Suspected WWII flyer's remains are just a tree branch: military
CANBERRA (AFP) — The suspected remains of a World War II-era airman found dangling in trees in the jungle of Papua New Guinea have turned out to be just a moss-covered branch, the Australian military revealed Friday.
Hikers on the famed Kokoda Trail, site of a brutal 1942 battle between Japanese and Australian troops, reported they had discovered what appeared to be the suspended skeleton of a flyer tangled in parachute cords two weeks ago.
But the Australian Defence Force (ADF) said it had sent staff from Canberra's embassy in Port Moresby to inspect the remote site, only to discover that the suspected human skeleton was simply a tree limb tangled in vines.
"No remains were located," the ADF said in a statement received here Friday.
"While the location, near Kagi, is below a flight path that was commonly used by Allied aircraft during WWII sorties, the find has been confirmed by ADF staff as a moss-covered branch.
"It appears the branch has broken off the main tree and fallen across some vines, which from the ground, could have been confused with the body of an airman," the statement said.
News that the remains of a flyer had been discovered more than 65 years after his death in the heat of the World War II battle for the Pacific had caused a sensation.
"I couldn't make it out at first. It wasn't until the wind blew that you could really see it is in a harness," guide David Collins, who was leading the group of Australian hikers who spotted the tree-bound mass, said last week.
"There are goggles and it appears to be caught up in cables, so presumably it is an airman," he said.
The ADF immediately dispatched a team to check whether the find was actually a body and, if so, to determine the airman's nationality as Australian, US and Japanese planes overflew the area during the war.
The jungle in the area is extremely dense and hikers are warned not to stray off the Kokoda Trail as unexploded ordnance remains strewn in the area more than half a century after fighting ceased.
Some 600 Australian soldiers died in battle near the extremely rugged Kokoda Trail, which was seen by the Allies as a crucial point at which to halt the Japanese military's southern advance through the Pacific towards Australia.
