243° LANGHAM: DASA 2019-2 It was about nine weeks or so. They had a terrible time finding it. Admiral Guest drew some criticism because of the Spaniard who said he knew right where it went down and, indeed, they found it right where he told them it would be. But Admiral Guest came in and started a systematic sea search in which he started from the beach with skin divers ard then he went to hard hat divers as he was going out. He was making a systematic search of the en- tire botto.:. They found old cannon bails, pieces of airplanes, etc. They literally searched the bottom of the sea systematically and then finally it got so deep that they hed to get experimental equipment like the Alvin and the Aluminaut, With this kind of equipment, they could finally search the area where they were told the borih went down, and that's where they found it. They got hold o- it, lost it, and it slid down a little further; they got hold of it again and finally got the thing up, Of course, the criticism of the Admiral for not searching where the Spanish fisherman advised is unjust. The Ad- miral had no capability to search at the depth where the fisherman advised, and while waiting tor deeper sea equipment,the Admiral and his staff felt it would be advisable to make a systematic search of the shallower water in the event the fisherman was wrong, so that the shallow areas would have been already searched. Part of the good humor going on between the Navy and the Air Force was that the rule book says the person who has custody of the weapon is responsible for the clean up and the recovery in the event of an accident. So the question was did the Navy on the first try have hold of it long enough to establish custody? If so, they would have to pay the bill thereafter! [Laughter] FREMONT-SMITH: Did they? LANGHAM: No, You never put one over onthe Navy, not even here! [Laughter] So I think the land operation probably cost of the order of $1,800,000 and the Navy charged the Air Force $5,200,000 for the sea search. There were x number of dollars in damaged “weapons and three aircraft, According to the authors of the popular books on the subject, the taxpayer probably inherited a bill, counting the cost of tie aircraft, approaching $39 million. Counting the plane that crashed in che mountain flying in supplies, perhaps $35, 000, 000, FREMONT-SMITH: LANGHAM: Yes. A little less than Vietnam for one day. Not even that.