Dive Therapy And Recovery | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of ECU News Services. The author of this post is Lacey L. Gray.


A pair of Task Force Dagger Foundation veterans excavate a unit. East Carolina University researchers and Task Force Dagger continue to search for and recover missing aircraft and WWII personnel off the coast of Saipan. (Contributed photos)
    East Carolina University researchers continue to search for and recover missing aircraft and WWII personnel off the coast of Saipan through a project led by Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences associate professor Dr. Jennifer McKinnon.

    In June 1944, United States forces launched an amphibious assault on the island of Saipan. During that assault, 22 F6F-3 Hellcat aircraft were lost. Three - possibly four - of those aircraft went down near Tanapag Harbor and the aircraft and pilots remain unaccounted for.

    In March, McKinnon, an associate professor in the Department of History and underwater archaeologist in the Program in Maritime Studies, traveled to Saipan to lead a team of archeologists, divers, students and other specialists from around the U.S. in an effort to locate, identify and return missing pilots to their families. They collected samples of sediment and environmental DNA (eDNA) from seven, 2-by-2-meter squares, 50 centimeters deep, from the sites of three aircraft wrecks. Evaluation of the eDNA will indicate if the sediment contained human remains.

    "It's humbling to think we can play a small part in this important mission and potentially help bring closure to the families of missing service personnel," said McKinnon, who has been working on recovery projects in Saipan for 15 years, describing the work as some of the most meaningful archaeology she has done so far.

    McKinnon's team, run in partnership with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), consisted of underwater archeologists from the Florida Public Archaeology Network at the University of West Florida and the nonprofit organization Ships of Discovery.

    The team also provided a uniquely therapeutic, bonding experience for veterans and a group of former U.S. Special Operations Forces members from the Task Force Dagger Special Forces Foundation (TFDF). The foundation provides rehabilitative therapy programs for former soldiers and their families. They partnered with ECU in 2017 when McKinnon was introduced to the foundation by current ECU maritime studies graduate student and retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Pat Smith.

    Smith started his career in the U.S. Army Reserves in December 2002 in Wilmington, Delaware, before joining active duty as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. He later trained as a psychological operations sergeant at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

    Smith was assigned to various special forces commands, serving in tactical psychological roles, in the Afghanistan War and military operations in Southeast Asia. Due to an injury sustained in combat in Afghanistan, Smith medically retired in March 2015.