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Member Intro: Buenos Dias de California Sur- B24 Wewak PNG

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 2:03 pm
by PSPettit
I just registered for this forum a few minutes ago.

I am a retired State Park Ranger in Southern California. I earned my B.S. Degree in Marine Biology at CSU Long Beach and WAS a certified diver. At one time, I did contract work for NOAA tide stations in Southern California and I also participated in coastal transect dives along Los Angeles County's Coastline mapping the location of reefs in Santa Monica Bay. I also worked at several historical parks and natural preserves in my assignments as well as being a member of specialized natural resource management team that went into parks and back areas for days or weeks as part of team. I live in the geo physical center of Southern California ad most libraries are within an hour to hour and half drive. I also am a registered NARA researcher, the closest NARA branch is seven miles from my house, also near the old March Air Field, as young boy in post WWII with grandparents who worked in the Los Angeles Harbor, I'd often day dream about the south west Pacific.

I've been doing family history research for over 30 years. One of my latest focused projects is an Old Spanish/Mexican soldado de cuera b. 1768, who worked his way from the Baja California military HQ in Loretto to a rancho outside of Ensenada and was very much associated with San Diego Presidio and missions south to San Tomas. He died after falling out of tree he was pruning in 1866 in the area between present San Bernardino and Riverside Counties on one of his children's ranches..Few records exist on him from his main areas of residence in Baja California, but as an Alferez, ( 2dn Lt) his decisive skills were upon in several notable occasion, he was ruthless and all of California knew his name, especially combative desert native American from mouth of the Colorado River to San Francisco Many remaining Californios from the 1870-1900 spoke of him when they were interviewed by associates of Bancroft. In a newspaper article, his children were referred to as the "Gang by the Lake"..... their colorful history was set aside by the family for various reasons.. and just about a year ago I discovered the connection to a grand-daughter who has been a brick wall in our research for decades. I also am a member of the San Diego Historical Society and eh Hemet-San Jacinto Genealogical Society locally and others along the trails west mostly from Philadelphia

I have taken a break from this important research of our family because of downed Liberator on a bombing mission to Wewak in December 1943.

About six months ago, a Stewart line researcher with an 1810 Virginia born ancestors was referred to me by a genealogical society in WV who knows my work, and special skill and knowledge of certain per Rev War frontier families of Appalachia... We have been bee doing DNA testing for genealogical purposes and hope to find a connection between some Stewart families that I have been researching for about 25 years. In out quest of living male descendants to do DNA testing there was one branch that very little research has been done by others..

This lead me about two weeks ago to Daryl Mern Stewart- Flight Officer, an observer, on B24D-120 420-40830 aka "Lobo"---- MIA on Dec 1, 1943. Since then I have been researching:

1. MACR of this flight and the two other B24 that went down during that mission and other MACR of the same time period
2. "Nose Art" information on the web.
3. Japanese garrisons and dromes of Wewak to Murik
4. The sole eyewitness account of the Lobo loss died in Arizona about 5 years ago, I have no found any wife nor children - available genealogical research info seems to be focused on another branch line
5. Two days ago I did a phone interview with a 95 year old Copilot of the 90th BG who knew at least some members of the Lobo crew.
6. Mission planning and execution out of Pt Moresby dromes - particularly to Wewak..

Daryl's 2nd great grandmother was sister (or first cousin) to my maternal grandfather's 2nd great-grandfather, on his mother maiden name line.

Paul Pettit
Southern California