The Sundarban
Acquire the Popular Science daily newsletter💡
Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY guidelines sent every weekday.
A team of marine archaeologists is one step closer to identifying an Air Power crew who lost their lives aboard a B-17 bomber amid the height of World War II. For 82 years, their unidentified remains and aircraft have rested at the backside of the icy Baltic Sea. While more work is wanted to match the downed plane to its unknown pilots, a key clue may reside on a pair of surprisingly effectively preserved .50-caliber machine weapons.
Eight decades after its debut, the Boeing B-17 bomber remains one in all military historical past’s most recognizable aircraft. Usually identified as the Flying Fortress, the B-17 is famous for its position in multiple campaigns across Germany, including the tragic Dresden bombing in February 1945. The US military specifically commissioned the four-engined plane to avoid radar detection, by flying long-range at altitudes as excessive as 35,600 feet. Since the B-17’s cabin remained unpressurized all via a flight, the aircraft’s 10-member crew have been required to wear specialized fits to withstand the thin air and freezing temperatures.
The Flying Fortress cumulatively dropped more bombs than any other plane during World War II, however those numbers came at a steep brand to its crews. Over Germany, B-17’s perfect had a 25 to 33 percent chance of surviving the 25 flights required to finish a single tour.
A mystery crash
An estimated 81,000 United States service participants remain missing in action from past wars, including the crew of a B-17 bomber that went down whereas flying above the Baltic Sea near Germany in 1943. This particular plane was lost to historical past till 2001, when a local diver reported their discovery of the wreckage to the US Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). In July, marine archaeologists from Texas A&M University began collaborating with the DPAA to pinpoint the bomber’s underwater location, with a goal to finally title the plane and its crew. The team surveyed a 0.38-square-mile allotment of sea using programs such as facet-scan sonar imaging and magnetometry metal detection to locate the B-17’s exact space. Subsequent, they guided a remotely operated automobile (ROV) to any anomalies flagged during the scans to separate geological formations from actual wreckage.
ROV footage revealing a half-buried allotment of airfoil ultimately convinced Texas A&M marine archaeologist Piotr Bojakowski and volunteers from the Nordic Maritime Community to dive down and investigate themselves. Nonetheless, Bojakowski and his team had to swim extremely cessation to the plane to obtain visual confirmation as the Baltic Sea’s sad, blue-inexperienced waters perfect allowed for much less than 10 feet of visibility.
“It’s an exciting course of to behold a crash dwelling underwater,” Bojakowski said in a latest college profile. “Even although it’s in ruins, you begin to visualize the whole aircraft with the engine and wings and gasoline tanks. You slowly start piecing everything together in a way that makes sense and understand what happened.”
Serial numbers and salvage efforts
During their dives, Bojakowski’s team made a particularly remarkable find amid the B-17 wreckage–one that may finally title its MIA crew. It appears that the Flying Fortress’ twin .50-caliber machine weapons have been ripped from the plane during the crash. Regardless of the damage, the weapons have remained in respectable condition even after more than 80 years underwater. They have been as a consequence of this fact raised to the surface for closer inspections, and careful cleaning eventually allowed Bojakowski and colleagues to clearly read the machine weapons’ serial numbers.
“On the aircraft wreckage, it’s really important to find the machine weapons,” explained anthropologist Katie Custer Bojakowski. “They are a controlled item in the military and so are no longer perfect stamped with a serial quantity, however their location on any given aircraft was also tightly controlled all via the war.”
With more archival research, each Bojakowskis are assured that they’ll be able to ID the explicit B-17 bomber, as effectively as its crew. From there, they can contact any of their surviving descendants and full a long incomplete chapter of historical past.
“We want to investigate the case no longer apt as an archaeological dwelling; we want to understand what happened and bring closure to the families,” said Piotr Bojakowski. “It is a unusual skills that requires a lot of archaeological work and careful investigation of all individual items to present the perfect answers.”
2025 Holiday Reward Information
Don’t settle for a gift card again this year. Our record of editor-approved gifts swimsuit every personality and finances.
