Sunday 28 August, 2005: Today we were joined by Kay (pronounced Kai) Siering and his team from Der Spiegel TV. Three years ago Kay contacted me to see if I was interested in having Der Spiegel make a documentary film about my father’s last flight. This excavation is key to the creation of the film. Kay and his team came on a monumental day in our world of searching and finding.
At 11:15 a.m., Dr. Fox was laboriously scraping at the side of the crater between the engine crater and what he hopes will prove to be the cockpit crater. He slipped a small flat irregular rectangular piece from the dirt, tapped it a few times, and jumped to his feet calling for Hans-Guenther (God of Aircraft Parts). He had retrieved the one piece of evidence that unequivocally identifies the crash site as that of my father. He found the Main Engine Data Plate. What makes this a magnificent discovery is that the numbers visible on the plate (considering fire, destruction, and a 60-year hiatus in the dirt) exactly matches the numbers in the Missing Air Crew Report (MACR). It was a great moment which, like winning at the slots, caused everyone to gather around and wonder if we would win again.
The fates continue to bless us today. Shortly after finding the Main Engine Data Plate, the bottom frame of the left canopy window emerged with shards of glazing still attached. The shards, like so many of the pieces we are finding, are charred but recognizable. Due to fortuitous materials choices by Lockeed, the frame is made of stainless steel. I see its indestructibility in the shine of this twisted remnant.
Despite the return of summer heat, we worked all day, bouyed by our good fortune. Dr. Fox was our leading man of documentary interviews with Hans-Guenther as his knowledgeable co-star. I was able to take some notes as Dr. Fox explained the excavation process to Kay Siering. What I heard is included here for your contextual reference. I won’t swear to my stenography skills or that this is a sequential or comprehensive report.:
1. The crash materials are spread out over approximately 80 meters
2. The dig started with survey trenches which I described in an earlier entry
3. Each trench was one meter wide and trench sites were chosen according to eye-witness testimony
4. Fortunately, the first trench hit where one of the engines was found. The other engine and one wing fell across the field.
5. The engine crater was excavated first and the trench was expanded outward
6. It is possible that a wing or tail boom also fell into this crater. The engine went straight down into what is now the pit. (Intertia at work)
7. Throughout this crater, 20 mm incendiary explosive rounds are found which probably “gang fired” at the point of impact causing this widespread catastrophic result. Even the protective armor plating that was just in front of the pilot below the instrument panel, was broken into pieces.
8. The excavation will continue in one meter wide segments and work will cease in each square only when sterile soil is reached.
9. Even after the entire area of the engine and cockpit craters are excavated, digging will continue around the edges for remains, personal effects, and material evidence that may have been taken away by the plow.
10. All soil will be replaced, seeding done if the farmer requests it, and the land will be restored to its original condition. Meanwhile, the field is being treated as if it were our own.
I have more stuff about soil colors and integrity which I can not decipher but one of the standards by which the soil is judged is checking for color, consistency, and compactness. The soil is evaluated in descending layers: natural sand, burned soil, and turquoise decomposed aluminum. The P-38 was fully loaded with aluminum.
I am growing quite fond of my personal ACS collection to which I have added, the gun camera with film still intact around the edges of the lens opening. Even the small gears that make it a camera rather than a lug nut are visible on both sides. I also have the entire mechanism that was part of the instrument panel that allowed my father to see that oxygen was flowing into his mask - cleverly named The Oxygen Flow Indicator. I now own a large piece of the windscreen in which three shades of varying shades of blue glass are still discernable. There are about a million pieces of broken glass associated with this piece which I will contemplate with my dear glass artist friend and Sister-Mermaid, Dr. Pat Weyer.
If the devil is in the details, I have probably missed a few, but you get the picture. It was a great way to spend a Sunday. We have gathered enough evidence to ascertain that we are bringing home the right guy. I never doubted it based on the exhaustive research, expertise, and intuition of Hans-Guenther Ploes, but hard evidence beats conjecture, wishin’ and hopin’. I close with a quote from Hans-Guenther upon discovery of the Main Engine Data Plate: “A wish is the father of the thought.” Yup, this was our wish, now granted.
(I will impose upon the nice man wth the computer and ethernet cable tomorrow night at 8 p.m. to upload the photos I have selected and prepared for this purpose. I will include photos of the above events as well as one of Herr Boormann’s dog)