To call Clayton Kuhles an adventurer is an understatement.
That’s because Kuhles is an adventurer with a purpose — to answer questions about where military personnel from World War II went missing.
Kuhles, a self-made entrepreneur who made his money in the recycling and waste management business, has taken a number of treks through the mountains in China and Burma to locate the wreckage of U.S. planes that went down during World War II.
In fact, Kuhles was the person who discovered the wreckage of the plane that carried Pfc. James C. Mohn. Mohn’s memorial by the VFW post in Tacoma was featured in Veterans Life last month.
Kuhles knew from an early age that he was meant to be an explorer. He was raised in the Chicago area and considers himself a “professional explorer.”
“I’ve been a mountaineer forever,” he said. “I’ve climbed mountains on every continent.”
In the 1990s, he had an opportunity to climb in Nepal and Tibet. He found the locals fascinating and as he became a trusted friend he was told about a crash site by one of his guides. In 2002, he took a trek to the area the guide described southwest of the Burma-Tibet boarder and three days later, he found the crash site.
“I wasn’t prepared at that time to do anything but take notes about the site,” he said. “But later I met with U.S. embassy officials in the area and with their permission, decided to return the next year.”
When he returned, he carried GPS with him and other equipment needed to correctly plot the wreck and report it to the government.
Historically, during WWII, the U.S. lost hundreds of aircraft and thousands of men at the China-Burma-India theater of operations, Kuhles said. Hostile fire from Japan forced some planes down, while weather accounted for some crashes and still mechanical failure and navigational error was the cause of other downed planes.
The area was known as the “hump,” a major military supply route that took U.S. fliers over the Himalayans mountains.
After the war ended, Operation Bodylift was undertaken by the 1305 AAF Base Unit at Dum Dum airport near Calcutta. Many trips were flown into the area to recover all the U.S. war dead. Two C-47 aircraft were permanently assigned to this duty. The flights were difficult due to the smells of decomposing bodies. Fliers kept the doors of the planes open and wore handkerchiefs dipped in wintergreen oil over their mouths to fight the odors.
By December of 1945, 890 bodies were collected. A U.S. cemetery was established near Calcutta where those who were not returned to the U.S. were buried. The work by an all volunteer crew continued through 1948, after which the theater was closed and troops returned home.
As Kuhles studied the history, he learned that more than 700 aircraft went missing in the area during this time. The government knew of 1,200 crew members who were reported Missing in Action there, and with the recoveries made after the war, is it estimated that there are 416 Americans still missing. That’s what keeps Kuhles going back to the area.
“My father was of this generation,” he said. “I heard his stories and his friends stories of war time. When I found out how many Americans are still missing, the adventurer in me had to go.”
Too many who climb mountains do so just to say they did it, he said. He sees this identification work as adding a purpose to his climbing.
“Climbers tend to be people who are climbing to prove something to themselves,” he said. “It’s a vain sport that doesn’t help anybody. I want my work to have a deeper purpose.”
In all, Kuhles has made 10 expeditions in the China-Burma-India theater of World War II. He’s located 25 sites and made positive identification of 17 U.S. planes. He’s helped account for 193 personnel missing or Killed in Action. When he began the work, he would pack out human remains, parts of aircrafts, flight jackets — anything that was proof of the crash site.
But it wasn’t always the best idea, he found out.
“As a private individual, it’s against the law to transport human remains,” he said. “Working with JPAC, (Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command) I’ve learned that I should just take field notes, look for the serial numbers of the construction numbers on the wreckage and, if possible, place any human remains in plastic bags and and leave them at the site.”
Early on, he had an experience with Burmese Intelligence Agents who held him for a time when he carried flight jackets and boots back from a site before he knew to leave them behind.
Now, he works the sites and takes notes so that crash sites and remains are documented and he gives that information to JPAC.
In order to undertake his expeditions, Kuhles has to get permits from the governments of the countries where he’ll be. He also has to find locals who will make the trek with him.
“Everything hinges on that,” he said. “Many times, I’m the first American they’ve ever met. They’re very friendly people but most are illiterate. Communication is difficult.”
He said guides are paid a fair wage to go exploring with him and he supplies them with the gear that they’ll need.
His trips usually take place in late November or early December. Summers in the area are from June to September and it’s too wet to go then, he said.
“We’re going 14,000 feet into the mountains across a pass in high snow,” he said. “Some of the locals worry about the snow. They won’t go any later in the season.”
Because of funding, Kuhles wasn’t able to make a trip last year. He hopes to go yet this year, but he’s $9,000 short in his fundraising. Each trip costs about $11,000 and can run up to $20,000 to $30,000 depending on how long he stays on site. He’s spent nearly $100,000 of his own money so far.
His hope is that he can get JPAC to contract with him to do the recovery for the U.S. government and actually be able to bring back artifacts and remains. Because of politics, governments in China and India aren’t keen on having U.S. troops do the work, Kuhles said.
“China doesn’t really want the U.S. there because they consider it sovereign territory,” he said. “JPAC wants to do the recoveries, but there’s boarder disputes between the Indian government and China and it’s just not possible.”
The Prescott, Arizona man, who is an Army veteran, often thinks about an experience that he had when he helped a missing World War II flier come home. In 2003, he found the crash site of plane and the remains of three Americans who were eventually identified by DNA. One was Mervyn Earl Sims.
Sims, a 23-year-old Army private, died with four other crewmen aboard a military cargo plane that crashed high in the Himalayas on April 24, 1943. Remains were given to JPAC and the identifications were made in Hawaii by the U.S. Government.
“His family invited me to attend the memorial in Petaluma, California,” he said. “I met two elderly ladies who had gone to school with (Sims) and they talked about what he was like when he was young. It was a very emotional experience for me.”
The family asked him to be a part of the service, to talk about his work, and to then place dirt over the man’s ashes as they were buried.
“When I think about that day, it reminds me why I do this, “ he said.
To learn more or to donate go to www.miarecoveries.org.