Airman assists in POW/MIA recovery

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Erin O'Shea
  • 48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England --  Located within a series of flat, open rye fields, and amongst agricultural and forested parklands, lie the remains of a downed U.S. Army Air Forces B-24M Liberator which crashed with 10 personnel inside in Northern Germany, April 4, 1945.

The aircraft was involved in a USAAF bombing mission when the bomber group was engaged and attacked by German fighter planes. The Liberator broke apart mid-air and crashed into a field near Ludwigslust, Germany.

Since the crash, there have been multiple Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command missions which have excavated the crash site, in hopes to recover artifacts and bring home missing in action USAAF personnel.

In May 2014, Staff Sgt. Brandon Clark, an aircraft structural maintenance craftsman assigned to the 48th Equipment Maintenance Squadron, was selected to be a representative from U.S. Air Forces in Europe to assist in the efforts of recovering the remains.

Clark, who was on a team with other U.S. military members, used mechanical excavators and hand tools to recover any artifacts from the 1945 crash over the course of a month and a half.

Once the site had been identified, the recovery team could begin digging. "You try and find anything you can," Clark said. "Their priority is people, and after that is aircraft and aircraft parts, and anything that would look like the remains of uniforms or life-support equipment."

Clark's JPAC recovery team was assigned dig days from July 21 to August 22, and their goal was to recover various remains, such as material evidence, osseous remains, life support equipment, ammunition and other diagnostic aircraft wreckage remains.

"It was a lot of digging," Clark explained. "We had an Army captain who was our officer lead, and we had an Army sergeant major as well. Everyone worked hard and played their part."

According to Clark, they were able to identify where the B-24M went down, and recognized scattered parts and thousands of rivets and rivet heads on the site.

His recovery team arrived in the mornings, where they would take the excavated dirt and sort it into various piles and buckets. Once sorted, the dirt would go through a sorting, and a JPAC recovery team member would look for any evidence or artifacts.

"The holes were 2-3 feet deep, and they're just massive," Clark exclaimed! "There were some places you would dig out 4 ft. areas, just trying to find craters and different discrepancies throughout the earth that would make it look like there was actually an aircraft crash. This is where the B-24 went down."

Once a JPAC recovery team member recovered an artifact, an anthropologist and a life support equipment specialist assigned to the site would observe the artifacts and confirm whether it was an aircraft part or human remains, and then document the findings.

"We definitely confirmed in that area there weren't as many articles of bone as suspected," Clark said. "So hopefully, as the next mission picks up a little further into the field, they find everything. It's a matter of one unit at a time."

Life support items were photographed, documented and retained, while other material and osseous remains were returned to the JPAC Central Identification Laboratory Annex for further analysis. The remaining aircraft wreckage was documented and disposed of in the location of the crash crater. According to Clark, thousands of aircraft pieces were placed back into the ground.

"The families of POW/MIAs still fund and put money into the JPAC account so these things can happen," Clark stated. "Military guys bringing military guys home."

For more information about the JPAC program, visit their website at www.jpac.pacom.mil.