Dick Bong's P-38 Found...?

[MikeKozlowski]

....His P-38 Marge, in which he got most of his kills, was being flown by another pilot when it was lost over Papua New Guinea. Since then, there's been interest in at least finding the wreckage - and apparently, a team has in fact located and identified it. Hopefully talks are going on in regards to recovering as much as possible of the single most lethal American combat airframe in history.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/explorers- ... =443309547

SUPERIOR, Wis. — A family in Superior, Wisconsin is celebrating a major World War II discovery.

A few months ago, the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center hired a crew to find a plane that crashed in a Pacific jungle during the war.

"This has been a long, long saga shall we say for many of us growing up," said Terry Lundberg, president of the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center.

Bong was known as an ace pilot during World War II. He loved planes and he loved his girlfriend Marge. So much so that he painted her face on his P-38. But 80 years ago, the plane crashed into the jungles of Papua New Guinea.

"From that point forward its existence very much remained a mystery," said Lundberg.



Lt. Thomas Malone was the pilot that day. He bailed out and survived and from then on there was a mission to find Marge. A few months ago, the Bong Center reached out to Pacific Wrecks, a group that works to solve World War II mysteries.

"This has been an incredible journey. An incredible expedition," said Justin Taylan, Pacific Wrecks.

Zooming from Madang Province, Taylan and his crew talked about working with locals and hiking through jungles before they finally caught a break.

"When we located the crash site it was an amazing experience," said Taylan.

The plane was found in a jungle ravine. It hit the ground so hard that most of its engines were buried in dirt. But they saw red paint which was a color on the P38 Marge plane. And as they dug further, they finally found the serial number, leaving no doubt it was Bong's plane.

"At the base of that was a stencil. A U.S. Army Air Force stencil, with the last 3 digits of the serial numbers," said Taylan. "The emotion I felt was not just my own joy, but imagining what this means for the Bong family."

In the audience for the Zoom press conference was Richard Bong's 99-year-old sister Gerry Fechtelkotter. While it's mission accomplished for the expedition, she'd love to bring a part of Marge home.

"We know it's been found. We saw pictures of it so we know it's the right one," said Fechtelkotter. "It's great to know that it's been discovered."

Bong has been regarded by many World War II historians as America's Top Ace. He is credited with shooting down 40 Japanese plans during the war.

Mike

[kdahm]

USS Harder has also been found.

I don't know what the status of the Lost 52 is in regards to how many are still in unknown locations.

[Belushi TD]

According to this.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... submarines there's only a few that have coordinates attached to them....

However, it being wiki, who the hell knows?

Belushi TD

[gral]

USS Harder has also been found.

I don't know what the status of the Lost 52 is in regards to how many are still in unknown locations.

I think USS Harder is 13th US WWII submarine to be found(that would make it a full 25% of the submarines lost).

[Bob Dedmon]

One article I read stated they won't attempt recovery of Marge as it doesn't belong to the U.S. any more. For the memorial in Wisconsin I'd like to see them at least try to recover the gun loading door with the nose are anyway if it is reasonably intact.