US to retrieve bomber crew that went missing over Germany during WW2

The US Department of Defence plans to retrieve a bomber crew that went missing while flying over Germany during World War II. On April 8, 1944, a flight group of around 200 aircraft from the 8th US Air Force were returning after a successful operation targeting two plants that made Messerschmitt ME-110 fighter aircraft as well as a synthetic oil refinery in Germany that was essential to its war effort.

After encountering fierce opposition, the flight group lost 31 B-24H Liberator Bombers. One of the B-24s was last observed flying with other bombers on the return flight over Northern Germany, where it was assumed to have been shot down and crashed, killing all of its crew. Six enlisted service personnel and four officers made up the flight crew.

First and second lieutenants performed the roles of pilot, co-pilot, navigator, and bombardier. The enlisted personnel worked as radio operators, ball turret gunners, right waist gunners, left waist gunners, tail gunners, and top turret gunners, with ranks ranging from sergeant to staff sergeant.

After the war, the location was incorporated into Soviet-run East Germany. This made it difficult for US Graves registration and recovery teams to gain access until after the reunification of Germany in 1990 and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. According to the authorities, the location has been the focus of numerous experts' studies and investigations since 2015 and is now being excavated.

The agency said that during recent investigations and surveys of the site, eyewitness accounts, captured German shoot-down records, local cemetery records, and geophysical remote sensing were used to distinguish aircraft debris from buried gas lines and other infrastructure.

The ongoing recovery attempts for the B-24 began on August 1, according to David Brown, a forensic archaeologist for the expedition. German authorities were informed of the intended recovery expedition before excavation could start, and their feedback was taken into consideration. The nearby farmer who is the land's owner was also informed, according to Brown.

Residents of the region received a thorough explanation of how the work will be carried out with the least amount of disruption to the area. The farmer, who was happy to help, was leased a one-hectare plot of land, according to Brown. To stop people from entering the site and hurting themselves by falling into the excavation hole or getting cut by sharp items, a security barrier was built around the perimeter.

Topsoil is crucial for farming, therefore it was all carefully taken out and piled up. Once the operation is finished, it will be utilized to return the property to its prior state, he said. A magnetometer, which analyzes changes in the Earth's magnetic field, was used to find the location of the bomber's main crash site, he said. The team has so far dug a hole that is half a tennis court wide and around 2 meters deep. According to Brown, the hole will probably need to be widened down to a total depth of 5 to 7 meters, where the plane's nose is thought to be.

It must also be made wider. Some of the plane's still-identifiable propellers have already been salvaged. Aluminum made up the majority of the aircraft, including the propellers, and much of it has corroded away into a green and white powder, according to Brown. The protective alloys used today were not used in the production of aluminium back then.

After the earth has been excavated, team members transport it in buckets to a sizable filtering facility that has several steel mesh screens and overhead water hoses that are used to separate prospective artefacts from the soil and clay. The soil is then able to fall through the screens thanks to the water. Pebbles and small rocks are all that are left on the screen, and they are discarded following the farmer's requests, according to Brown.

He added that fragments of the aircraft and the airmen's equipment, including their uniforms, parachutes, life jackets, British coinage from their base there, wristwatches, dog tags, pocket knives, firearms, and ammo, were also discovered on the screens. The crater's depth suggests a severe impact angle. The ensuing fire caused significant distortion and melting in several areas of the aircraft, he claimed.

Each piece of evidence is categorized and placed in a variety of zip-top plastic bags with silica gel desiccant packs. Each bag's contents are labelled with a description of the object, the time and place it was found, and its position. The bags are then put in secured protective cases and kept out of the sun and other elements in preparation for their imminent delivery to the United States, he claimed.

The cases will be flown by American military aircraft from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, home to one of the agency's two forensic laboratories, along with chain-of-custody staff.

Brown remarked, alluding to bone tissue, "The team at the site will include all potential osseous material out of an abundance of caution." The Offutt lab's forensic specialists will then carry out additional analysis. The location in Germany is one of many where the organization is looking for missing American service members from previous conflicts in 45 different countries. The agency's job will go on for the foreseeable future because there are still more than 81,000 troops listed as missing in action.