BentProp Project The BentProp Project are volunteers whose common goal is gathering information that can lead to the location , identification and repatriation of remains of U . S . service members who were killed in action in the Republic of Palau ( in the western Pacific ) during WWII , and who are still listed as missing in action . The effort was begun in 1993 by Dr . Pat Scannon . The BentProp team members have backgrounds in SCUBA diving , aviation ( with particular focus on World War II - vintage aircraft ) and the history of American World War II involvement in the Pacific . The BentProp team works closely with the Joint POW / MIA Accounting Command , a joint - services organization based at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu , Hawaii . Basically , the BentProp team attempts to locate and identify sites that are associated with known U . S . MIAs , and to provide sufficient information about those sites to JPAC to help them justify mounting official recovery missions . Of the roughly 200 U . S . aircraft and their crews shot down in Palau between late March 1944 and August 1945 , about half crashed outside Palau ' s barrier reef in water that is several thousand feet deep , putting their location and recovery well beyond the technical capability and resources of the BentProp Project . But there are still nearly 100 planes with crash sites thought to be on some of Palau ' s 200 or more islands , or in relatively shallow water inside the barrier reef . These sites are the targets of BentProp Project ' s research and field expeditions . Not affiliated with or sponsored by any private or governmental agencies , BentProp team ' s volunteers do extensive research at the College Park , Maryland research facility of the National Archives and Records Administration and at various military archives around the world . They also conduct interviews with surviving service members , often at such gatherings as Squadron Reunions , and interviews with Palauan elders who were alive in Palau during the Japanese occupation . The team ' s field work is done in Palau during yearly expeditions that are usually about a month in duration . Because many U . S . aircraft shot down in Palau in 1944 - 1945 crashed in surrounding waters , the BentProp team has done extensive underwater searching ( all team members are skilled SCUBA divers ) , using such tools as a towed caesium magnetometer and side - scan sonar . The team also does extensive land searches in the jungles of Palau , to follow up leads generated through local interviews and the team ' s archival research . Success to date includes the location and identification of many previously unknown U . S . crash sites , both underwater and on land . After a 10 - year search , for example , in 2004 the BentProp team located the underwater crash site of a B - 24 shot down near the Palauan capital city of Koror on 1 September 1944 . This aircraft carried a crew of 11 , three of whom parachuted out successfully only to be captured , interrogated , and executed by the Japanese . Location of the remains of the other eight B - 24 crew members who went down with the aircraft was the objective of three recovery teams from JPAC , which mounted recovery missions to the underwater site in 2005 , 2007 , and 2008 . Remains were recovered during all three of these JPAC missions , and the site was officially " closed " at the end of the 2008 mission , in the sense that JPAC believes that they have located all recoverable remains associated with the site . In early 2009 , JPAC announced that they had recovered remains of all eight of the B - 24 ' s crew members . They were able to positively identify five of those eight , and over the course of the spring and summer of 2009 , the remains were returned to their families . JPAC was convinced that they also recovered remains of the other three , but there was insufficient structural and DNA information to determine which was which , so the three were buried in a group ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in the fall of 2009 . The BentProp team continues to actively seek the execution / burial site of the three B - 24 crew members who parachuted out of the stricken aircraft but were immediately captured by the Japanese . Considerable progress toward that end was made during ( and in extensive archival research prior to ) the 2009 expedition ; you can read portions of a summary report about the search for the POWs ' burial site at the BentProp Project Web site . To date , JPAC has sent recovery teams including forensic anthropologists , archaeologists , and Navy divers to investigate several sites that were located and identified by the BentProp team . Some sites have yielded remains , which have been returned to JPAC ' s forensic lab in Hawaii for identification .