Customer Reviews

Missing Plane

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The author discusses the discovery of a crashed bomber in Papua New Guinea and the expedition to recover the remains, then describes the painstaking process of identifying the remains, and finally tells the story of the fatal flight and the men who were on the aircraft. This was an interesting book throughout; especially poignant were the descriptions of the family members who finally learned the fate of their loved ones more than forty years later. The New Guinea campaign and the role of the Fifth Air Force have been relatively neglected in histories of World War Two.

This book reminds us of the ultimate cost of war. We visit a crashsite that lies undisturbed where it was swallowed up in a New Guinea rain forrest decades before. The plane lies in pieces with many articles curiously intact, and unidentified bones lie strewn about. It was my first introduction to identifying the dead from the dna stored inside, as I read this long before CSI ever hit the airwaves. What stuck me most was how family members felt that their long lost relatives were at last found. Some had old nagging questions answered, while others felt it was almost annoying to have old ghosts revisit their lives. In my own family, we still tell the story of a lad of eighteen who never came home from the Civil War, and remember his mother and siblings and some of his friends. We hold dear the letters he sent home along with his photos. Most of the families who have lost men from that war have long forgotten them, and now it is happening to the dead of World War Two. Their parents are now long gone. Their children still hold dear the vague memories they have of their fathers if they ever met them at all. Some of their wives never remarried and still think of them daily, still missing their young men into their own old age. Some of them moved on long ago, and don't want to open old wounds by remembering the past. Their brothers and sisters have never stopped missing them. You will always see them salute the flag when it passes in parades.
The technical portions in this book are very well explained, and long dead young men come back to life, but for me, the most thought provoking pages described how men gone missing in war are remembered, and then almost without exception lost in the mists of time.

I wish "Book Titles" would be more descriptive (at least in "Sub-Titles")
[Who, What, When, Where, Why]

It took me awhile, to find out this book was about...
[Who] - "WEEZIE" 5th AF, 90th BG, 320th BS
[What] - WWII B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber (found)
[When] - 1980s
[Where] - 30 miles northeast of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, Australia
[Why] - I won't give away any secrets! You'll have to read the "Book"...

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