Tarac Ridge Warplane crashes February 8-10 2018 write up by Nick Armbrister



I have had an interest in aeroplanes and history ever since my dad got me into planes back in 1980. He took me up to air crashes on the Pennines/Peak District/Manchester/Yorkshire/Lancashire area of England in the early 80s. There are over fifty crashes alone here ranging from the war years and later. We also went to wrecks in the Lake District and Wales.

In 2014 in the Philippines I went to more wrecks. I Googled Bataan warplane crashes and found out about the LT Stone P-40 Warhawk and Sgt Kurosawa Ki-27 Nate dog fight and subsequent crashes. This read like something from a Battle or Warlord comic.

Over the coming weeks I put together an expedition there. I talked to Kevin Hamdorf who was one of the group who found the P-40 wreck. He gave me much info and introduced me to the guide, Noel. Without his help the trip wouldn’t have been possible.

We went to the crash area at Tarac Ridge on February 8-10 2018. This was the 76th anniversary of it. We went to the P-40 on Feb 9 and the Ki-27 on the 10th.

The crashes are over a kilometer up altitude wise. We had to hike many hours through the forest/jungle and mountain to the area. We camped at the lower campsite. There is an easier site at the top of the mountain near Kurosawa’s Nate which is less than a hundred feet below the area. Because we never camped there we had to ascend the final hour to the summit each day.

The Warhawk site of Stone is hundreds of feet below Kurosawa’s in the forest on the mountain side. Little remains today but bits of alloy, Perspex, glass and other small fragments. We found these. Lt Stone is still listed as MIA Missing In Action. One of our group, Mike, searches for MIAs. We took hundreds of photos of the area and of our search.

I ventured up to the Nate site of Sgt Kurosawa on the last day of our three day stay. It was at the summit. We had to go through thick brush/jungle to the location. Kurosawa hit a rock face and his plane was fragmented. The engine used to be there but has since been removed. There is less at this site than at Stone’s P-40. We found bits of metal, Perspex and bits. Looking at the closeness to the summit, I realized that Kurosawa almost made it.

Nobody but God and the pilots know who shot down whom and who was on the other’s tail that day. The result is the same: two warplanes wrecked and two pilots dead. Maybe more answers will be found on future expeditions. It was a great experience to go there to Tarac Ridge, Mariveles, Bataan. In time I hope to return. This was my first international warplane trip. I want to go to a Grumman F-6F Hellcat at Capas next.

Selana
She strapped on her warplane and flew away to fight
Russian jets being the enemy to be hit
Her missiles were old like her plane

But it was a good one well built
Serviced by her mechanics to perform
When ordered to do by her

She the tip of the spear just a gal
Reason I love my mistress the pilot

Defending our nation each and every day
She already shot down four or five planes
She told me it’s confusing being in combat

Things happen fast beyond comprehension
It’s comparable to driving a racing bike
I think but I’m a hacker and don’t drive

I get into Russian and Red Chinese systems
Do my art and war that way to defeat them
It focuses me while my gal is up above

Keeping us all safe from enemy actions
I want to tell the world but we cannot
We must remain a secret what we both do

Dandelion Flights, so Dandy
He's a Swell kinda fella
If you catch him at a proper Hour
He gets the Rosy Red, ya See
Reviews Legends, some about
Storming the Beaches of Normandy
Gritting Power of this Jaws,
Leans in close for Dramatists Pause
An Aged Mouth, the Black of Life
Spits over into his World of Words
Spirits gathering, the Deadening in Delivering
The Tales of the Long Lost Listeners
I Revel in the Imagery, Mindsight Sees
Battlegrounds Soundtrack
The lapping Tide, the remote Tanks and Warplane Engines, the dusty soldiers yelling out commands,
Words too faint to Understand
but the Sound of Fear, Gutwrenching, Rage, Pits of Painstaking, Heroic Strain

I'd so easily slip back in Time
To relive his Stories of Lucid Dreams

WAKE-UP ISN'T CONTRAST

I Only Will my Eyes open
After a Silence has Befallen
My Lids Jolt Open,
As I survey the Scene, Listening, Feeling for any Sign and Everything The Moment collapsed
In to the Present Presence.

Reaching over the Table
I felt for breath and the Old Man's Essence, I sighed and shook my head Knowingly  
This Man who fought all Those Battles and Lived to Tell,  Would not leave in It's Retelling,
not from this World nor the Next
No way, Not this One....He was just One of the many Spirits that passed through from Time to Time, and needed
an Ear to hear His Story...
I certainly didn't Mind...
Ethereal Sport is my Truest kinda Scene.

Modified Bombs
Her eye was acting up but that was fine
For she had a second one to use
This was just fine like her warplane
It had two engines but number one engine
This was like her eye acting up too
No need to worry for Eagle 2 jets are good
Made with system redundancy like her
An ability to function with degraded systems
Right now she was on the way to Moscow
To drop some iron bombs on Putin
A personal gift from a gal who was bad
Real bad *** half Yank half what?
That last bit was unknown but what was
Known was that she would soon be dead
Along with the Neo Soviet leader
Those iron bombs were special
She'd personally modified the warheads
A new historical dawn was coming...

Box Off
The black box that tells of approaching enemy missiles is turned off
The black box that jams enemy missiles it turned off
The black box that dispenses radar jamming chaff is turned off
The black box that launches infra-red flares is turned off
The black box that gives out false position locations is turned off
The black box that plots enemy defence locations is turned off
The black box that steers a course round enemy radars is turned off
The black box that sees enemy anti-aircraft guns is turned off
The black box that should save our jet and our lives is turned off
We are now dead and our warplane is now destroyed
The black box should’ve been turned on

Theres a genocide going on in 4K
And the world's acting like its okay
And I wonder who's more pathetic
The antagonist or the apatethic

That we shouldnt **** children is not really that complex
Unless you are from the military industrial complex
And you do not need to know the history of a millennium
To know its wrong to displace millions
And carpet bomb civilians

And humanity is not political
Unless you are a politician
And peace is not controversial
Unless you are hell bound on controverting
Well,you are hell bound anyway

The placards and slogans are up again
Its better than nothing,even if it doesnt bring any change
You wanna feel like you've done something
Even if its meaningless in greater scheme of things

In a world where everything little thing is trauma
The genocide becomes a newsroom drama
As they make you believe they are others
And convince you its fine to **** your brothers
And you get convinced in a day

However much we can scream
Continues the killing spree
From the river to the sea
Only hatred seems to be free

So theres a genocide going on in 4K
And it will never be okay
However much they try to erase the voices
And cover it up in chemical warplane noises

And if you wondering which side you should be on
If its the one killing children,its probably wrong
Dumbf*ck

In your granddad’s bookcase
was a book you liked
with a blue hardback cover
with German warplane

pictures in it
and you loved to study
the photographs
even though

the words
were too big
or long
for you to read

and on that Sunday
you sat
while the parents talked
and studied

the bookcase
hoping your granddad
would get it out for you
if he saw you

looking that way
long enough
but the parents talked
and the grandparents

listened or talked too
and the book stayed put
in the bookcase
and you stared

and counted the books
on either side
taking in
the various colours

and sizes
on the shelves above
and below
and how neat

they were placed
and tidy
and well polished
it all was

but the book
kind of attracted you
with its German warplanes
with the Swastikas

on the wings and sides
and some pictures
had Spitfires
and Lancaster bombers

with red white and blue
on the sides and wings
but that Sunday
Granddad didn’t

get out the book
and hand it to you.

There's a hurdler in the distance,
Approaching from afar,
Nothing struck him in this instance,
Though the setting was bizarre

He somersaults each in a flurry,
As the clouds threaten to rain,
The flowers flutter with worry,
As they sight the old warplane

He runs straight out the exit,
Takes a right onto an avenue,
Where streetlights line the docks,
And pebbles question you

Waves crackle over the pier,
As he flies across the decking,
He throws his hands up and volunteers,
To the cold hiss of forgetting

Some time later he awakes,
On a beach of pebbles and shells,
Hasty escape perhaps a mistake,
A fall from carousels

A tower commands the sea around,
Windowless, aged concrete,
He laughs and spins at what he's found,
Alive but incomplete

Natalie. Basic
Basic flight training was like dancing to The Elementals. Basic, scary and fun. Did Nat know that in a year she would be at the controls of a deadly multi million dollar warplane in the wrong war, with the wrong enemy? No amount of gothic looks would appease her situation over the coming months. Was it all real? That was a distant question, not for now.

The girl danced and flew with equal passion and ferocity. Her brown hair was all over her face and she danced like a spinning airplane. Eyes shut, she was somewhere else. In her mind, she was in the cockpit of her red coloured training plane. Her flight instructor, Alberto, allowed Natalie to acrobat the little plane. She flew it with wildness that surprised everyone, including her.

Rolling upside down and pulling the control stick to her guts, the red airplane moved like a kid’s toy. Diving straight downwards, picking up speed. Alberto was going to take over before top speed was reached but Nat second guessed him and pulled back into a half loop. Up they went into the blue, a hawk in the heavens. Free. Natalie screamed in joy. Looking over at Alberto, her smile said it all. She was a born pilot.

When the record changed, Nat went to the bar and ordered a glass of red wine. Joining her friends, they chatted on guys, music and Nat’s new air force career. Several of her friends had nice boyfriends or lovers with them. In close embraces, they kissed and made small talk. Nat chatted to Katie, on the fundamentals of aerobatics and flight, demonstrating how to loop and roll with her hand. Her other held her wine. Time passed, music played, wine was drunk and Nat slow danced with Roberto.

Being Catholic and part of a close knit family, the girl was a bit of a rebel. Her mother wanted Natalie to marry and have children. Nat was having none of this; it was music, flying and the air force. Not even men like handsome Roberto swayed the girl for marriage. He was local and conscripted in the army. His passion was films and he had to give up college to serve his country. After a year he would finish off his film studies, if fate allowed. Both were friends and occasional lovers, now they danced in Sacha’s.

Tarac
We busted our *****
To get up there
Over a kilometre high
Where the warplanes live
And die a violent death
Meeting their end up above
On towering lonely slopes
As did Lt Stone and Sgt Kurosawa
On the same day seventy six years ago
To the day we went there
As others before had
For we had a job to do
The missing answer to find
To locate the remains of a lost pilot
Named Stone from America
Who flew a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk
In mortal battle with his nemesis
Kurosawa from Japan
With his Nakajima Ki-27 Nate
Both died that day
February 9 1942
And both haunt those inclines
One is angry and lost
One found wants to go home
One likes Hello Kitty
But not the one you think
For my drink tumbler fell
And the guide missed it
It stopped where Stone said
And there we dug dug dug
And found his airplane
Or what was once his warplane
In pieces that were scrap
But had meaning to our group
For it was this plane
That brought us here
Many hours of climbing
Swearing and sweating
To touch the clouds
And be where both hit
At what cost?
Two planes smashed
Two pilots dead
The American protecting Villamoor
The Philippines' best pilot
Who flew his biplane
A Boeing Stearman
On a recon mission
The same type that flies today
With **** English wing walkers
From Clark in Bataan
The same field Kurosawa flew from
Yes synchronicity is here
Eagle Has Landed style
What does this mean now?
In 2018 right now
Is it the pilots' ghosts
Or God or fate or karma
That brought me here
To Tarac Ridge to look
To try to find Stone's bones?
When so many have looked
And failed to find him
Did we really find Lt Stone?
So he's no longer MIA
And captive here
This beautiful mountain side
Where the sky and sea become one
Where Bataan and Corregidor
Are visible
The old battlefields
Where hell occured
Where there are more MIAs
From both sides
Both pilots hunted here
And both became the prey
Paying the ultimate cost
Bent metal and broken bones
Telling a story
Their story
If you listen
You will hear it...

309 Pilot
The Messerschmitt Me-309 was a stunning warplane
Originally it had seven guns but the pilot removed some
The 13mm heavy machine guns were lethal but not needed
He freed up four hundred pounds in weight
This left just three cannons and their ammo
Two 20mm and a single 30mm gun
The 20mms were in the wing roots and 30mm in the nose
It was enough to **** enemy bombers like B-17s and Lancasters
And the following B-29s and Lincolns which bombed Germany endlessly
He got ready for a mission and was confident of more kills
He was keen and aggressive and had the right tool for the job
A fast climbing high speed interceptor aircraft
Germany's finest piston engined fighter of the war
With a modified engine boosted for power
Nothing but an enemy jet was faster but very short ranged
With a smile he walked to his plane
Who would he **** today?