French Navy divers looking for WW2 US missing pilots

[Sylvain]

I read an article in a French newspaper earlier this week but they didn't provide any picture.

French Navy divers are exploring WW2 airplane wrecks off the coast of Corscica.
They are looking for missing American pilots.

They are working with the US DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency).

Great pictures in the article bellow ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-44695562

Over 83,000 US soldiers missing in action have yet to be recovered according to the DPAA!

In 2012 a French diver took a picture of the P-47 Thunderbolt and contacted the US Embassy, leading to the current search of the area by the French Navy at the request of the US government.

No soldier left behind ... even after 75 years.

 

[femurphy77]

Man that's going to be tough after 75 years. I know it's not definitive but perhaps locating and identifying the aircraft and then tie it to who was pilot at the time of loss would prove sufficient. To find identifiable human remains after 75 years under water is probably nearly impossible.

 

[HoughMade]

Man that's going to be tough after 75 years. I know it's not definitive but perhaps locating and identifying the aircraft and then tie it to who was pilot at the time of loss would prove sufficient. To find identifiable human remains after 75 years under water is probably nearly impossible.

True, but dog tags or other metal that can be tied to a person can be found. You are right, the plane itself is probably the best bet.

 

[GregD]

Sylvain, thanks for your useful information!

 

[Sylvain]

Man that's going to be tough after 75 years. I know it's not definitive but perhaps locating and identifying the aircraft and then tie it to who was pilot at the time of loss would prove sufficient. To find identifiable human remains after 75 years under water is probably nearly impossible.

Don't they find bones dating back hundreds or thousand of years sometimes?
Comparing the DNA with living relatives might help them ID the remains.
They have the names of the missing soldiers but that's tens of thousand of people.
I would imagine just to match a DNA sample to a living relative would take time.

From what I read in another article they knew the aircraft(s) was there since the early 1980's but just recently, in 2012, a diver took a picture of the airfcaft showing the ID number.Which they didn't have previously.
Maybe they can ID the pilot just with that number but it doesn't mean that they will find the remains after that long.

I have no idea how any of that work.

I'm just glad they don't give up looking for missing soldiers.
I'm also glad and proud that my country's military is helping looking for those soldiers.
They fought and died for France and they are our soldiers as much as they are American soldiers.

 

[Sylvain]

True, but dog tags or other metal that can be tied to a person can be found. You are right, the plane itself is probably the best bet.

Yep, some soldiers from WW2 and even WW1 have been found recently and identified with their tags or sometimes just engraved jewlery and watches.

Not sure if modern soldiers wear engraved watches on the battlefield anymore.
I see a lot of them with G-shocks and such.Not really the kind of watch they had back them.

They probably do a DNA analysis nowadays on new soldiers in case they have to ID their remains later.

Maybe some of our vets now about that.

 

[Leadeye]

Plane looks in pretty good shape and the canopy is back. Flaps look torn off. May have been a water landing where the pilot got out.

 

[femurphy77]

Don't they find bones dating back hundreds or thousand of years sometimes?
Comparing the DNA with living relatives might help them ID the remains.
They have the names of the missing soldiers but that's tens of thousand of people.
I would imagine just to match a DNA sample to a living relative would take time.

From what I read in another article they knew the aircraft(s) was there since the early 1980's but just recently, in 2012, a diver took a picture of the airfcaft showing the ID number.Which they didn't have previously.
Maybe they can ID the pilot just with that number but it doesn't mean that they will find the remains after that long.

I have no idea how any of that work.

I'm just glad they don't give up looking for missing soldiers.
I'm also glad and proud that my country's military is helping looking for those soldiers.
They fought and died for France and they are our soldiers as much as they are American soldiers.

I hope you're right; regardless of which side of the line they were on they all deserve to go home.

 

[femurphy77]

Yep, some soldiers from WW2 and even WW1 have been found recently and identified with their tags or sometimes just engraved jewlery and watches.

Not sure if modern soldiers wear engraved watches on the battlefield anymore.
I see a lot of them with G-shocks and such.Not really the kind of watch they had back them.

They probably do a DNA analysis nowadays on new soldiers in case they have to ID their remains later.

Maybe some of our vets now about that.

Not a vet but my dad said that DNA sampling has been the norm for awhile.

 

[croy]

True, but dog tags or other metal that can be tied to a person can be found. You are right, the plane itself is probably the best bet.

I would imagine dog tags would be completely rusted away in salt water after all this time. Out of all the people they are finding with engraved watches and such how many have been in the ocean for that long?

 

[Sylvain]

I would imagine dog tags would be completely rusted away in salt water after all this time. Out of all the people they are finding with engraved watches and such how many have been in the ocean for that long?

Some things are actually preserved because they are kept under water and not exposed to air.

Just a few months ago they found some WW2 planes underwater and they look really good, the paint looks brand new even though it spent 75 years in salt water.

In 1998 they found a bracelet belonging to French aviator and author (author of The Little Prince) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
His plane crashed in 1944, the silver bracelet spent 54 years under water.

They found his plane a few years later, parts of it anyway.But never his remains.

 

[Leadeye]

Interesting Frenchman, I didn't know they had located his aircraft. I figure maybe someday they will find pieces of Georges Guynemer's plane in a French farmer's field. There have been rumors of Charles Nungesser's White Bird in Canada for years.

 

[Sylvain]

Interesting Frenchman, I didn't know they had located his aircraft. I figure maybe someday they will find pieces of Georges Guynemer's plane in a French farmer's field. There have been rumors of Charles Nungesser's White Bird in Canada for years.

They found parts of it in 2000.They are now in a museum.
They still don't know if his plane was shut down by a German plane or not.

The location of the crash site and the bracelet are less than 80 km by sea from where the unidentified French serviceman was found in Carqueiranne, and it remains plausible, but has not been confirmed, that the body was carried there by sea currents after the crash over the course of several days

They found a body in 1944 but don't know if it was him or not.

An unidentifiable body in a French uniform was found several days after his disappearance east of the Frioul archipelago south of Marseille and buried in Carqueiranne in September.

 

[femurphy77]

Some things are actually preserved because they are kept under water and not exposed to air.

Just a few months ago they found some WW2 planes underwater and they look really good, the paint looks brand new even though it spent 75 years in salt water.

In 1998 they found a bracelet belonging to French aviator and author (author of The Little Prince) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
His plane crashed in 1944, the silver bracelet spent 54 years under water.

They found his plane a few years later, parts of it anyway.But never his remains.

Water depth plays a big part in whether or not objects are preserved or disappear. Deep, cold, oxygen depleted water don't support the organisms common to deterioration. A bracelet or other manmade object may become coral encrusted or otherwise rendered unrecognizable at relatively shallow depth whereas the titanic was quite easily recognized and with little deterioration of manmade structures until relatively recently. On the other hand human remains have essentially disappeared long ago even with the absence of most sealife except for the specialized types that develop even at those depths.

The lack of growth on that trainer after 75 years suggests depths of at least 200 meter since significant light typically won't reach that depth although under the right conditions surface light has been detected at depths of 1000 meters.