24 August 2005: I have only time to tantalize you with a brief list of what we may have found in the “crash feature” on this day. (A crash feature is also known as a non-transportable artifact of human behavior..ponder that.) Among the things discovered are:
Intake and exhaust valves
Solenoid to trigger machine guns
Engine generator from one engine
Rocker boxes for valves
Pieces of instrument panel and possibly one part from barometric instrument
Gear pump for hydrolic or lubrication of engine
Rubber hosing of various length and dimension
Pieces of oxygen mask and hose
Armor plate from front cockpit area near pilot’s feet
Back plate from machine gun with steel spring
Pieces of leather and webbing
Glass for altimeter
Plexiglass
250+ .50 and 20 mm ammunition rounds with some links
Unburned fibre board (this discovery may bode well for other things)
Gasket from exhaust pipes
Switches
30 cm bolts for engine
Electric wires
Gears with teeth
This great list is courtesy of Hans-Guenther Ploes, the researcher who found the site and who is known by his counterparts as the God of Aircraft Parts. He arrived at the site this morning as did the documetary crew from Der Spiegel TV. It was a busy and productive day about which I will happily report in detail tomorrow.
In order to maintain my reputation as a careful and precise foreign correspondent, I named one of the team incorrectly in my last post: Craig’s last name is Daniels and Rick THOMAS is our linguist.
My lingering memory of today is the smell of the crater as it is revealed. It is filled with burned parts of the plane and, after 60 years, it still smells strongly of something recently burned. Many of the parts we examine are chunks of molten metal. The screening process has become more tedious. Tomorrow is another day, another television station visit and I promise a full report then.
Translation of first line which I noticed on the bumper of a car today:
This is not normal.
August 25th, 2005 at 9:00 am
Sharon,
Sounds like you hit the mother lode yesterday. One thing to keep in mind is that although the plane burned for days, anything that was driven into the ground a foot or two from the force of the impact would have been spared from at least some of the heat. The Plexiglas you mentioned has a very low ignition point, so it must have been protected by a layer of soil. Can you give me an approximate depth of the excavation below the level of the existing field? Are you at 2 meters or maybe just a bit more?
As the daughter of the pilot, you have a connection with this site that none of the other crew members could possibly have, but I’d like to get a sense of what you think the others are feeling. The JPAC people go from site to site, so this is somewhat routine for them, although have a family member along is probably unusual. I’d like a window into the German psyche, because there have to be mixed emotions there. Your father was flying an American warplane on a mission to wreak as much havoc as possible on a German army which was in full retreat when he was shot down. Do you feel any sense of residual resentment, or have the Germans (and you, for that matter)been able to get past the war? I must assume that all involved are treating the site with the level of respect it deserves as the final resting place of an American pilot for these past 60 years. I look forward to tomorrow’s post.
John