The Search That Never Was

Book excerpt: The Search That Never Was is the true story of a more than ten-year effort to find the facts surrounding the disappearance of the author's uncle, Lloyd Richard Morgan, a World War II U.S. Navy aviation radioman 2nd class. Aboard a Navy B-24 bomber that left Carney Field on Guadalcanal for a mission on July 17, 1943, Lloyd's plane failed to return. The book not only reveals what happened to the aircraft and crew, but moves through the process of search and recovery of missing-in-action personnel after World War II and up to the present day. A major portion of the story concerns the search that the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps conducted in 1948-49 throughout the islands of the South Pacific. The log of that search, which was only declassified in 2010, reveals some very surprising facts that have never before been made public. The book is occasionally funny, often sad, and reveals startling facts surrounding the attempted recovery of WWII MIAs in the South Pacific.