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Rain delay, Tuesday

August 23rd, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

23 August 2005: It’s not just raining, it is relentlessly drenching all of our work and rendering it impossible to know the difference between a rock, a piece of metal, or a bone fragment. Thus, work is suspended until further notice. A scout will return to the site at 13:00 to see if it has, by chance, stopped raining there. We wait……

The documentary crew from Der Spiegel TV showed up late yesterday afternoon. The cameraman immediately began sifting with us. He is a war plane enthusiast and from my conversation with him later, a expert in German history as well. There are three of them: the main reporter, the cameraman and the sound guy. They have just comleted work in the U.S. on a story about an American Thunderbolt pilot who crashed his plane in Austria in May of 1945. This was possibly the last plane crash in the war. He survived the crash and the Der Spiegel team filmed his story and reunited him with his plane after 60 years.

Yesterday’s energy in the field was different from the first day after our reprieve. The work centered around sifting which, according to Dr.Fox, is the bottleneck of any excavation. It takes far longer to sift and sort than to dig the dirt. He worked all day on what he believes is the impact crater and the imprint of what lies beneath is becoming more apparent. A piece of twisted metal protrudes above the surface as do several clumps of wire. Material that looks like battery acid litters the site - evidence of corroded metal in the soil. As the soil is laboriously peeled back, the footprint what is hopefully the cockpit and the fuselage, will emerge. It is called a “crash feature.”

I am reminded by the focus of the work that the point of this excavation is to retrieve my father’s remains. Airplane parts (ACS)are only puzzle pieces that may or may not prove important unless they are parts from the cockpit. As Dr. Fox sorts through the accumulated and sorted ACS at the end of the day, most of it is tossed into a screen and saved until the end of the excavation. In the midst of piles of rubble, he found a tiny piece that was the pilot’s headphone connection. This is a valuable find. Among all the hundreds of pieces of leather,webbing, twisted and molten metal, rivets, bakelite, clear glass shards, and questionable material, the tiny radio connection was designated the MVP of the day. Also, we all found bone fragments - I found two - but their origin will be determined at the Central Identificaion Lab. For now, we can only speculate. Linda, our photographer, found a gopher tooth which is clearly non-people variety.

So, we have a growing collection of evidence and a hopeful place to dig. If the possible crash feature proves fruitful, the cockpit will be present, and so will the majority of remains. Allowance is made for the passage of time, the direction the field was plowed over the decades in between, and whatever pieces have been retrieved from the site already by relic hunters and necessary disposal by the farmers. To further intrigue us, a new eyewitness came by yesterday, with stories of a “golden ring with a dark red or black stone.” Each day brings news from the past from local people who remembered or were there to watch the wreckage burn and explode for three days.

It was a catastrophic and traumatic event for the tiny village of Elsnig amidst a more daunting force that was constant war. They continued to plow their fields and plant their crops despite the possiblity of fighter planes exploding overhead. No wonder their generous spirit touches me. Today, Mrs. Thiel sent over another bouquet of gladiolas for my father’s cross. Each day I am reminded of how time heals wounds even though this is a blunt reminder for everyone of the effects of war.

Last night Ernst and I were telling the Der Spiegel crew about our negotiating adventures with the angry land owner. Our conclusion is that we solved this problem with “love not war.” I vote for that.

Press Secretary Required – Still

August 23rd, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 around 9:30 pm: Today’s Torgauer Zeitung ran a lengthy story about our project in the field. The photo of me screening was o.k. but they identified me as a 61 year old woman! This will never do.

Bad weather entitled us to a day away from the field which allowed me to walk around Torgau, visit the castle, and finish a great historic novel about the artist, Raphael (The Ruby Ring). In response to the many emails expressing interest in photos, believe me when I say I am trying everything I know to make that happen. I spent several hours today adding captions to the photos I have so they can be transferred to this space. Perhaps tomorrow.

Two of the team guys with whom I had dinner tonight told me that the major moment of the excavation will be when the cockpit is uncovered. The reasons are obvious and I expect it will be a moment of mixed emotions for me. I have assured the team that I wish to hear the truth about what they find. I had a lengthy and honest discussion with the team leader and with Dr. Fox about this issue and the team has been told that thez should take me at my word. I suppose it seems strange that I can approach this possible discovery in such a manner but I will only know how it feels when it happens. Above all else, I am not doing this alone.

The warmth of the local people is incomparable. It is as though they have watched over my father for all these years. I romanticize perhaps but I am grateful. Today Frau Theil sent fresh flowers to the cross on the site. It was a glorious burst of color in a very gray day. Tomorrow, sun willing, Der Spiegel will begin the interivews at the field. Each person on the team is interesting and has a great story. This is the 22nd mission for Craig Thomas, one of two people who are clearing the impact site. From here, he goes to Laos. He says the team members are away from home on an average of 200 days. Who says there is a shortage of adventurers?

A dear friend and daughter of a missing Naval Commander from WW II, wrote that this is a “field of honor.” The honor extends to the people who do this work for the satisfaction of bringing home the missing. I am in good company, indeed.

Normal ist das nicht

August 24th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

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.

Time as an illusion

August 25th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

25 August, 2005. If time is an illusion as it feels these days, yesterday was a week. Not a week in a bad way but multi-layered and astonishing. Far too much to have effectively written about it at 11:30 last night. Due to diligent work on behalf of Hans-Guenther and Ulf Podbielski we may have figured out the photo thing or will by tonight. All I know it involves an ethernet connection and reducing the photos to a manageable size for uploading. Thus, I’ll dutifully report on the fullness of yesterday and consider today’s events when they happen. It’s just 7:00 am here and I will go to the field at 10:00 today to meet with a television reporter from Dresden.

In posting the list of yesterday’s ACS, a few salient points emerge. In and of themselves, the parts listed are most probably listed accurately as determined by educated opinion, some speculation, and brazen guessing based on what has been seen and learned from exhaustive study of P-38 parts catalogues. Remember: my father and the pilots like him had to know their planes well enough to fix them and my father enjoyed working on his own plane. Thus, the parts catalogues which serve us so well now, were his plane bible.

The point of all this part sorting and sifting is to determine when we are finding parts from the cockpit. The cockpit is the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. All the parts that I and the German wreck hunters hold so dear are inconsequential to the team’s goal except as indicators. All the pieces that emerge from sifting are tossed into buckets, looked over and sometimes licked (yes licked) by the archeologist. He mutters something about scientific spit, makes a decision, and usually and summarily tosses them into a discard pile. Discard meaning nobody can have them until conclusions are drawn and everything has been assessed.

Each day I find a piece that speaks to me in a meaningful way. Yesterday, it was a little jagged flat shard of bakelite (pre-plastic used in the 1940’s) which Hans Guenther told me was from the instrument panel. He said it would definitely have been one of the last things my father looked at in his life.

As time expanded yesterday to include all that happened along with a copious amount of discovery at the “crash feature,” (remember the definition from yesterday? There will be a test later) I stand firmly in the midst of this distortion– this oblique distortion wherein I am rooted in the moment while drawing from history. Paradoxical thinking is the requirement for having this make sense. There is no way even with technology and adjustment to time and place to do it with less complexity. It’s simply surreal work – going backwards in time and piecing history together in this way. It’s scientific and intuitive. It’s emotional and factual. It’s dissociative and concrete. It’s joyous and devastating to find important stuff in the screens when each indicate my father’s catastrophic death.

The plane parts are from a magnificent plane my father called his “iron bird.” To anyone else, it is a pile of rubble. The engine parts are still daunting and heavy, now covered with rust and corrosion. It is easy to imagine their former-power. For the P-38 pilots who flew with my father, my adopted dads, it won’t take much imagination to remember the definitive sound of these huge Allison engines.

As I work in my father’s field, the guys from my father’s fighter group are with me. I swear I saw Bill Capron yesterday leaning against the fence telling a story about flying over France. I wonder what they would make of this if they were here and if it makes them sad when they read the list. This was a complex and mighty piece of machinery built to fly low and fast. The pilots were brave, smart, and competent beyond description. On the field, we speak of these men, of this plane, and we see both quite clearly as we work. It is a plane smashed into a million pieces yet we think of it as whole. It’s mighty spirit lives on in each fragment and rivet we find.

I moved between parts and being part of a documentary film. It is a far less daunting experience than expected due to the professionalism of the Der Spiegel team. They were easily integrated into our daily rhythms and were facile in their ability to be where the action was which was copious yesterday. They did two days of filming in one day and they will return within the week for the rest. We all enjoyed having them around and Dr. Fox declared them “unobtrusive.” That’s like receiving a blessing from the pope.

Reporter, Christopher Gerisch and I had lunch at a nearby fine restaurant yesterday: McDonalds (they have ice). Christopher tells me that the last scenes of the documentary will be filmed at Arlington National Cemetery where I hope to have my father’s memorial service. He also told me that they will prepare an English version for American sale and distribution. I suggested that Robert Redford c/o Sundance should surely be sent a copy. (smiling a diva smile)

The German way of making documentaries is not to emphasize the dramatic with big music and slow-motion action scenes but to create more of an historical yet personal story. I expect the stories told by the people and the camera are dramatic enough in this case.

In the middle of all that swirled around me yesterday, I chipped one of my teeth which is beginning to seem like an annual European event. The last time I did this I was standing in the middle of St. Peter’s in the Vatican and had to find a Roman dentist who charged me 300 Euro. Needless to say, I expected the same yesterday when Ernst found me a local dentist, made the appointment, and then accompanied me to the office. The dentist did his Bondo and light magic (I know what to expect) and pronounced the entire procedure “free for the American piloten’s tochter.” I had no choice but to hug the surprised dentist and give him the Team Estill hat I was wearing.

As though I hadn’t received enough presents, Rodney, our medic, presented me with one more when he said, “Mam, I know you don’t have your father’s dog tags so I want you to have this.” From the chain holding his own dog tags, he removed another one on which was inscribed on one side with these words:

PEOPLE FIRST – MISSION ALWAYS
JPAC STANDARD
DO WHAT’S RIGHT
ALWAYS CARE THE MOST
OPERATE THE BEST
GET BETTER EVERY DAY

[On the other side it says]

“Until They Are Home”
JPAC VALUES
Commitment, Integrity, Respect, Compassion, Honor
I am overwhelmed with this gift. I hope it gives you as a participant in this mission an idea of the kind of people on the JPAC teams. To a person, these code of ethics and beliefs have been expressed to me and were made clear to the documentary filmmakers yesterday. How, I wondered, could there be any more bittersweet joy in this event for me?

I will close this reporting of miracles and surprises with this small inadequate nod of appreciation to my dear friend and constant companion, Ernst Eberle. Due to Ernst’s generous spirit and selfless donation of time and patience, I am flying in a place where I would otherwise flounder. He is easy to be with and always speaks his truth. I am grateful beyond compare for his generous wisdom and language.

To be continued………………….

Rain is the only problem on 25 August: Work stopped in the middle of a rain storm that arrived around 3:00. We were off t he field by 3:15 and I finished my interview with Alexander Bischoff, Correspondent (a real one) from Morgen Post. We were all part of the television news as Sylvia Krause a freelance journalist photographed and interviewed everyone. Local reporter, Nico Wendt, wrote an interesting article for today’s paper in which he invited anyone who might be have acquired any of my father’s personal possessions after the crash, to anonymously leave them at the newspaper office. He wrote specifically about my father’s missing pilot’s watch and a ring another eyewitness saw at the crash site in 1945.

This is one of those things where it occurs to me to pray to Tony or to wonder at my own sanity for having any hope that these items would be returned. One reporter shook his head in amazement that I would even consider this possible. I suggested that he glance out the window at the field and tell me what is impossible. I have great faith in the good people of this community. If those items (and/or others belonging to my father) still exist and the article is read by the right person, they will be returned to me. If not, I can live with the fact that an attempt was made.

The parts from the deepening crater are large and ominous. There was a large piece of one of the engine mounts and after it was somewhat cleaned, the engine piece that fit into it matched perfectly. The metal plate identifying the aircraft would have been on one of the engines. That would be an important find.

The collection of bone fragments grows as does the importance of careful and laborious screening. It’s imperative to stay vigilant and not to discard anything questionable. There is much consulting about this.

As to when is this finished, a question I ponder each day, I can only surmise that when enough is found to make a case for identification or conclusion, the field will be restored. For now, we are still in the process of finding what lies beneath the “crash feature.” Some of the stuff is so unidentifiable that Dr. Fox calls it “very very fine dirt stuff” or a “a fine piece of canoodle.” It’s all good for the quest where levity and humor are required, not optional.

My final gift yesterday came from Chris McDermott, a JPAC Historian with whom I have corresponded for several years. He brought me his little thumb drive (which is exactly the miracle my dear son-in-law suggested) on which he had stored a file he shared with me. It is entitled, 14201 Deferred Search File. It contains surprising proof that a team much like JPAC in composition and mission was sent to Europe in the years following the war to search for crash sites and missing men. This was news to me as our family was unaware of this effort. My mother told me that they heard rumor to this effect but nothing that would lead them to think a search had ever been conducted on my father’s behalf. It seems fitting and honorable that JPAC is here now to finish the job. It is also important to mention that through the efforts of Hans-Guenther Ploes and his team (which included enthusiastic and hopeful moi), JPAC knows where to dig.

Tomorrow is another day in Torgau and perhaps we will have pictures.

Die Tochter eines amerikanischen Piloten

Photos

August 25th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor


Top: Trenches
Right: Field before dig
Left: Survey measurements
Bottom: 96 meters of trench

Photos

August 25th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor


Linda, photographer & trench digger

Dinner at Pizzeria Napoli with team

Screens and trenches

ACS in bucket

Dr. Fox in his field office


Trench digging

Photos

August 25th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

.50 Meters beneath the crater surface
The lovely latrine
Frau Thiel, Wally, David, Rick, Rodney
Frau Thiel with father photo
Herr Thiel, Linda, Frau Thiel, Frau Taylor, Wally

Photos

August 25th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

Wally & Ulf
Crash feature outline
ACS emerging from the crater floor
Craig Daniels in crater
Metal corrosion in crater

Photos

August 25th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

Probable engine parts
Jeff with molten pieces
Ammunition from crater
Rodney at screen
H.G. with engine mount
Hans-Guenther Ploes & Ernst Eberle
21 Aug end of day ACS
Dr. Fox with Reporter Wendt
Buergermeister Grossman & Ernst
Strategy meeting with Ernst
PhD conference

Photos

August 25th, 2005 by Sharon Taylor

A moment of levity
Team Estill banner
The God of Airplane Parts
Alexander, photographer & Bischoff, HG
Posing with ACS for media
The crater deepens
Rick in front of screens
Herr Guenter & Reporter Bischoff
Rodney, Shane, HG, Ernst. G., Craig, David
Ready for the screen
Interview in the crater with Dr. Fox
Der Spiegel team

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