josh] That could be an aircraft.
-[Dan] Yeah. -[Mark] Yup.
[Josh] And then I can't help but notice,
what's this weird thing over here?
[Dan] Yeah. We have what looks like,
uh, a manmade object about 150 feet away
from that debris pile.
-Long shadow... -[Josh] Yeah.
[Dan] ...which means it has some height.
[Mark] And it's also about 10 feet in diameter.
[Josh] 10 feet in diameter? Okay.
So two for one, we hit one target
and then rush over to the other.
[Dan] Yes, we could.
It'll have to be a quick swim, but I think we can do it.
[Josh] Okay.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] We circle back around to the coordinates...
release another shot line...
and waste no time dropping down.
[ominous music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Is it wreckage? It looked round on the sonar.
Over.
[Josh speaking]
[Dan speaking]
-[Josh speaking] -[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] One sonar mystery is solved.
Now we quickly swim toward the target
that looks like a debris field.
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] Dan drags the shot line behind us
so we can quickly find our way back to the boat.
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Does it look manmade?
[Josh speaking]
[Dan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
-[Dan speaking] -[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] The anchor and the mooring paint a picture
of where Japanese forces were positioned
during Hailstone
and where American pilots may have attacked.
This valuable intel may ultimately aid
the search for MIAs.
Okay. Two more targets down.
All right.
-Plenty more to go. -[Mark] Nice job, guys.
-Plenty more to go. -Nice, guys.
When do the beers come out?
-Uh, when we get back. -Oh, okay.
-[groans] -I wasn't sure.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] With the sun setting, we motor back
across the lagoon and return to port.
By the light of a new day, we're back out on the water.
To find missing planes, Project Recover
uses more than just sonar.
They also rely on something even more powerful,
local knowledge.
Josh, I wanna introduce you to Mason Fritz.
-Mason. Hello? -Yeah. Hello.
Mason is our local investigator here in Chuuk.
He is an essential part of the Project Recover team
because there are more than a dozen
populated islands here in Chuuk.
And we need to be able to liaise with local people
in order to get local stories about American aircraft
or personnel who might have washed as shore.
Got it.
So today we're heading to Fana Panges,
which is another island in the...
In the atoll here where Mason has uncovered
a story that's connected to an MIA.
I found an eyewitness.
-You found an eyewitness? -[Mason] Yes.
Okay.
[Josh] An eyewitness account of an American MIA
would be a massive step forward for Project Recover.
Of course, at the time of Hailstone,
all of the people of Chuuk were unwilling eyewitnesses
to a war they had no desire in waging.
And the Japanese took control of these islands
in World War I, right?
-Yes. -And what was that relationship like
between the Japanese and the Chuukese people?
There was a very good relationship
between the Japanese and the Chuukese because
the Japanese were here not for military purpose.
They were here to turn this place
into a commercial site.
When the Japanese start building up this area
for military, that's when the hardships
start coming in for the Chuukese.
-Right. -[Mason] You know?
[Josh] And it was very hard, right?
[Mason] It was very hard.
[Josh] As the war ramped up,
many Chuukese were forced out of their homes
to make room for tens of thousands
of Japanese soldiers.
Facing food shortages and forced to work
for the war effort, it is estimated
that more than a thousand local islanders died,
victims of a war they were simply living
in the middle of.
And so how did the people of Chuuk
look at Operation Hailstone
and the American assault on the Japanese forces here?
They're really thankful because a lot
of the atrocities they faced
during that buildup
of military all the way until the attack
on the lagoon, it's like freedom for them.
You know, the attack really liberates the locals.
[Josh] Not only that, but it forges a bond
that continues with many Micronesians
now serving in the US Armed Forces.
We have more young men and women from Micronesia
are joining the US military per capita
than many other states...
-[Josh] Wow. -...in the United States.
This relationship has really endured.
[Josh] We're hoping that our eyewitness
can continue that spirit of cooperation.
To talk to him, we're motoring
about 30 minutes from Weno
to the western side of the atoll
in the island of Fana Panges.
We arrive at the shores of the lush island
and tie up at an old Japanese dock.
For most of us World War II is history,
but for the people living here,
it's still eerily present.
Children play in the remains of war machinery
used three generations before,
but the people of Fana Panges remember,
including Mason's witness Antaero Rawit.
Hi, I'm Josh.
-Antero. -Antero, nice to meet you.
Colin.
Antero, I understand you've got a story
about something that was witnessed in World War II.
I heard that there was an American airman
who came to this island on a raft.
-[Colin] Wow. -My grandfather knew
a little bit of English.
That's why they brought the airman to him.
And those people that brought him here,
did they see a plane crash?
They said that they saw a crash between here and Udot.
And, Mason, Udot is this island?
Yes. Udot is this island.
[Josh] So somewhere in between these two islands
is a missing plane.
I can't believe it.
This is incredible.
[dramatic music playing]
[Antero] An American airman
was brought to my grandfather by some other native people
from this island.
[Josh] I'm interviewing the grandson of a local man
who aided a downed American airman during World War II.
So your grandfather was able to protect
this guy for how long?
For a couple of days.
And then what, the Japanese found out?
The Japanese came to my grandfather's house.
They forced their way inside the house
and they beat up my grandfather
and took the American guy
away from my grandfather's house.
-Wow. -[Colin] Wow.
Incredible.
And so considering it was a risk,
why do you think your grandfather
tried to protect him?
During that time, the Chuukese people
were treated by the Japanese very, very badly.
The people of Chuuk, they knew that the American
would save them.
Hmm. And what about a name?
What did your grandfather call him?
The name of the airman was Fredrick.
-Frederick? -Frederick?
-Oh, my God. -Is there a Frederick?
-Yes, there is definitely a Frederick. -There is?
-[Colin] Oh, yes. -Among the missing?
Among the missing in Truk.
I mean, we know these names back and forth.
-Uh, 199 of them. -Right.
And I know one of them is definitely Frederick.
There is a Frederick?
There's a Frederick, Frederick McKenzie.
And I'm shocked to hear that this was Frederick.
It's the only Frederick that's missing.
Is it a single pilot aircraft that he's in?
No, it's actually, it's an Avenger.
It's a three-crewmen torpedo bomber.
-He's in an Avenger. -Wow.
And were there any other crewmen on the life raft?
-No. He was a alone. -[Colin] Just a single guy?
So that means that in this strait
between these two islands,
there may be an Avenger and two crewmen.
And to hear that possibly he crashed in between
these two islands, it's a huge break.
This is incredible.
Thank you so much...
-You're welcome. -...for sharing this story,
-really, it's incredible. -Kinisou Chapur.
Thank you.
[Josh] Gunner Frederick McKenzie was stationed
on the USS Bunker Hill
as part of the VT-17 Torpedo Squadron.
Thanks to Antero we now know how his story
of service ends,
not at the bottom of Truk Lagoon,
but as a POW who never came home.
As for the rest of the crew,
radioman, Stanley S. Stump
and Pilot Newton B. Birkes
may still be out there waiting to be found.
To see if we can locate them, we get back on the water
and link up with Mark and two other members
of the Project Recover team who are bringing
cutting edge tech to scan our new target area.
Okay. So let's talk about this sonar.
I assume that's this thing here?
[Mark] Yeah. That's what we got.
Can we see it?
-Yeah, let's see it. -Yeah. Let's go.
[Josh] I feel like a kid on Christmas
as Project Recover breaks out their latest AUV.
Look at this thing.
This is insane.
What are we looking at here?
So this is an autonomous underwater vehicle or an AUV.
[Josh] I remember the last time I worked
with Project Recover, you had an AUV named Barry.
-[Mark] Yeah. -What's this one called?
This one's called Killer.
And its partner is Hunter. Hunter, Killer.
Killer? Oh, you've really stepped things up here.
This is... You're not... You're not fooling around anymore.
If I were to go online and pick up one of these bad boys,
this would set me back about how much?
About 700K.
-$700,000? -Yes.
You get free shipping, though.
Oh, that's good. I would hope so.
[Mark] We have some amazing innovation here.
One of them is the INS here, Inertial Navigation System,
which is analogous to a cruise missile underwater.
And by autonomous we mean this thing
is not attached to the boat in any way.
-It's on its own. -Yeah.
It's fully independent.
It's basically a mini submarine.
[Leila] Yeah. Exactly.
So we give it a pass to follow,
kind of like mowing the lawn
and rows back and forth and it follows those.
And in terms of today's mission, what's our plan?
We're gonna scan the seafloor between the two islands.
Um, we'll be out in about six hours
and get about a mile, square mile of coverage.
And really, this is not just you searching here.
Probably nobody's searched here before, right?
It is... I think it's safe to say that nobody's seen
the seafloor here.
-All right, let's get this thing in the water. -All right.
You're going ahead there.
And it's away.
Look at that. There she goes.
Dive, dive, dive.
Okay. She's down.
[Josh] The AUV, affectionately known as Killer,
is in the water,
and it begins its six-hour program
scanning through our search zone.
Normally, I take this time to read
or, let's not kid ourselves, sleep,
but instead Mark tells me to suit up for a dive.
I'm not sure what's beneath us,
but I'm certainly intrigued to find out.
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh] Almost twice as long
as the Statue of Liberty is tall,
this behemoth was sent to the bottom of Truk Lagoon
by two pairs of bombs from American aircraft.
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] We swim along a now sideways deck
that stretches the length of the ship.
It's disorienting as what feels like
the floor below is a wall dotted with windows
leading to the ship's interior.
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Josh] As the host of Expedition Unknown,
I've been to over a hundred different countries.
I've seen everything from the base camp of Everest
and the Moai of Easter Island,
to the Amazonian rainforest
and the frozen tundra of Siberia.
But on the remote island of Kosrae,
I'm finally going someplace I've never been.
I've waited my whole life to look in there.
It's where the bags go.
All right. This one is all beer.
Be careful with that one. All right?
You can have a few.
Precious cargo.
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] I'm in Micronesia's Truk Lagoon
searching for the wreckage of American planes
from World War II.
A massive Japanese ship called the Heian Maru
has lain here since 1944
along with its still live ordnance.
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[Josh] We return awestruck to the vessel
where the AUV has finished running
its long sonar sweep through the search zone.
-[Mark] There it is. -Oh, she's up. Okay.
[Josh] Now, it's time to collect the drone
and review the data.
Okay. One, two, three.
Okay.
Hopefully we have some data.
Into the dock.
Nice job.
Nice work.
[Josh] Hours later, back at Project Recover's
makeshift headquarters on Weno,
I'm anxious to learn if Killer
found the downed Avenger
reported by a local eyewitness
or anything else for that matter.
-Hey, guys. -Hey, Mark. Hey Josh.
Hey. Hey. How's it going?
It's good. We collected a lot of data.
That's the big question. You got data.
Yeah. Yeah. Good data. It looks really clean.
-Let's figure it out. -So this footprint here
is what we've scanned today,
just about a square mile
with inch to 2-inch resolution.
So cool.
So how do we unpack this huge amount of data?
Traditionally, we would go through it
line by line just like the AUV ran the mission today.
And then we see about 250 feet on each side
of where the AUV is.
[Josh] The scanning may be autonomous.
Thanks again, Killer.
But historically the analysis has been very manual.
With researchers needing to stare
at every inch of the ocean floor as it scrolls by.
Long night. Get my jammies on.
Well. Maybe not. I mean. Leila brings a new tool
to the table and that we're trying to try that out.
[Josh] While the rest of the world is using
artificial intelligence to cheat on their homework
and make trippy art projects,
Leila has found a purpose for AI
that's incredibly useful.
So I'm putting together a machine learning model,
which is a type of artificial intelligence
that's going to automatically tell us
where planes and debris are in the sonar
in two to three minutes.
That sounds like witchcraft.
How is that possible?
Over several months, I've fed the model
previous data from past missions
and it's learned what planes look like
and what debris looks like.
So it's able to discriminate between
what's a rock or a piece of coral
and what could be wreckage?
-Exactly. -And does it work?
Well, that's what we're here to find out.
This is our first time running it in the field.
And we legitimately have no idea
what this is gonna find.
No, we have no idea.
[Josh] And so we decide to cross our fingers
and power on Skynet.
Boom.
Faster than you can say, "Good Lord,
we're all gonna be replaced by machines,"
the AI has scanned thousands of sonar images
and compiled the results.
-[Josh] So each of these dots is a prediction? -[Leila] Yes. Yeah.
So each of these dots is where the model thinks
that there's something associated with an aircraft.
[Josh] Wow. Item one.
Something down there.
You can see the really rounded edges.
It could be a part of a plane or a ship.
This is an anchorage area,
so there's a lot of debris there.
Because it has this kind of elongated shape.
It thinks maybe that's a plane.
But you think it's not?
No. No way.
Okay. Well, all right, next up.
[Dan] Yeah. This is interesting.
It could be something 200 to 300 feet.
So I definitely don't think it's aircraft.
So not necessarily a plane, but could be manmade?
[Dan] Could be manmade.
[Josh] The search continues.
One by one we dismiss each hit as coral,
debris, or junk.
And then we see something incredible.
-Oh, that is a plane. -That's a plane.
That has to be a plane, right?
-[man] Yeah. -Wait, can you go... Can you go closer to that?
Yeah.
[Josh] Shut up, that... That's a plane.
[Leila] It's a lot like a plane.
That's a plane for sure, right?
See the wings here, that's the tail section.
I mean that's a plane.
-That's a plane. -[Dan] Yeah. That's a plane.
And I can tell you it looks like a World War II plane.
[Josh] Could this be the plane
that we're looking for here?
[Dan] It's in the right area.
We are in the right spot.
-And there is a plane there. -[man] Yeah.
I still can't believe it's an actual plane
staring us in the face.
[Josh] We can dive that.
-[Colin] We can dive that. -We can dive that tomorrow.
And based on the location, too.
It's never been seen before.
[Josh] Right.
So whatever that is,
nobody's been down there to look at it.
Not in 80 years.
Wow.
That's awesome.
[Josh] Next time on Expedition Unknown.
The search for missing World War II heroes continues.
On a group of remote Pacific islands,
an eyewitness reveals buried secrets.
[Mason] After they tied them, he heard the explosion.
The men were dead.
[Josh] Our team explores land...
Josh, there's a maze of these tunnels
all throughout the mountains.
[Josh] This is crazy.
[Josh] ...and sea, to find those who made
the ultimate sacrifice.
[Josh speaking]