China OKs U.S. Search Team
Guided by the memories of an aging witness, an American search team is scouring a patch of northeastern China where it hopes to uncover a CIA plane that shot down 50 years ago — and the remains of the pilots believed lost in the crash.
In a statement Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said the team had reached a site near the town of Antu in the northeastern province of Jilin and was clearing land and beginning sweeps with metal detectors to locate the wreckage of the unmarked C-47 aircraft.
The two pilots — Robert C. Snoddy of Eugene, Oregon, and Norman A. Schwartz of Louisville, Kentucky — were about to pick up an anti-communist Chinese spy in the foothills of the region formerly known as Manchuria when their C-47 was shot down on Nov. 29, 1952.
China has told the Pentagon that their charred bodies were buried at the snow-covered crash site. Two CIA officers traveling aboard the plane were captured and imprisoned by China for two decades.
"The U.S. government is hopeful that this search will yield results that bring comfort and closure to the families of these two brave Americans," the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday.
At the time, China and the United States were fighting on opposing sides in the Korean War and the CIA was trying to undermine the fledgling communist regime on its home territory.
The eight-member search team, from the U.S. Army's Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, reported Tuesday evening that they had reached a site near a stream that had been pointed out to them late last week by a resident in his late 70s who had allegedly seen the crash.
Heavy rainfall and an impassable bridge had prevented the team from crossing the swollen stream, the embassy said, but searchers eventually made it across using a rope bridge and pulley system.
The witness could not manage the hike, so police from the area led the team to the site, the embassy said. It said the team cleared a 50-square-yard site and had begun metal detector sweeps and visual searches.
According to the embassy, investigation of the site will continue until the weekend.
China's granting of permission for the U.S. Defense Department to search the site marks the first time Beijing has cooperated on a search for the remains of Americans who died in China during the Cold War.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said earlier this month that China decided to permit the search to promote "friendship between the two peoples and in a humanitarian spirit."
The Pentagon and advocates for the missing servicemen hope that China will provide more information about the fate of others, including U.S. soldiers captured by Chinese troops during the 1950-53 Korean War. An estimated 8,100 U.S. servicemen are missing from the Korean War.
Accompanying the Army search mission is John T. Downey, one of the CIA officers who survived the crash and is now serving as a Connecticut judge.
Downey, 72, and Richard G. Fecteau of Massachusetts were captured and spent 20 years in prison in Beijing. They were released after then-President Richard Nixon publicly acknowledged they worked for the CIA.