Indiana Spirit Quest #289: Devil's Triangle Traditional Cache

The Indiana Spirit Quest series of geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries built by Hoosier Pioneers. In just a year and a half, the quest has grown to over two hundred seventy caches hidden in twenty-seven Indiana counties, and two Ohio counties, and the hiders have grown to fourteen cacher teams, most of which of which are comprised of Dogs and their Humans. Over 650 cacher teams have logged over 7,500 finds. One cache machine found 102 ISQ caches in a single day (daylight hours only).

(Photos by LEAD DOG)

Welcome to Woodlawn Cemetery in Salamonie Township, Huntington County.This cemetery contains the grave of the only Veteran of the American Revolution buried in Huntington County, and the graves of two young soldiers, members of the same family, that died in Viet Nam. Those gravesites are located at the flagpole in the honored center of the cemetery.

This cemetery also is the location of the memorial headstone that reads:

Lt. Coolman was the aircraft commander of a Consolidated PB4Y-1 Liberator (The Navy's version of the B-24 Bomber, not the more familiar PBY Catalina Flying Boat). He was a member of Patrol Bombing Squadron 105 and his ship went down in the Bermuda Triangle during World War II. At least six PBY's were lost in the Triangle during the war. The most famous loss in this infamous area was that of Flight 19 in 1945, the "lost Patrol". Five Navy TBM Avenger Torpedo Bombers took off from NAS Ft. Lauderdale and became disoriented and all five planes and fourteen crew members were never heard from again. A PBM Martin Mariner that went out to search for them disappeared as well. One of the largest Air & Sea searches in history turned up nothing. So it goes.

Here is the Incident Report on Lt. Coolman's flight:

15 JUL 43 A/C: PB4Y-1 Location: Bermuda BUNO: 32042 Cause: Crashed at sea five minutes after take-off. Adm Report: Plane crashed at sea a few minutes after take-off cause being undetermined. Pilot and ten passengers were lost. No radio communications were transmitted so it is thought that the emergency occurred quite suddenly. Crew killed. Pilot Lt Emil Edward Coolman A-V(N) USNR, Lt(jg) W. J. Alldridge A-V(N) USNR, Ens Morton Abbott A-V(N) USNR, Amm2c John J. Schubert (fo) USNR, Amm3c Lansford E. Baker (fo) USNR, Rm1c James Henry Taylor (fo) USNR, Rm3c Reno J. Caldarela (fo) USNR, Amm3c David Anthony Bourque (fo) USNR, Amm3c Joseph Eugene White,Jr. (fo) USNR, Aom3c Norman Taylor,Jr. (fo) USNR, and Sea1c Agustus F. Surgosh (fo) USNR

The Navy Liberators first entered service with VB-101 at NAS Barber Point, Hawaii in September of 1942. In the European theatre, the USAAF Antisubmarine Command had been initially assigned the responsibility for antisubmarine warfare, and flew antisubmarine operations out of bases in the USA and in Britain. As part of the deal cut with the Navy, the USAAF agreed to get out of the antisubmarine patrol business. When the USAAF's antisubmarine units were disbanded in 1943, their ASV radar-equipped B-24Ds were traded to the Navy in exchange for new production B-24Ds that had already been earmarked for the Navy. Navy and Marine Corps squadrons soon began flying the Liberator on long-range antisubmarine patrols over both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. VB-110, based at Cornwall in England, took over antisubmarine duties from the USAAF's 479th ASG. VB-104 began operating PB4Y-1s out of Henderson Field, Guadalcanal in late 1943. Modifications were made to permit installation of the AN/ARC-1 radar intercept receiver. By May of 1945, there were 24 Navy and Marine Corps squadrons flying the PB4Y-1.

A total of 13 U-boats were sunk by Navy PB4Y-1s during World War 2, at the cost of 33 PB4Y-1s.

NAVY B-24's IN FLIGHT

ELIJAH MITCHELL, REVOLUTIONARY WAR VETERAN

BUSTOS

These two members of the Bustos family were killed in Viet Nam. Mike was an Army Paratrooper from Huntington. His death is listed as non-hostile. Gregorio was a Marine helicopter crewman from Warren who was killed in a rocket attack at Marine Aircraft Group 16 at Marble Mountain Air Facility -- the same place Lead Dog served in '70-'71.

The cache container was a black m&m's tube, now it's a 35mm film can.Nope, now it's a camo'd pill bottle. BYOP. The cache is not located near a grave... If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out. XXXXX

None genuine without this official SixDogTeam seal. Digital photographs taken by Lead Dog, (C) 2005 by RikSu Outfitters unless otherwise noted.

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"Indiana Spirit Quest" is brought to you by the following fellows of GEOISQ*: SixDogTeam (Earthdog Patrick, Lead Dog, Wheel Dog) Kodiak Kid, THE SHADOW, Team Shydog, Rupert2, Torry, ~Mystery Dog~, Team Tigger International, Cache Commando, bbSurveyors and Dover Duo. If you are interested in spreading the Quest to your neck of the woods AND WOULD LIKE TO JOIN US, email SixDogTeam.

*Grand Exalted Order of the Indiana Spirit Quest

** THIS IS A GENUINE INDIANA SPIRIT QUEST CACHE** xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:13:01 -0800 > Subject: [GEO] rwalker46940 contacting SixDogTeam from Geocaching.com > > i replaced gcpzz3 at N40 40.952 W085 24.852 at the cemetery information sign has a sedimentary rock on top of it at the base of the sign and far away from anybodys stone. the old distance to new i calculated was about 8 foot. alright with you? your friend rwalker.