Crash site brings son closer to the father he never knew

His mother, Janet Rae Shokes, was about three months pregnant with him when his father, 25-year-old Edward Shokes, and a fellow Navy pilot took off on June 23, 1961, from Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego.

They never returned.

Six months later, the Grumman F9F Cougar was found smashed in pieces on the side of a steep ridge in the Little San Bernardino Mountains about 10 miles north of Indio.

Shokes, now 47, never got to meet his father, but on Monday for the first time visited the place where his father died. He was able to do so with help from aircraft archaeologist Trey Brandt, who found the crash site in May.

“This not-ever-meeting-your-father is like living with a ghost,” said Shokes, adding that his father was a handsome man who yearned to open his own photography shop. “My life definitely changed June 23, 1961.”

Brandt's Web site popped up when Shokes searched his name on the Internet. It featured information about his father's accident, and many other military plane crashes.

He was amazed when he read in detail about the crash, where it happened and that remnants of the plane remain strewn across the mountainside.

Shokes, of Pensacola, Fla., contacted Brandt, who offered to take him to the site.

Over the past 20 years, Brandt has located more than 300 crash sites in the deserts and mountains of the Southwest, gathering information on the wrecks from newspaper clippings and declassified documents from the Naval History and Heritage Command.

He has guided some 30 to 35 families to the crash sites of loved ones over the years.

“Some people want closure. Others just want to be at the site where their father or brother died,” Brandt said.

Shokes took Brandt up on the offer because he, too, wanted a sense of finality.

Journey to the site

The hike to the remote crash site started about 8 a.m. Monday near Berdoo Canyon Road north of Indio and ended just before 3:30 p.m. at the height of the desert heat.

The several-mile hike each way wound through the canyon floor and over the often-rugged terrain of boulders, loose rocks and sand.

Periodic pockets of shade along the canyon walls offered respite from the warming sun and a place to rest during the slowly elevating climb. An encounter with a rattlesnake hidden underneath desert brush only a few feet from the hiking trail offered some unexpected excitement.

About midway up to the crash site, Shokes admitted to being a little nervous about what he would do or feel once he got there.

He wondered how the plane wound up there.

“You just don't know what their last few minutes were like,” Shokes said.

In doing research on the crash, Brandt learned the plane left at 8:36 a.m. that morning for what was to be an hour-and-a-half flight. At 10:48 a.m., the plane was reported 43 minutes late and never returned.

There was no flight plan, Brandt said. A search for the missing plane lasted for 10 days without success. Six months later, on Dec. 17, two off-duty highway patrol officers came across the site.

The next day, investigators visited the crash site and recovered the bodies, according to Brandt's Web site, which chronicled the event. The plane had struck the ground while inverted, they concluded.

Shokes' father had attempted to eject, but his parachute did not have enough time to open. His flying partner, Lt. David E. Blackwood of Burlington, Iowa, did not eject.

Engine failure was looked to as a possible cause.

Brandt was able to confirm that the aircraft found at the crash site is the same one belonging to Shokes' father through a bureau number found on the instrument panel at the crash site that matched a report he obtained from the Naval History and Heritage Command.

The command provides the public with various aircraft crash reports and other information upon request, said Bill Hendrix, Public Affairs officer with the Naval History and Heritage Command.

“For him to identify what airplane it was, he had to have enough detail of the parts or serial number to find out it was that (aircraft),” he said.

Even though Shokes never met his father, he has at least partly followed in his father's footsteps. He earned his pilot's license in the early 1990s and, like his father, has an electrical engineering degree.

Confronting the past

Shokes got to the crash site deep inside the mountain range just before noon. The sky was blue, not a cloud in sight. And as he encountered the crushed engine shroud that lay at the base of the mountain, he just stood and stared — partly to catch his breath.

“That's a pretty big chunk. After 48 years, you really don't expect to find a whole lot,” Shokes said.

He then started up the steep and rocky mountainside where every few feet a different plane part could be seen.

He encountered a tailpipe, hydraulic- or fuel-line fitting, a tail skid, landing gear, part of a canopy frame and a pilot mask believed to be his father's.

“Now I know where he died. Had he been hurt, could he have walked out? No way,” Shokes said, considering the rigorous journey there.

After exploring the crash site, Shokes sat in the shade and tried to figure out what went wrong.

“I'm a pilot. I understand you make mistakes,” he said.

Though the hike was extreme at times and a test of endurance, Shokes said he's glad he did it.

“This trip won't answer what happened. But it puts me to where (my dad's life) ended. It's closure to this ghost that's been haunting me.”