Major Earl Robert Kindig Commanding officer, 121st Field Artillery Battalion, 32nd Infantry Division. He had previously served with the 120th FA Bn, and fought at Buna Station. (While commissioned in the Regular Army in 1939, I'm almost certain his majority was in the "Army of the United States." When the War broke out he was transferred from the 8th Division to the 32nd Division and embarked from San Francisco in September, 1942, to the Southwest Pacific Theater of Operations.) Mission History On 07 February, 1944, at 0100 hours approximately 18 miles southeast of Saidor, Papua New Guinea. Major Kindig, unsatisfied with the results of previous forward air observation of his command artillery fire, took to the air in an effort to rectify that circumstance. Low on fuel and with radio contact lost, the plane was last seen"flying up the Yaut River Valley".

Major Kindig

The plane flew below the level of the clouds which obscured Gabutamon, to a point approximately 2,000 yards directly west of Gabutamon at which time a few rounds landed near the range of hills on which Gabutamon was situated. The plane then turned right (west) just short of the high perpendicular cliffs and disappeared from sight around a range of hills on which Kepoiak is located. That was the last time Major Kindig s plane was seen. Major Kindig s dental chart, prepared six months before his disappearance, is available. A presumptive finding of having been killed-in-action was made by the War Department, effective 08 February, 1945.

Identification Numbers
The serial number of the L4A was 43-29071. Painted on tail assembly: 29071; no fuselage patches. Engine: Continental 0-170-3, serial number 156781. An overlay, which indicates the site where the aircraft was last seen, exists in archival records and can be matched to Nankina Sheet, B-55/6. It s possible Major Kindig was carrying an M-1911 .45 ACP pistol, serial number 79229, and/or an M-1 carbine, cal. 30, serial number 409000, at the time of his disappearance.

Major Earl R. Kindig, at the time he MIA'd in an L4A light observation aircraft roughly 18 miles southeast of Saidor, New Guinea, on 07 February 1944, while observing fire of his unit, was commanding the 121st Field Artillery Battalion, 32nd Division.

Discovery
I've spent the better part of the last three decades attempting to locate and retrieve my father's remains. In June, 1998, an American businessman, who regularly searches for aircraft wreck sites in Papua New Guinea, discovered a P-47 and the remains of its pilot, a native son of Wisconsin, as it happens. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery a year later. On that same trip, he came across the wreckage of an L4A -- clearly the plane in which my father and another officer were flying.

CILHI Recovery Team Visits Site
After an initial reconnaissance mission in January of 2000 by US Army CILHI, has just recently dispatched a "recovery team" (composed principally of archeologists and forensic mortuary specialists) to the site of that wreck "approximately 19 miles southeast of Saidor," PNG, near the village of Yaut. They arrived at the site on February 26th, 2000, and, within four days, according to communication with CILHI, had started to recover human remains. (The L4, incidentally, was piloted by 2nd/Lt Francis Piotrowski, who I believe was a native of Madison.)

Memorial
Earl Robert Kindig, Major, U. S. Field Artillery, Regular Army Killed in action, February 7, 1944 Saidor Campaign, Papua New Guinea. Funeral services and interment were held at Arlington National Cemetery at 9:00 a. m. on Tuesday, October 30, 2001