Search for a hero

To the best of Colin Perry’s knowledge, U.S. Navy Reserve Ensign Harold Patrick DeMoss is the last remaining World War II pilot to have crashed and died in Hawaii’s back country without having his body recovered for family burial.

It’s a lack of closure he’d like to correct, but progress has come yards at a time.

Perry and other members of the Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society have driven, hiked and bushwhacked through vegetation and up and down steep ridges to within less than a quarter-mile of where they think DeMoss’ F6F-3 Hellcat crashed on June 23, 1945, and where the 21-year-old pilot was buried days later.

Once the site is pinpointed, Perry, the aviation preservation society’s director, hopes the military’s Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command will step in and recover the remains.

Another hike to try to reach the site — Perry has the latitude and longitude — is planned for Aug. 15.

Four thousand miles away in Nashville, Tenn., the DeMoss family is waiting, watching and hoping for answers in place of the void that has existed so long.

The prospect of a recovery came too late for Harold DeMoss’ parents, who went to their graves wondering what really happened to their son.

"They never coped with it," Judy DeMoss Ivey said of her grandparents. "They never got over this. Never. To the day my grandmother went into a nursing home, it bothered her. They never got over it, because they always had that doubt — what if he’s still out there somewhere?"

Ivey’s father, James — the Navy pilot’s only sibling — is 78.

"My dad’s wish — of course, it may not happen — is that they’ll find something that says, ‘Here he is,’ before he dies," she said.

The blue-eyed, sandy-brown-haired pilot was part of a formation of three Hellcats that took off from Naval Air Station Barbers Point at 1:05 a.m. for night training, Navy records show.

Near Kahuku Point, the fighters ran into clouds at 3,000 to 6,000 feet, and DeMoss became separated from the group. At 10 a.m., a crashed and burning plane was spotted in the mountains.

What came next were two investigative trips to the site, interagency military correspondence over the next several years and, by 1949, confusion over the location of the crash site and a determination that the remains were "non-recoverable."

The DeMosses made inquiries to the Navy about recovering their son after he was reported to have crashed. The years stretched into decades, and the hope to see Harold DeMoss returned for burial passed from his parents to his brother and to his niece.

Ivey, 59, said her father "didn’t know where to begin," adding, "He had little bits and pieces. I didn’t know what to do, either, until I started trying to tie it all together."

The Nashville resident read about Navy Ensign Harry Warnke — another Hellcat pilot — whose remains were recovered in 2006 from a cloud-covered mountaintop near the Kaneohe side of the H-3 tunnel.

Warnke crashed on June 15, 1944. Efforts by Ted Darcy, an East Coast resident who researches missing World War II service members, led to Warnke’s recovery by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. He was buried in Indiana in 2007.

The Hawaii-based command investigates and recovers missing American war dead.

Ivey started her quest in March, contacting Darcy, who contacted Perry and the Hawaii Aviation Preservation Society.

"I got an email from (Darcy) that basically said, ‘Sit down, you are not going to believe this — another F6F pilot is buried next to his airplane,’" Perry recalled.

The first military search party to look for DeMoss reached the crash site on June 26, 1945 — three days after he went down.

According to Navy records, burned and decomposed remains were found nearby. Some reports say he was buried at that time. Another team returned on July 2.

"We drove over a very torturous road for about six miles, and after the road quit we walked over an Army Signal Corps trail for another five miles. After fortifying ourselves with K-rations, we then took to climbing and descending a very steep ridge hitherto untouched or untraversed by man. At least it seemed that way," Navy Reserve Lt. C. White said in a written statement.

Burned remains were found with a summer flying suit and a "Mae West" life vest, he said. Wreckage was scattered on the ground.

"We dug a hole and buried what we assumed to be the remains of Ensign DeMoss," White wrote. "Then we all said the Lord’s Prayer."

Perry said he’s working with JPAC, and on the last hike attempting to reach the site, two JPAC historians went along.

"When we told (JPAC) about the crash site, they had no clue about it, so they opened a case file, and now they are working with their superiors to try and send out an exploration team," Perry said.

"They promised us, ‘Hey, you find it, we’ll recover him,’" he added.

Perry, whose group is dedicated to preserving historic aircraft and memorializing the aviators who gave their lives in service to the country, said the DeMoss crash site is on a fairly steep hillside.

"It’s not fall-down-and-die steep, but it’s like 45 degrees steep," the Ewa Beach resident said.

The volunteer group has gotten within a half-mile of the crash coordinates, Perry said.

"The most important thing is trying to figure out how to get a helicopter," he said. "If we can get a helicopter insertion, then we can get some boots on the ground that I’m pretty sure will help find him soon."

Perry said the group doesn’t intend to disturb the crash site, but rather to identify it for JPAC to examine.

James DeMoss remembers his older brother "was a real fine person to know."

"I just about worshipped him," he said.

The family had 8 acres in Tennessee, and he and his brother kept ponies and horses.

James DeMoss said he doesn’t know why his brother went into the Navy Reserve.

"It was just his ambition," he said.

He does recall the anguish suffered by his parents, made worse by the uncertainty of what happened to the fighter pilot in the mountains of Hawaii.

"It just about killed my mother," he said. "It was hard to believe."