Photo Gallery Painstaking Search for American WWII Bomber Crew
The bucolic landscape of Belgium's Ardennes region was the backdrop for fierce fighting during the Battle of the Bulge, which went on from Dec. 16, 1944 to Jan. 16, 1945. It was the last major German offensive of World War II.
This July, a team from the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is engaged in an expansive effort near Allmuthen, Belgium to find the remains of crewmembers who were on board Hunconscious, a missing B-26 Marauder bomber they now believe may have gone down here on Dec. 23, 1944.
The large crater at the site is typical of plane crashes that happened before WWII aircraft dropped their bombs. It was long thought to be where a plane called Bank Nite Betty went down, but new information has led to the theory that the missing Hunconscious crashed here too. The tiny flags around the crater indicate spots where JPAC has detected metal scraps from the crash.
The team is systematically surveying and excavating the site for human remains and evidence of the crash.
Each bucket of earth collected in the archeological operation is sifted at several stations set up around the large site.
The team has already found a number of artifacts, including human remains, which will be tested back at JPAC's laboratory at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii after the dig. The families of the crewmembers have submitted DNA samples to help identify the remains.
The trees, planted following World War II, have acted as a sieve, collecting debris as they grew over the decades. Here, forensic anthropologist Hugh Tuller searches for evidence.
Captain Jill Kennedy, a logistics officer who coordinates JPAC missions, spots a metal scrap in the roots. Regardless of rank or specialty, "everybody digs," team members say.
The metal scraps are easy to find thanks to they greenish hue, a result of oxidation.
Here, US Air Force Master Sergeant Jerry Cameron, an expert on military survival equipment and its history, examines objects found so far at the site.
These bits of metal are armor plates from a WWII flak jacket, he explains.
Air Force Staff Sergeant Brad Hellberg, 28, is stationed at Spangdahlem Air Base, not far from the dig, and was one of many volunteers to help out at the site, including on July 4, a holiday for US troops. "This is like a scavenger hunt for adults," the hobby metal detecting enthusiast said.
Hellberg has found metal scraps like these around the crash site.
JPAC conducts missions around the world, including in Vietnam. Here, Vietnamese and US team members work at a screening station at a remote northern Vietnamese village in May 2012.
JPAC sends crews to the sites of suspected US casualties around the world, both on land and at sea. This image shows a recovery effort of the northern coast of Vietnam in May 2012.
In this photo, a joint service honor guard escorts unidentified remains arriving at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
Once remains arrive, they undergo extensive analysis by forensic scientists at JPAC's Central Identification Laboratory. These cast skull models were made using CT images.
JPAC works closely with the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Dover, Delaware, shown here.
