The handwriting is Neil Kearby's, Commanding Officer of the 348th Fighter Group, the unit to introduce the Thunderbolt to the SWPA. Addressed to a member of his groundcrew, it reads, "Good luck Jack, Neil Kearby".

On 5th March 1944 Kearby departed Saidor in this 'razorback' Thunderbolt, named after his red-haired wife Virginia. He took two wingmen with him, Sam Blair and "Dinghy" Dunham, for a sweep of their old Wewak stomping ground. At 1713 hours in New Guinea's fading afternoon Kearby spotted three approaching Japanese bombers which Dunham identified mistakently as Mitsubishi G3M1 Nells. The three Thunderbolts dove rapidly from their prowling height of 22,000 feet, and at low altitude opened fire on three Lily bombers, which had seen the attackers coming and tried to flee at low level along the coast. After opening fire, Blair climbed steeply left to check his tail and ensure that the other two Thunderbolts were OK.

What he saw was Fiery Ginger IV with an Oscar on its tail, then Dunham appeared from nowhere and fired into Kearby's attacker. Oscars also fired at Blair, but he escaped into cloud and later, much to his relief, found Dunham. Between terrific closing speeds, glowing tracer lines, and the mottled enemy fighters, Dunham thought he had seen the canopy on Kearby's Thunderbolt come loose.

A villager inland from Wewak named Sabian witnessed the event from the ground. From Sabian's description we know that bullets from the Oscar which attacked Kearby probably hit him in the torso. He nevertheless managed to bail out but hung up in his parachute harness under the foliage of a large tree. Considerably weakened by injuries and blood loss, Kearby died in his struggle to get free. Toward dusk three Japanese soldiers, with Sabian acting as guide, searched the jungle to locate the body of the American airman. The giveaway was the circular white parachute which covered the tree and Sabian was ordered to cut down the suspended body. The Japanese then scavenged Kearby's flying suit for souvenirs and left. Sabian remembered that the airman had been tall and fair-haired.

Designation X1598 was allocated to the remains, which in April 1946 were transferred to Manila's Military Mausoleum. Despite the conclusive logic of Fiery Ginger IV's identity provided by its serial number, and the inescapable conclusion that the body recovered was that of its pilot, it took another three years before Kearby's relatives were informed of the "findings" of the US Quartermaster General, and he was finally returned to the US to be laid to rest.

However, as early as 1946 the Australian Department of Civil Aviation had the accurate location of Kearby's Thunderbolt listed in the Port Moresby control tower as "5 miles from Annenberg near Pibu 4'58"S, 144' 38"E". In November 1996 the wreckage was "discovered" by villagers and a flurry of activity commenced to identify an "unidentified WW2 wreck". The wreckage still lies there today.

Kearby had four Thunderbolts named Fiery Ginger - the original was a D-2 model, serial #42-8145 which went missing with another pilot on 22nd October 1943, Fiery Ginger III was D-16 model serial #42-75908 transferred to the 58th Fighter Group, but the identity of Fiery Ginger II still remains elusive to historians. The final irony is that because Kearby's funeral received so little publicity in the US, it remains widely assumed to this day that this well-known identify remains MIA.

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(Extract from The Forgotten Fifth)

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