Although the United States government had long known where a World War II plane carrying Coaldale native Andrew Rajnic had crashed into the Himalayan mountains, no effort was ever made to recover the remains of the pilot or passengers because the location was so remote and inaccessible.

But an Arizona man whose mission it has become to find, photograph and document the remains of the 1,300 military service people who went missing in action while "flying the Hump" - a major military supply route that took them over the Himalayan Mountains - didn't let rugged terrain and dizzying heights keep him from the wreckage.Clayton Kuhles, 56, of Prescott, trekked to the crash site, on a mountain 11,000 feet above sea level in the dense jungle of Arunachal, Pradesh, India, arriving Nov. 23, 2009, after a four-day trek from the tiny village of Kayi Ligok.There, he found the tail of the twin-engine transport cargo plane in which Rajnic rode as the radio operator.Kuhles, who since 2003 has been seeking out crash sites of World War II planes in Asia, pays for the endeavors out of his own pocket. He recounts how he came to travel to the site where Rajnic's plane crashed:"My search for Andrew's Missing in Action aircraft began on Oct. 6, 2008, when I received an e-mail from Jon Frank, writing to me on behalf of his Dad's neighbor, Mrs. Betty Clark of Pocasset, Mass. Betty is the younger sister of this airplane's pilot, 2nd Lt. Robert W. Tinsley," he said.Frank put Kuhles in touch with Clark, who asked his help in trying to learn Tinsley's fate."I launched into my research, and learned where the aircraft most probably went down. I then contacted my people in northeast India, and asked them to interview some local villagers in the likely search area. My people soon reported back that there was indeed an old aircraft wreck known to the local villagers in this area," Kuhles said."I reached the crash site on Nov 23, 2009. The route required four days of very arduous trekking (each direction) through jungles, across numerous streams and rivers, and up mountains. The aircraft wreckage was in large pieces and sections, and was fairly easy to document. Time spent at the aircraft was slightly less than four hours, as it was necessary to return to high camp before darkness. The aircraft probably crashed into the mountain while trying to drop below low-hanging cloud cover during a severe rainstorm. These aircraft had no radar, so it was common for pilots to try to obtain a visual fix on the ground whenever they felt they might be lost," he said."Reaching this site as well as all the other sites I've reached, gives me a great sense of relief and satisfaction knowing that I'm now a lot closer to solving another one of these decades-old mysteries and hopefully bringing some closure to the surviving family members. The trek to these MIA crash sites is oddly one of seeming urgency, as I'm always up against bad weather and a multitude of other local factors that can easily scuttle the mission," Kuhles said.He plans to return to the site this fall.Kuhles sees his mission as a personal tribute to his late father, who served in the Navy during World War II. Kuhles himself is a U.S. Army veteran.It all began with his first discovery, on Oct. 20, 2003, of the wreckage of a C-47. The plane, piloted by Cpt. Russell William Coldren, left Kunming, India, for Tengchung, China, on Jan. 6, 1945."The aircraft was over Tengchung but was unable to land due to bad weather. It headed for Dinjan Airfield when all contact was lost. The plane and its four occupants were never heard from again.Kuhles found the crash site, in Kachin, Burma.The experience changed his life."As a result of my first discovery (of an) aircraft in a remote area of far northern Burma (identified as CNAC #77), I quickly became dedicated to the project of finding as many of these Missing in Action U.S. airmen lost on the "Hump" route as I could possibly find," he said. "This decision was natural and automatic for me once I learned how many U.S. servicemen were listed as Missing in Action in South Asia, and the plain fact that nobody has bothered to seriously search for them since WW II ended in September 1945. It seems all these men were simply written-off as Missing in Action or 'unrecoverable', and I refuse to accept that as a valid excuse.""This project is also my personal tribute to my late father and the other men of his generation ('The Greatest Generation') who gave so much during WW II, and whose lives were so indelibly changed through their experiences during that war," Kuhles said. "As a young boy, my dad often told me about men lost during the war and who were never found again, or not found alive because nobody looked for them in an expedited manner. It's a known fact that soldiers do not want to die in obscurity, fearing that their family and friends will never know where and how they died. Clara Barton thoroughly documented this during the Civil War, and later founded the American Red Cross to help address this concern. Finding these MIA Americans in South Asia is something that I'm truly good at doing, and something that I intensely care about."So far, I've reached and positively identified 17 U.S. crash sites. These 17 sites account for 120 U.S. personnel who had been listed as Missing in Action or Killed in Action. I've reached more sites (about 25), but was able to establish a positive identification on only 17 of them. With the expert help of my associate, Gary Zaetz, I've been able to locate and notify family members for all but about 12 men," he said.Zaetz, of Cary, N.C., also has a personal stake in finding the crash sites. His uncle, 1st Lt. Irwin "Zipper" Zaetz of Burlington, Vermont, died when the B-24 bomber nicknamed "Hot as hell" he was in crashed while flying the Hump from Kunming, China, to Chabua, India. In 2007, Kuhles found the wreckage in a rocky ravine, 12,034 feet up on a mountain in a remote area near Damrah, India.Zaetz found out about Kuhles when he did a Google search on his uncle's name in June 2007, and Kuhles' website,

http://www.miarecoveries.org/index.html, came up. Zaetz learned from the website where the plane carrying his uncle crashed, along with the rest of his crew, on Jan. 25, 1944."After the shock of this news wore off, I took it upon myself to do everything possible to locate living relatives of the rest of my uncle's eight-man crew, so that I could provide them with the news of this discovery, which they had a right to know about," Zaetz said.The discovery launched Zaetz and his wife, Gina, into a mission to find and notify family members of the whereabouts of their lost soldiers."I had never done any genealogical research before, but I quickly found that I had an aptitude for it," Zaetz said. "It was not easy work, but it was immensely satisfying, as I was finally able, by the end of 2007, to find living relatives of all the 'Hot as hell' crew members, with the help of Internet genealogical databases, as well as amateur genealogists, newspaper reporters, and librarians all over the country."He kept Kuhles apprised of his progress, and finally met him in person in the fall of 2008 "at the home of Oken Tayeng, a member of the Himalayan mountain people known as the Abor. Oken's home is in Itanagar, the capital city of Arunachal Pradesh, the remote northeast Indian state where Clayton has made almost all his crash site discoveries," Zaetz said.Tayeng had led Kuhles to the "Hot as Hell" crash site in December 2006. Kuhles suggested that Zaetz also visit the site."Oken led me on a very exhausting trek to that crash site in October 2008. After completing the trek to the crash site, and then riding in Oken's SUV for about 12 hours to get to his home in Itanagar, I convalesced in Oken's home, which has been aptly described as 'semi-palatial,'" Zaetz said.He said Tayeng has "made a very good living from a Himalayan tour agency he founded and owns."It was at that time that Zaetz met Kuhles, who was visiting Tayeng while taking a break from an expedition. Zaetz offered to help in the recovery mission by finding relatives of the crews whose crash sites Kuhles had found."Clayton accepted my offer, which was the least I could do to express my gratitude for everything he had done for my family," Zaetz said.