Vanished: The Sixty-Year Search for the Missing Men of World War II

I received Wil S. Hylton’s new book, Vanished: the sixty-year search for the missing men of World War II, from LibraryThing.com’s Early Reviewer program. I was a little apprehensive about requesting it, I spent most of the 1980s reading World War II history, and I was a little worried about falling back into that obsession. But this is not your everyday book of war history. I don’t believe this book could have been written thirty years ago, maybe not even ten years ago. Hylton writes about the true face of war, not Hollywood glory but death and suffering and loss. Loss that can carry forward over generations.

I need to say that the title is a little misleading. The book’s focus is on the efforts to find the crew of B-24 #453. show more That crew, and more importantly the families that survived them, are proxies for every MIA, and MIA’s family, in every war. Perhaps the book should be called Vanished: the search for war’s missing.

Hylton is obviously a first-rate writer and researcher. His book is laid out like a well plotted mystery, which it is, and is documented like a scholarly work of history, which it could have been if Hylton were not such a good writer. This book pulled me in and was difficult to put down, except for when my eyes filled with tears as Hylton exposes the heart wrenching loss that MIA families endure even decades later. The dead sometimes appear in wars history, the missing are noted, but their families are never mentioned. This book reveals that they are also casualties of war, as deeply scarred as any battlefield casualty.

Hylton’s first book is as good as any first non-fiction I have read since David McCullough's “The Johnstown Flood”. His style is somewhere between McCullough and Cornelius Ryan, an admirable mix of intimate first person interviews and an ability to bring archival documents to life. I think that you will like this book. show less

There are two stories woven throughout "Vanished." One is that of the soldiers who go missing in World War II, and it is compelling, moving and painful. The second story is that of the a man who, by chance, learns of the missing soldiers and becomes determined to discover their fate.
Everything here is ripe for a truly spectacular book, but "Vanished" is not it.
The problem begins with the focus of the book, which is Pat Scannon. After seeing parts of downed American planes from WWII, Scannon goes in search of their story.
I quickly found myself in Scannon's shoes - desperate to know the identities of the soldiers, their fates, the stories of their families.
I was not interested in Scannon himself. Yet there was an incredible amount of show more detail about his life and interests and pursuits (when I came across a line about his wife's hobbies, I could barely restrain myself). There were also frequent bits - which were interesting enough but almost seemed to be thrown in as filler - about figures whose names were only mentioned in passing.
And in the end - wrapped up tidily and quickly - I didn't feel satisfied. I felt the soldiers had been shortchanged.
I wish "Vanished" had had a different order. I wish readers had the opportunity to really come to know the airmen, because this should have been their story. Then a few chapters at the end about Scannon and how he uncovered their fate (which is moderately interesting - not really remarkable).
I read a great deal about war and its aftermath, and I really wanted to love this book. Unfortunately, it left me quite empty. show less

Pure military history has never appealed to me. Although I enjoy history, I have no military background and war stories and battles have never particularly interested me.

"Vanished" is different. I found it to be a real page-turner. Reading during lunch turned into reading at the kitchen table after lunch to find out what happened next. That's because "Vanished" isn't pure military history, but the story of the personal quest of Pat Scannon to unravel the mystery of a B-24 bomber that disappeared with its crew on September 1, 1944 in the Pacific near Palau, colored by the personalities and circumstances of the crew and their families and put into context by the strategy and actions of the Japanese and U.S. military forces.

Hylton's saga show more resonated for me having visited Papua New Guinea and Midway Island and toured the remnants of the Japanese and U.S. World War II tunnels, bunkers, tanks, gun batteries, pillboxes, ammunition storage huts and memorials. My Pacific travel included diving in Fiji, Tahiti, and Papua New Guinea, so I could also identify with the location and recovery process of the wrecks and artifacts Scannon discovered, explored and recovered.

Scannon's motivation to uncover the details of the vanished bomber and crew was driven by the need of the families of the airmen to know what happened to the men and, hopefully, recover remains to officially put to rest. This process took ten years, thousands of dollars, and liaisons with government organizations and veterans. Scannon went from an interested observer with a 1993 expedition to find a Japanese trawler sunk by George H. W. Bush in July 1944 to a man driven by the need to identify and explore military planes sunk in the Pacific to find soldiers missing or killed in action.

"Vanished" is well written and replete with notes and supported by an extensive bibliography. The only improvements that could be made to "Vanished" are improving the clarity and the details of the maps included in the book, and adding more photographs.

Note: I appreciate the quality of the paper used to print "Vanished." Frequently, I am disappointed to find quality books printed on thin, cheap paper. Personally, I would prefer to pay a bit more for a more enjoyable reading experience and a more permanent book. show less

Some of the fiercest battles in the Pacific in WWII were over Palau. In the 1990s, a successful entrepreneur and scientist found his life’s calling to find the planes that had been shot down over the island and bring closure to many families who still had MIAs. As with his bioengineering business, his mission succeeded and this is part his story as well as a son who never knew his father, a gunner on one of the downed planes.

“Are their spirits waiting to be remembered, or at least not forgotten?”

At the end of World War II, 78,750 Americans were listed as Missing In Action (MIA) with roughly half in the Pacific.

In 1993, Dr. Pat Scannon traveled to the Pacific and the Palau Islands as part of a search team looking into the first combat kill of the young naval aviator, George H.W. Bush. Bush’s plane was on a photographic mission in the summer of the 1944 when he sank a 150-ft fishing trawler. Their search concluded when the wreck was located and weapons were found among the debris verifying the validity of the air strike and clearing controversy that innocents were killed.

Following the completion of the trawler mission, Pat and his wife hired a guide to show more explore the islands and other war wrecks. As fate would have it, the guide took them to a beach to view a section of an aircraft wing. The sudden realization that it was a downed American aircraft changed Pat’s life forever. Pat’s detailed journal reports, ”I just came around that bend in the coral, and I was a different person.”

Hylton has crafted a remarkable narrative from Scannon’s dedicated research and personal journals. As a fairly uninformed American, I was mesmerized and held captive reading about the little covered Pacific battles; shocked by what now appear primitive, WWII aircraft and equipment used by our military.

The story flows backward and forward through the lives of the lost servicemen still haunting these Pacific islands, their families still waiting for information 60 years after last contact and with Pat Scannon’s dedication to finding answers. Scannon’s integrity, patriotism, tenacity and ingenious methods have led to the recovery of many lost war heros. We follow Pat from his initial curiosity to the founding of the Bent Prop Project dedicated to locating and assisting with identifying American prisoners of war (POW) and missing in action (MIA) from World War II and other conflicts around the world.

This slim 272 page book will stir your emotions.

It has deeply stirred mine. Unbeknownst to me, my family had a WWII link to this Pacific timeline. My father, a WWII veteran, was very silent about his war experiences. Reading this book has given meaning and answers to some of my own questions.

Highly recommend reading. show less

This was an amazing, gripping, and at times suspenseful read that documents one man's sudden overwhelming desire to find out what happened to three B-24 Liberators shot down near Palau in the Pacific theater of World War II. Hylton does a great job of describing Pat Scannon's current-day journey of research, travel, interviews, heartaches, and elation in discovering the mystery of what happened to those lost B-24's, and shows a masterful job of interweaving that with the very personal back story of the men on those ill-fated flights. I literally had goosebumps at times while reading this. The book also does a good job at conveying just how many of our servicemen are unaccounted for in the Pacific theater, and the incredibly long odds show more people like Scannon and his Bent-Prop Project face in shedding light on the mysteries surrounding them. I recommend this book for anyone, especially the patriotic and those with interests in aviation and World War II. show less

Author Wil Hylton does a good job pacing this story of a search for a missing WWII B-24 in the Pacific. On one hand it's the story of a man who's life becomes encompassed (maybe even obsessed) with finding the wreckage of this missing bomber.
Pat Scannon spends years of his own time and money searching Palau and the surrounding area for these missing soldiers. Along the way he makes many other discoveries of different WWII crash sites but 453 alludes him. It's a real testament to human passion and want the way all involved with Scannon went about this mission. The other part of the story is the lives of these missing men but more strikingly how the lack of closure affects MIA families for generations. One might think that nearly 70 years show more after WWII ended, the families and new generations may no longer think of these missing men. Hylton expertly shows how lack of information for families of MIA's from all wars haunt people for years. Very insightful with many letters from these soldiers to go along with the stories of the men and women who search for and identify the missing. show less