Warbird Information Exchange

Helen Hunt has freckles.....it's staring to make sense now. Maybe I should take this more seriously.

Hello All,

Most of you know who I am and my back ground so I think it might be safe to say I might know a little about TIGHAR and Snake Oil Salesmen Richard Gillespie instead of going on and on about Richard I’ll break it down for everyone on many of the subjects that TIGHAR has been involved with and I’ll throw a few that folks don’t know about.

So let’s start with the TBD, first off TIGHAR had nothing to do with them being discovered it was a well know local dive attraction it wasn't till the spring of 1989 when a couple of wreck divers took the first photo’s that went public. At that time the US Navy wasn't involved in any type of underwater recoveries and where being investigated for a number of trades that had happen. So let’s jump forward to 2004 when TIGHAR stated that they were working with the US Navy and Jaluit Government to raise these two aircraft. Well Richard went on Warbird Radio and this subject was brought up I called in to talk with Richard on many subjects including this one. I ask him who at the Heritage Center he was working with and who from US State Dept he was working with he stated he didn't need to work with the US Stated Dept. well we all know that to be false since these airframes are not in US Waters they would need to be negotiated the rights to recovery them. Also no one at The Naval Historical Heritage Center nor Museum of Naval Aviation was working with TIGHAR (See we all know my background and I had a nice discussion with Dept. Director Robert ”Buddy” Macon on this topic guess what Buddy said). Also I have filed FIO request both with USN and US State to see if any of TIGHAR claims were real and to this date both USN and State have both stated that they are not working with TIGHAR to recover either airframe nor are they working to recover them on their own.

Now lets move on to something most of you know that I have been involved with for 30 years the search for The White Bird, when The Maine Aviation Historical Society decide to start a search Richard Gillespie stated that we had no clue on what we were doing and the way we were doing the search was wrong. Well let me state this outright not only we use all the know data but we also had help from the P-3 Orions based at NAS Brunswick when they were doing training mission in the 10 areas that we were looking at they would share certain data that would show any large hot spot in the woods. To this day TIGHAR has never been back to do any follow up work in Canada or in Maine and has publically stated we (MAHS) didn’t know what we were doing.
Now onto the P-47 which they actually never did recover and the truth of it was they never got a required New Jersey EPA inpack study and were cited for damaging a Wet Land.

Now let’s talk about the P-38 TIGHAR as a entity actually never had a permit from the British MOD yes a TIGHAR member had a permit and it was issued in his name not TIGHAR nor had the USAF Museum signed off the recover instead they decide to go with the MOD determination since they were the folks on site.

Now for a few items that most of you might not be aware of let’s start with his round table discussion at the Archaeological Institute of America annual convention. On this round table were Dr. Robert Neylan and Mrs. Wendy Cobles (Two names most folks on Wixs who have been following the USN saga will know) on this panel the topic of recover’s came up and Richard basically stated that the then new US Navy policy was the correct one and hopes that they USAF/US Army would also adopt said policy.

Another item back in the early 90’s a few folks including myself decide to try and work with the California Dept of Forestry to go into all of the State parks and do full recovers of all know aircraft wrecks ( Because the Sierra Club was pushing at the time to have it all dragged out and sold as scrap) we had worked with all of the US Military Museums on a viable way to do recoveries and even had got he US Navy to let us keep a set number of airframes. Part of the deal was we would also remove all civilian wrecks (C-150s,C-172 Ect Ect) well all was going well until a California TIGHAR member got wind of what we were working on and basically TIGHAR raised enough BS with the State and the whole project got stopped, all on the TIGHAR saying that we didn't have any background in doing wreck searches or recoveries, never mind the fact that in this group were a number of folks who had done plenty of wreck hunts and quite a few recoveries.

I’m sorry Mr. Wilkinson but I can’t buy your view on Richard, I don’t know you nor do I read any magazine you might work for I rather work on aviation history instead of writing about it but each their own. Here is a challenge for you sir ask Richard to provide you any permits that TIGHAR has received from US State Dept and the sign off from the Joint Chiefs,USNHH Center and from NMNA. Or maybe you can do some research file a FOI request call Buddy Macon up and ask him talk to someone from State.
Oh and if you are not sure who I might be Mr. Wilkinson I suggest you give Mr. Larry Webster a call or you can ask Buddy Macon about me or maybe you pull up some of the old US Navy threads here on Wix. The ball is in your court sir.

Robert Rohr

PS: Don’t even get me started on the Pacific Pipe Dream

Seeing as I'm relatively new here I don't know who Mr. Rohr is, but based on his detailed response and some of the surrounding details I can can only guess that he is a highly respected figure. This is just a guess, but I get the feeling that I should be honored that he responded.

Well, whoops. Looks like I was wrong. I still appreciate his response though.

But don't let that stop anyone, this is a heck'ov'a interesting thread.

Let me try a another question, how would anyone feel if, hypothetically, TIGHAR split itself into two separate groups - one for pursuit of the Amelia stuff and another for the pursuit of other historic aircraft. Would you be willing to support either or neither of those? (Presumably, the latter group would have the time and means to actually go after and recover aircraft.) I'm trying to get as much as I can to the heart of the issue. I apologize if it seems redundant.

We are going to start a foundation to search much farther Southeast.

“Scientists have found traces of mercury on the interior surface of the little jar that we suspect once contained Dr. Berry’s Freckle Cream,” Gillespie said.

“We can not exclude the possibility that someone brought a jar of American women’s freckle cream to a British-administered island where nobody had freckles — but it doesn’t seem very likely,” said Gillespie.

Erm... I think the point was that it wasn't a Japanese Island, and that the islanders were all dark skinned.