Trip to Palau and Peleliu

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Evidence of occupation? As we walked through the caves we saw remains of war debris and bottles, although some people in our group questioned how old some of the bottles really were.

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There were lots of bottles, some not looking 67 years old.

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.

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My dive lights came in handy for this excursion.

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Searchers found human remains inside the complex, which were sent back to Japan.

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A memorial left by a previous visitor.

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Not sure, could be the remains of a rocket launcher ammo box?

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?

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have escaped

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There were several entrances to the cave system. This one got rather shallow quickly, you would be crawling soon.

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That's it for our first visit to Peleliu, we are heading back

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During our hour+ drive back to the island of Koror, we pass a small ferry. Or with that drop gate is it an invasion craft?

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End of a great day, dinner coming soon after we land.

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The next day, Saturday Jan 21, we went diving with some of our Island Hoppers tour group. It was arranged for our group to dive with Neco Marine. Their base of operation is on Malakal Island, just west of Koror. Our first dive was with some captured nautilus, the second dive was on the wreck of a Japanese "Jake" float plane, otherwise known as a Aichi E13A.

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The Jake we all know well and is a medium-range naval search/reconnaissance plane used by the Japanese during WWII. The dive crew said it was shot down but I have since found different reasons for it's demise.

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Notice how the engine is broken off.

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It is believed that the a/c crashed during landing or a aborted takeoff after the engine had stopped. On impact the tail section, the engine and one of the pontoons broke away. The tail section and the missing pontoon can be found about 20 feet (6.1 meters) north of the plane. They are difficult to find because they are now covered with coral growth.

The Meyuns Seaplane Ramp was once the base of operations for the "Jake" seaplanes and is not to far from this location so plausible the Japanese used this area for takeoffs and landings.

I think we would call this a "ops" loss.

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I found no bullet holes from a shoot down so accident sounds right. The max depth here was 45 feet so an easy dive with no current. Once again the vis was not great, maybe 50 ft but still murky.

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The tail is gone

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Forward cockpit