by Thomas Reiner, Quartz Mountain Commentary, ©2025
(Jun. 1, 2025) — Arizona Jones, whose real name is Clayton Kuhles, is an adventurer who has worn many hats. Whether it be ferrying out of Antarctic bases, working in Saudi oilfields, or escaping from a Colorado mine cave-in, he is seeking new passions just like Indiana Jones, his fictional counterpart. Since 2003, his focus has been locating lost aircraft, mostly from World War II. There has been the discovery of 27 missing military aircraft in China, Burma, India, Alaska and Chile, accounting for 279 personnel listed as Missing-in-Action (MIA). Can you imagine the joy of bringing closure to the surviving relatives of their lost ones?
Memorial Day was just a few days ago and this is a way to give our thanks and gratitude to the soldiers and airmen who left life and limbs along the Hump, supporting the Chinese to join their fight against the Japanese. It has been said that those who volunteer into the military sign a blank check payable to America. The amount on that check can be as much as one’s life and hopefully that check is never cashed. This is a small way to give thanks.
“Flying the Hump” is one of the most overlooked adventure stories in World War II. The Hump refers to the Himalaya Mountains and other treacherous mountain ranges that lay in the supply lines between India and China. China was our ally who was fighting a common barbaric Japanese military. Even if there weren’t Japanese fighters, it was extremely dangerous to fly this route due to the highest mountains in the world, dense jungles, quickly changing weather conditions, icing, lack of radar and no place to land in an emergency. Planes disappeared, due to weather or military attack, never to be heard from again.
This is the story of one of the lost flights in which Arizona Jones located the wreckage which crashed on November 17, 1942 and recovered artifacts on September 29, 2011. Can you imagine not knowing about the fate of the crew for 69 years? Specifically, this is the story of C-47 #41-18556, also known as CNAC #60 (China National Aviation Corporation), which was lost somewhere between Kunming, China and Dinjan, India on a “routine” flight.
The Loss
Kunming is a city within Yunnan Province and was a major route of supplying the Chinese from India. The C-47 was about to return to India with a load of tin billets when the Kunming Tower warned of an impending attack by Japanese fighter planes. They were ordered to take off immediately which might have contributed to the loss of the C-47 as the load was not completely secured.
One hour into the flight traversing the northerly Hump route, the pilot, John Dean, reported severe icing. Can you imagine the rattling of the airframe and the roar of the engines attempting to compensate for the ice dragging the plane down? There was radio communication with an inbound Kunming flight on a different southerly Hump route, but suddenly all communication ceased. It was surmised that the C-47 was attempting to traverse from the northerly to the southerly Hump route. The only problem was that Cang Shan Mountain, which had an elevation of 13,700 feet, stood in the way. The C-47 never arrived in Dinjan. The plane was gone… until found in 2011.
The Recovery
Arizona Jones had already found many lost aircraft when he turned his attention to the fate of the C-47. He made calculations of where the flight might be located by assuming that the pilot changed course to a more southerly and warmer route. He assembled a team via his self-funded MIA Recovery.
MIA Recovery requires people both mentally and physically strong. Hiking the Grand Canyon is a Sunday afternoon walk in the park compared to what is required to hack through trailless jungles, ford bridgeless raging rivers and scale steep mountains with no assist stations. One does not casually hike into such a treacherous environment without assistance. It takes more than physical and mental skills to undertake an adventure such as this. It also takes people skills. Arizona Jones brought an interpreter with him and they interviewed several villages and struck paydirt (no pun intended). The older villagers independently recounted tales and actual experiences of a plane that hit their mountain in the 40’s. The stories had significant corroboration especially when an elder villager reported finding tin billets near the wreckage and Arizona had never mentioned tin. One of the sons volunteered to lead the team up the mountain.
The wreckage was found after a four-day trek to 13,400 feet. After decades of earthquakes, erosion and landfalls, very little was found but serial numbers confirmed this was the lost flight. The important thing is that the fate of the crew of four was finally known.
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Clayton Kuhles lives in Prescott, Arizona and gives lectures of his real-life adventures. Come on down to the “G” and share a beer with him. You will instantly recognize him as he looks like what you would imagine Arizona Jones to be. If this adventure captures you, then visit https://www.miarecoveries.org/ to learn more.