I am trawling through the various bomb groups to narrow down the likeliest suspects.
If they can eye ball any ID on the tail it will give us the Bomb group, it's a start.
Are they certain about the date of the shoot down Marty, because if so it is the most important piece of evidence that will help identification.
Does this mean that the crew may still be in the airplane or near it?
Isn't there some kind of USA Mia group who should be involved? Getting our guys back should be a priority.
Edit: further, have the Italians been advised how to proceed in the possibility of locating our guys?
... Note: There's more than one aircraft at the bottom of that lake plus, one Chinook helicopter
'Boeing helicopter flotation device' but I am sure it is probably just a coincidence as all the numbers are not visible/in shot.
From Mario:
We know exactly how to proceed if we locate the remains of the crew ... if someone has not done it before (1960?).
Thanks for the info Marty. Shame it wasn't a B-24, there were only 2 of them MIA in that area :( as opposed to a myriad of B-17's MIA.
A B-17 search will take longer but Woody has volunteered his services as well and we are compiling a (growing) list of missing B-17's in/from that area and time span. Thanks Woody :)
Thanks for the info Marty. Shame it wasn't a B-24, there were only 2 of them MIA in that area :( as opposed to a myriad of B-17's MIA.
A B-17 search will take longer but Woody has volunteered his services as well and we are compiling a (growing) list of missing B-17's in/from that area and time span. Thanks Woody :)
Thanks to both of you--I don't have any extra time or energy to push this foward. :-[
Will try to follow this lead but, suspect the date is wrong.
List of B-17's missing in vicinity of Lake Bolsena coming along. Going through ALL B-17 losses over Italy to ensure none escape and, to confirm list.
“After sixteen years, the ending of a tragedy in Bolsena." "Three World Champions to recover from the lake the bodies of the pilots of a downed plane." They are Cesare Olgiai, Alberto Novelli and Ennio Falco who last summer beat the world record of dive reaching 131 meters. The research was led by Mister Scheaffer of the Grave Registration Commission (GRC). The wreck of the "Flying Fortress" is at 93 meters depth. The three divers arrived from Naples to assist the GRC, a research office attached to the Southern European Task Force (SETAF), to recover the bodies of the allied pilots on board the Flying Fortress when it crashed in the Lake sixteen years ago. The mission is headed by Mr. Scheaffer, a US Army Officer on the GRC staff based in Frankfurt. With him is Sergeant Stufflebeam and Mr. Licio Polidori from Livorno, an interpreter who works in the Italian counterpart of the GRC, and head of the Italian team. The Flying Fortress was part of a large formation of planes that in the summer of 1944 were sent to bomb an important city in North Italy. Over Bolsena the big plane was intercepted and shot down by two Stukas and an Italian Fighter ...” |
Marty, Jeff Hayden and I have what we think is a pretty complete list of the B-17s that were lost over Italy during the month of June, 1944. Unfortunately, the records do not show where the aircraft craft crashed. They usually show where they were last seen. If we knew the day the aircraft in the lake crashed there, we could better determine which one it was and obtain a list of the crew members.
Would you be able to tackle it from the other end? Can you contact Grave Registration Commission or their successor?
Would you be able to tackle it from the other end? Can you contact Grave Registration Commission or their successor?
I don't know Marty. We'll have to do some checking about that.
OK its not good to post without a source ....................
Alternately the Italian may have done it?This is an interesting thread. There is one point that I keep reading, though, that I believe is in error. It's this Italian thing. The Allied forces invaded Italy in
OK its not good to post without a source .....
So it would seem to me that there wouldn't be an Italian fighter in the summer of 1944.
OK its not good to post without a source .....
Oops! Chris - were you referring to your post or mine above re Rudel being an ace? I think I screwed up. If so, my apologies. Rather than remove the posts, I'll leave them as others may find Rudel's stats interesting. I'm glad I never came up against him - even in his half-way fighter Stuka. And I wish he had been on our side. Gotta admire the guy.
After the armistice of September 8, 1943, the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR) "was the air force of the Italian Social Republic during World War II, closely linked with the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) in northern Italy."Thanks for a bit of history I didn’t know. I never heard of another Italian air force. The news reports that we got at the time were that the Italians put up little resistance and quit. But I was young - just must have missed it. I did know about Hans Rudel. I read his book , Stuka Pilot cover-to-cover when I was in high school - fascinating reading. I was wrong about the Italian air force, but I believe correct that Rudel has never been and never will be equaled.
Here is a design concept for late model B-17F's that shows wing ductwork and heat exchangers (http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA801373) in the exhibits toward the end of the article. This may be of general help.
Here is another document (http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADB805325)with many more pictures. Some of the drawings look similar to the photo, (but the scale in the photo, of course, is not known.)
Hi my name is Francesco, i am a frend of Massimilano.
I've found one article talking about our plane 42-24364 in Italian language by Claudio Biscarini (well known by Mario I guess), at the following link:
http://www.dellastoriadempoli.it/?p=9117
It is very promising, it gives many details.
I hope that it cold be useful for the research.
Bye,
Francesco