The wreckage of a plane found on the bed of a lagoon in Poland is likely to be that of an American B-17 Flying Fortress bomber shot down in 1944 during an attack on a German factory.
The discovery was made last month using sonar systems deployed in Szczecin Lagoon, a body of water on the Polish-German border at the mouth of the Oder river.
“You can clearly see the wing, engine, fuselage,” says Aleksander Ostasz, director of the Polish Arms Museum in nearby Kołobrzeg, which led the search. “Everything indicates that these may be the remains of the American B17-G bomber that was shot down on 7 October 1944.”
The specific area was searched after researchers at the museum analysed documents relating to the shooting down of the plane, which flew under the serial number 44-8046. It had been leading a raid by the US 457th Bombardment Group on a synthetic gasoline factory in Pölitz (now Police in Poland).
Its five surviving crew members were taken prisoner. The bodies of three more were identified, but another three – Alfred W. Fischer, Gordon H. Haggard, Ancil U. Shepherd – were never found and their remains could be inside the wreckage. The museum has issued an appeal for relatives of the crew to contact them.
Ostasz says that work will now continue to confirm with “100% certainty” that the wreckage belongs to the US bomber. However, for the time being there are no plans to remove it from the bed of the lagoon, he told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
“This is one of the most interesting research sites at the moment in Europe,” says Andrzej Ossowski, a forensic scientist at the Pomeranian Medical University, which was also involved in identifying the wreckage.
The factory in Pölitz, built by German industrial giant IG Farben, produced a large proportion of the synthetic gasoline that powered the Nazi German war effort. It was regularly targeted by Allied air raids, often using intelligence provided by the Polish underground.
At the end of the war, Pölitz was within the German territories transferred to Poland, whose borders shifted westwards, and is now known by its Polish name of Police. The ruined remains of the factory are still visible in the town.
Poland's turbulent past has left a landscape filled with abandoned sites ideal for intrepid tourists, history buffs and ruin hunters.
We present our top ten, from a Nazi torpedo platform and secret Soviet nuclear site to a graveyard for kiosks https://t.co/TojsDVMuft
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 20, 2021
Main image credit: Muzeum Oręża Polskiego w Kołobrzegu
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
