46x07 - Last B-24

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR:
A mystery beneath the waves.

A lost B-24 b*mber...

[g*nf*re and expl*si*n echoing]

shot down in World w*r II.

VAL MILLER:
The pilot said,

"We're going in."

♪♪

NARRATOR:
The remains
of three brave airmen

may still be here, somewhere.

Now an elite team of divers

sent by the
U.S. Department of Defense

is on a mission
to bring these men home.

PHIL SHORT:
First team in

will be Brett, Nikos,
and myself.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
It's part of a worldwide effort

to search out and recover

tens of thousands of U.S.
service members still missing.

KELLY McKEAGUE:
We are tasked to provide
that closure,

and hopefully one day,
fill that hole in their heart.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Like the case
of the Tuskegee airman

who vanished in 1944.

MARLA:
All through the years,
I would ask everybody,

"Did you know my father?
Were you over in Italy?"

NARRATOR:
Or the copilot of a B-17.

♪♪

CHELSEA:
He flew his plane
over their summer house

to say goodbye,

and then
they never heard from him again.

NARRATOR:
But after more than 70 years,
can any of them be found?

From the bottom
of the Adriatic Sea

to cutting-edge tech
on board a Croatian ship...

Possible osseous.

NARRATOR:
to forensic labs
back in the U.S...

MCMAHON:
This is where
we take the unknown

and we put a name to them.

NARRATOR:
only science
can unlock this puzzle...

The mystery of "The Last B-24."

♪♪

Right now on "NOVA."

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Thousands of miles

from the nearest American shore,

the U.S. Department of Defense

has embarked
on a unique expedition...

On the hunt
for precious treasure

lost beneath the surface
of the Adriatic Sea.

The Croatian navy
has donated its services.

[various people
speaking Croatian]

NARRATOR:
As the ship

locks into position...

[chatter on radio,
chains clanging]

MAN:
Okay guys,

briefing for today's operation.

NARRATOR:
an elite team
of technical divers

and underwater archaeologists

slips into the water.

MAN:
Let's go.

[splash]

NARRATOR:
They will sink

nearly 135 feet
beneath the surface

in search of a missing piece
of American history,

a warplane lost more than


Tulsamerican.

[g*nf*re]

Once a fierce weapon of w*r...
[explosions]

it is now
a jumbled mass of parts.

A wing.

A wheel.

A parachute canopy
draped like a burial shroud.

The plane is
flipped upside down,

broken in half,
one wheel jutting upwards.

It looks like nothing more
than a tangle of wreckage.

And yet they hope it holds

the last remains
of three American airmen

who never made it home...

Flight engineer
Charles E. Priest;

navigator Russell C. Landry;

and the pilot, Eugene Ford.

They are the reason
for this mission.

The reason for almost 50 people

and roughly


both military and scientific,

brought here
in the hopes of finding them.

But after 70 years
on the bottom of the ocean,

there are no intact skeletons,
no clothing,

no trace of the missing men.

It's a puzzle...

A deep and dangerous mystery

they can only hope
will be unlocked by science.

The mystery traces back to 1944,

the height of World w*r II.

Six months after the Allies'
D-Day invasion,

huge portions of France and
Italy have been liberated.

But the Germans have just begun
a major counterattack.

VAL MILLER:
It was the day after

the Battle of the Bulge
had started.

The Germans had made
a lot of progress,

had broken through our lines

around Belgium and in that area.

NARRATOR:
As the ground battle rages,

a ferocious air w*r

unfolds in the skies above.

Lieutenant Val Miller was there.

MILLER:
We sent every plane

that we could fly.

It was a large,

large bunch of planes

from not only where we were,

but from other divisions
in the area.

NARRATOR:
The as*ault consists

of B-17 Flying Fortresses

and a newer plane
introduced in 1940...

The B-24 Liberator.

Four 1,200-horsepower engines
and a more efficient wing design

allow it fly faster and farther
than the B-17s.

It carries ten crew, six manning
.50 caliber machine g*ns,

and a bombardier to direct
its 8,000 pounds of bombs.

The B-24 was a powerful
and effective weapon,

but in the face
of enemy fighters,

as much prey as predator.

The reality of air combat
over Europe

was it was a very harsh,

unforgiving,
chaotic environment.

The antiaircraft a*tillery that
comes through paper-thin skins

of airplanes,

So cold that if your bare skin

touches the aluminum of the
airplane, it sticks to it.

NARRATOR:
Casualty rates are high,

but suffered

as a necessary tradeoff.

KINNEY:
One b*mb salvo from a B-24,

that's probably equivalent
to destroy a large

multistory building,
even a small factory,

just from one airplane.

[explosions]

NARRATOR:
Allied planners

want to drop
these high expl*sives

on the German fuel refineries
at Odertal.

Take away the oil,

and the n*zi w*r machine
grinds to a halt.

The flight would take
nearly eight hours.


was the bombardier

on board the Tulsamerican.

The plane was one of over 18,000
B-24s built during the w*r.

But she is unique among them.

The last B-24 to roll off the
factory line in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

she was paid for
by the factory workers

out of their own pockets.

Local press has been
closely tracking her progress.

Now she is headed out on another
extremely dangerous mission.

MILLER:
We were told we would not

have any fighter protection.

We had to go through
very thick clouds.

And suddenly...

we were attacked by a whole
bunch of German fighter planes.

[g*nf*re, explosions]

There was no conversation, but
there was a lot of activity.

People were manning their g*ns.

[expl*si*n]

We shot down
two or three of them.

But they kept
attacking and attacking.

NARRATOR:
The Tulsamerican successfully
escaped the German fighters.

But she was critically wounded,

with damage
to one of her engines,

fuel tank, and hydraulics.

The crew had a decision to make.

Below them was enemy territory.

MILLER:
The pilot didn't
want to bail out.

He knew that if we did, we'd be
taken c*ptive by the Germans,

and more than likely
they would k*ll us.

NARRATOR:
But home base in Italy

was over three hours away...
More than 100 miles of it

over open sea.

But there was a backup plan.

We decided we'd try for
that little island of Vis.

It's a small landing area,
but it's a place

where we had had planes fly down
and land there before.

NARRATOR:
Threading the needle
to land here

was the last hope for many
Allied planes.

But it was no simple feat.

MILLER:
We'd already had
one engine shot out.

I guess probably we were about


It looked like
we were going to make it.

NARRATOR:
At such low altitude,
a parachute isn't an option.

MILLER:
As we were chugging along

trying to get
to that little landing strip,

two more engines quit.

The only warning we had was the
pilot said, "We're going in."

NARRATOR:
The crash of
a nearly identical B-24

depicted in the film "Unbroken"
is eerily similar.

MILLER:
The water came in on me.

I didn't remember seeing
anything around me.

♪♪

As I was just floating there,

suddenly there was a little boat
that came up by me.

I have no idea
who they were to this day.

NARRATOR:
Miller later learned

that six other crewmen
had been rescued,

but the pilot, navigator,
and engineer

vanished without a trace.

For decades, the military
listed them as unrecoverable.

Then, in 2010,

an amateur diver
came across a rusting wreck.

It was eventually identified
as the Tulsamerican.

With the plane identified,

a little known group within
the Department of Defense

called the Defense POW/MIA
Accounting Agency,

the DPAA, began planning
this expedition.

Their job is to find
lost service members

and provide information

to families who may have been
waiting for decades.

G.R. GILLETTE:
We try to give them,
as much as we can,

the theater, the campaign,
the battle, perhaps even

that final hour where they lost
their service member.

And that helps bring
a sense of closure to them.

NARRATOR:
The DPAA

goes around the world
to carry out its mission,

like the recent recovery
of potential remains

of U.S. troops

from the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.

An estimated 82,000 American
soldiers are still missing.

McKEAGUE:
It may be a number, but that's


sets of memories, all unique.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
But at this site,



♪♪

Finding the missing men
and bringing them home

will be very complicated,

which calls for an expert team
led by Brendan Foley.

BRENDAN FOLEY:
So there's a lot
of aircraft wreckage

that we have to move around.

There's jagged metal
that could easily cut us.

We have to be
really careful in there.

NARRATOR:
Brendan is not
a military officer.

He's a scientist

who leads a team
of highly skilled

underwater archaeologists.

Shadowing the scientists
is a second team

of elite technical divers led by
dive safety officer Phil Short.

PHIL SHORT:
Now, bear in mind,
scientists have real jobs,

so they don't get
to dive every day.

So you're not ready
with a motor reflex

to respond to the emergencies.

NARRATOR:
And that's why
no one dives alone.

SHORT:
Each scientist, like Dr. Foley,

has got a guardian.

And their job
is to ghost the scientist,

to watch them while they work.

NARRATOR:
Also joining the team

is underwater photographer
Brett Seymour.

He takes
hundreds of photographs.

♪♪

Topside,

he stitches
the 2D images together

to build a 3D model of the site.

The graphic image clearly shows
that the c*ck is in ruins.

BRETT SEYMOUR:
The site is quite a bit

more broken up than I thought.

I mean, I had seen some images
that the tail wasn't there,

but I had no idea that the
c*ck was so torn apart.

EVAN KOVAC:
Yeah, I didn't realize
it was quite so damaged.

NARRATOR:
The first dive has made it clear
what they're up against...

A confusing mass of wreckage.

Which means the search for human
remains just got more difficult.

FOLEY:
It looks like when the aircraft
hit the water,

it was a heck of an impact,
and so it's peeled open

almost like a banana.

NARRATOR:
The search will begin around
the heavily damaged c*ck.

According to
Val Miller's testimony,

that was where
the three missing men

were positioned
at the moment of impact.

MILLER:
I was right behind the pilot.

I could have reached out
and touched him with my hand.

NARRATOR:
The engineer Priest,

the navigator Landry,

and the pilot Ford
should be right there.

The next team
prepares to descend.

♪♪

Just like on land,

the excavation begins
with a grid system.

♪♪

FOLEY:
The wreckage
is pretty well concentrated.

It makes the job
a little bit easier for us.

NARRATOR:
Their goal for this phase
is to examine the area

around the c*ck,
in case any remains

were ejected from the wreckage.

FOLEY:
With the grid we can go

very, very systematically and
scientifically day after day.

NARRATOR:
The team scans the sea floor
with forensic lights

capable of detecting bones.

FOLEY:
With a filter on over our eyes,

over our masks,
we shine these blue lights

on the sea floor, and they
cause bone to fluoresce.

So it makes detection a lot
easier and a lot more complete.

NARRATOR:
Powerful dredges
work like giant vacuums,

sucking up the silt.

The sediment is bagged

and sent to the surface.

♪♪

Where a team including

Croatian archaeologist Helena
Tomas begins sifting through it.

♪♪

HELENA TOMAS:
It has to be sieved

and processed in
precisely the same way

that we archeologists
are used to.

NARRATOR:
As the bags continue
rising from the depths,

Helena recruits the Croatian
sailors to assist her team.

We had so much work to do,

we decided to ask sailors
to help us

sieving the soil
that came from the bottom

of the sea around the wreckage.

NARRATOR:
Even Captain Neven Katic
joins in...

♪♪

And finds the first
significant personal item.

TOMAS:
So he came to me and he said,

"Oh, there is a really
shiny object inside.

What is this?"

♪♪

NARRATOR:
A wedding ring untarnished
by the salt water.

It's an emotional moment.

FOLEY:
It catches me now;
it caught all of us.

Something so personal as one of
these airmen's wedding band,

still shiny gold.

NARRATOR:
Such a unique find

may even hint
at the original owner.

That's because records show
the engineer Priest,

out of Kansas,
was never married.

The next man, Landry,
with a brother and sister

waiting back home,
was also marked single.

The only man who was married
was the pilot,

Lieutenant Eugene Ford.

He left behind a wife,
an unborn son, and a daughter.

NORMA:
And he actually saw me once...

He came home on leave.

But then he went back.

And he died.

So I don't remember him at all.

We had an encyclopedia
of pictures of World w*r II.

And we did look for B24s,

and we memorized
the number of rivets there are,

things like that.

But there was this sadness
my mother had

that I just could not
comprehend.

NARRATOR:
The ring suggests their father,

lost all those years ago,

may be close by.

But it's not enough
to establish a positive ID.

♪♪

So while the discovery
is encouraging...

the work is far from over.

♪♪

SHORT:
Okay, guys, so,
briefing for today.

First team in will be Brett,
Nikos, and myself.

NARRATOR:
The team works in shifts.

As one crew
rises to the surface,

the next one is ready
to take its place.

SHORT:
Our team's got 60 minutes
per diver

per dive, and we're putting nine
men on the bottom per day.

So we're basically getting
nine hours of productivity

per operational day.

NARRATOR:
On land, archaeological digs

are measured in weeks or months.

Here, the excavation
will be measured in hours.

As the digging continues...

a radio headset appears.

Divers bring it to the surface,

where the bags of silt
are also yielding results.

A 50 caliber cartridge,

flight boots...

What archaeologists call
artifacts.

TOMAS:
So artifacts would be

remains of the plane,
parts of the uniform,

something that can

give us an indication
of identity.

NARRATOR:
But the holy grail

is osseous remains...

Human bones,
carrying a hidden treasure...

Recovered items like uniforms,

even dog tags,
are usually not enough,

even when combined
with medical records.

Dental records are useful.

But DNA is the best way
to make an identification...

Like an investigation
the DPAA recently reopened.

This is my father, Captain
Lawrence Everett Dickson.

NARRATOR:
His daughter Marla was just
a child when he disappeared.

MARLA ANDREWS:
My father was in
the third graduating class

of the original Tuskegee Airmen.

NARRATOR:
Named for the Alabama town
where they trained,

the Tuskegee Airmen had to fight

just to fly.

ANDREWS:
The basic sentiment
of the country at that time

felt that black people
were not intelligent enough,

they weren't brave
and courageous enough.

NARRATOR:
The Tuskegee pilots proved
their critics wrong,

but at a price.

They were asked to fly


Far more than their white peers.

Marla's father was on
his 68th mission,

in a distinctive red-tail P-51.

Christmas was only days away.

ANDREWS:
They expected him

to come home very soon,
because he only had

two more missions to go.

NARRATOR:
Just after the new year,

they get a telegram.

ANDREWS:
It said he was
missing in action.

NARRATOR:
He was never seen again.

ANDREWS:
All through the years
I would ask everybody,

"Did you know my father,
were you over in Italy?"

And I never had any luck.

NARRATOR:
For 50 years,

Marla had little more
than his medals

to remember her father by.

It's the Distinguished
Flying Cross.

NARRATOR:
Until 1998,

when she got a letter from her
father's wingman, Robert Martin.

The letter revealed
that over the mountains

between Italy and Austria,
her father's plane

began to give him trouble.

ANDREWS:
He saw my father having
difficulty with the engine.

It sputtered out one time,
and he got it started again

after trying.

And then it sputtered out again.

And he got it started again.

But the third time,
it didn't work.

NARRATOR:
Neither of the two pilots

flying with Dickson
saw if he got out.

ANDREWS:
They went back and they circled

what they thought was the area.

And I could tell
from the letter how...

how awful he felt.

NARRATOR:
For almost 70 years,

Dickson was gone...
Vanished in the mountains.

Until a DPAA researcher
uncovered a handful

of eyewitness reports
recorded in 1944.

They described the crash
of an Allied fighter

on the Austro-Italian border
near the town of Hohenthurn.

♪♪

Working with
the University of New Orleans,

the National
World w*r II Museum,

and the University of Innsbruck,

the DPAA launched
an investigation.

[metal detector squealing]

Archaeologists quickly
found wreckage

matching a downed P-51
fighter...

And fragments of bone.

All of a sudden, for Marla
Dickson, there was hope.

ANDREWS:
I got a call

from an Army representative, and
her specialty was genealogy.

And at first, I said, "Oh, gosh.

"I'm going to have to
hang up on this person.

This is some kind of scam."

NARRATOR:
But it wasn't a scam.

It was legitimate.

ANDREWS:
I didn't know how to handle it.

And I know that sounds silly,
because I'm old enough

to be able to handle
almost anything.

NARRATOR:
The remains that were found

were sent to the Armed Forces
Medical Examiner System

for analysis.

Here, one at a time,
DNA transforms the missing

into the found.

The DNA is extracted
from bones and teeth,

and then sequenced.

McMAHON:
Which is a way for us

to determine
the actual base pairs.

So, when I talk about DNA, DNA's
made up of four base pairs...

G, A, T, C.

NARRATOR:
The base pairs

are simply chemicals
arranged in sequence...

The blueprint for what
makes each person unique.

McMAHON:
That difference
in that individual

that makes that
his DNA sequence...

That difference
is what we're looking for.

NARRATOR:
Searching through

the three billion base pairs
found in human cellular DNA,

the laboratory utilizes three
different testing methods.

One approach focuses
on small repetitive sequences

known as "short tandem repeats,"

which are compared to reference
samples from family members.

ANDREWS:
The Army asked for my DNA,

and they asked for my
father's brother's son's DNA.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
The work is painstaking;

it will take some time.

ANDREWS:
I am not a patient person.

One day, I'm for finding him

and one day I'm for
not finding him.

Because it's...
I can't explain it to you.

It's...

It's... [sighs]

It's emotional.

McMAHON:
It takes a while.

There's a reason for that.

For better, for worse,
people may think

there are ways
to do this faster.

Sloppy science
means bad results.

The families have had
enough heartache in their life

that we do good science.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Only time will tell

if the remains found in Austria
belong to Captain Dickson.

♪♪

♪♪

Uncertainty is part of
all of these investigations.

Back on the Tulsamerican,

the archaeologists have reached
their primary target...

The c*ck where the missing
men were just before the crash.

But it's a jumbled mess,

and they don't find much.

DAVE CONLIN:
I spent the whole


just working an area.

Dug carefully

and found the other headphone,
but we didn't find

anything else at all.

FOLEY:
This is an evolutionary process.

We've done that sort of
easy part... we thought maybe

the most likely place
for the remains to be found.

Now it gets more difficult.

NARRATOR:
What's most perplexing is that,
so far,

no human remains have appeared.

I wasn't really finding anything
under there at all, so...

Yeah, I think
there was just nothing there.

Yeah, I agree.

NARRATOR:
If the airmen ended up

outside of the c*ck,

the team could be wasting
precious time.

The job here
isn't to remove sediment.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
On day 17, they find something

that lifts everyone's spirits...

Oh, my goodness.

NARRATOR:
A set of wings.

MAN:
I was really hoping

we were going to find that.

NARRATOR:
The center shield

tells them they don't belong
to the pilot

whose ring may have been found.

But could they belong
to one of the other missing men?

♪♪

FOLEY:
The job here is to

bring these three men home,

bury them in
the National Cemetery

with the honors
that they're due.

And every day, we're thinking
about that mission entirely.

NARRATOR:
These unsolved cases

can be agonizing for families
back home waiting for news.

I'm here representing my cousin,

Flight Officer
Samuel Wilson DeSoto,

lost May 15, 1946.

WOMAN:
I was 16,

and I got to kiss him goodbye
that morning.

We have two other sisters also,
so Daddy had five girls,

and we're all...
we're all waiting.

My father was
Private Rodolfo Velasquomeza.

I never knew my dad.

He turned 19
on October 12 in Korea.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
There are tens of thousands

of such families around the U.S.

KELLY McKEAGUE:
People are just looking
for that closure.

They're looking for answers

as to why their loved one
was lost.

And having the closure to bring
them back home on American soil

is what they strive for.

NARRATOR:
The U.S. military

began this work in 1947.

MAN:
I didn't realize either that how
difficult it was for my mother.

She cried herself to sleep

quite frequently, so that hole
was getting bigger and bigger.

McKEAGUE:
To provide that closure,

to provide answers,

and hopefully one day
fill that void,

fill that hole in their heart
as to why their loved one

hasn't been home in 70 years,
in the case of World w*r II.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
Back in Croatia, the team keeps

that mission foremost
in their thoughts.

♪♪

MAN:
Slowly, slowly, go, go, go, go.

NARRATOR:
But there is still little sign

of Ford, Priest, or Landry.

The team has fully excavated the
c*ck area and come up empty.

Is it possible
the men were ejected

by the force of the crash?

MILLER:
I don't know.

They were right where I could
have touched them when we hit.

But I never saw them again,

and never heard of them.

I don't know
what happened to them.

NARRATOR:
With much of their dive time
burned,

the team must move quickly.

Unfortunately, foul weather
is moving in.

They must seek calmer waters.

NAVY CAPTAIN:
We are moving now,

because state of sea
is not good for anchorage,

and we are going
in the harbor Vis,

because wind not blow.

NARRATOR:
But even with the divers
out of the water,

the archaeological work
can continue.

Come on!

♪♪

NARRATOR:
The team has a new
piece of technology

which acts as a larger version

of the forensic flashlights
used earlier.

They call it
the blue light special.

MAN:
So that's ready to roll.

FOLEY:
The idea is

we load the material
onto this top conveyor,

and it passes underneath
a diffused laser.

And that laser is set
for 450 nanometers.

And that frequency
causes bone and teeth,

osseous material, to fluoresce.

NARRATOR:
The scanner picks up protein

in human remains...
Something that rocks and shell

lack in significant amounts.

This test bone, for example,
rich in protein,

glows like a spotlight.

I'd say that's an advance.

Yeah, that's cool.

It's like an x-ray.

You see things that are
not of interest,

and this, that is of interest
actually pops out.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
After hours of scanning,

it appears
the blue light special

has found something important.

FOLEY:
Possible.

Possible osseous.

NARRATOR:
What might be a tooth.

ALEX SOTIRIOU:
I'm not a specialist
what this could be,

but this is exactly
what we were looking for.

NARRATOR:
It is tagged and bagged

for further analysis.

That's not our determination.

That's what the lab is for.

We'll send it on home.

NARRATOR:
But it's highly encouraging.

It means there may yet be

human remains at the crash site.

♪♪

And there's another piece
of exciting news.

A local diver has information

on another U.S. warplane
with another missing airman

possibly on board.

I can show you where he is.

NARRATOR:
The second plane is
only three miles away,

but the currents are
much calmer.

We've got poor weather
over the B24,

which gives good conditions
over the B17,

and we're using
this weather window

to do a reconnaissance dive
on the B-17.

She sits at


on the sea bed.

NARRATOR:
It is deeper
than the Tulsamerican.

[splashes]

A darker, more treacherous dive.

♪♪

The downed plane is incredible.

It is a B-17 Flying Fortress...

The workhorse of
the U.S. Army Air Forces.

First deployed in the 1930s,

the B-17 had a reputation
among its crews for its ability

to take a beating.

Not surprisingly,
in contrast to the Tulsamerican,

the B-17 appears
completely intact,

resting on the sea floor
as if on a runway.

It's just laying there
on the seabed.

And it just appears
out of the mist

like this ghost plane wreck.

It's like
they drained the ocean,

landed a plane,
and put the ocean back.

NARRATOR:
After his first trip
to the wreck,

the local diver, Danijel Frka,

researched the story
of the plane.

I know, because I got a letter
from the pilot and the gunner,

and they explained in detail
everything what happened.

NARRATOR:
The plane was on
a bombing mission

similar to that
of the Tulsamerican

when it was hit
by anti-aircraft fire.

[g*nf*re, explosions]

The B-17 attempted to make
an emergency landing at Vis.

It fell short, but all crew
survived except for one.

So all ten of the crew
were saved,

except of the 11th guy...
That was the copilot

who was left in the plane.

NARRATOR:
His name was Ernest Vienneau.

Wounded in the attack,
Vienneau couldn't be

pulled from the plane in time.

His family has been
searching for him ever since.

CHELSEA CARBONELL:
My name is Chelsea Carbonell,

and I'm here to remember
my great uncle.

He was the only one
to die in that plane.

♪♪

INTERVIEWER:
What do we think?

CARBONELL:
Especially smile Brendan.

Because he has that smile.

NARRATOR:
Chelsea Carbonell and her son

have inherited the search
for their long-lost uncle.

CARBONELL:
When Ernest left,

he flew his plane over their
summer house in Twin Lakes

and tipped the wings
to say goodbye,

and then they never
heard from him again.

NARRATOR:
Like the Tulsamerican,

Vienneau and his plane were
long considered unrecoverable.

CARBONE:
We have been trying to find his
remains and bring him back home.

NARRATOR:
Now, unexpectedly,

Vienneau may be within reach.

If this is his plane,
he may still be here somewhere,

or in the silt nearby.

SHAW:
So I think basically

there's a fairly high chance
of some remains being found.

NARRATOR:
But there's a problem.

There is no official permission
to search further.

They have to stop here.

The DPAA cannot
approve a new mission

without proof that this
is indeed Vienneau's plane.

For now, they must focus
on other cases.

Meanwhile,

the wreck raises
an intriguing question...

Why is the B-17 so intact?

No crew died
in the crash itself.

It's probably the most intact
aircraft wreck I've ever dived.

NARRATOR:
While the Tulsamerican

is a mangled wreck that
took three airmen with it.

Why are the two planes
in such different conditions?

Even stranger, Frka
has dived on other B-24s

with similar damage.

FRKA:
They're in exactly
the same condition.

Always the front
part of the plane

is upside down, and the back,
the tail part,

is tangled with it,

or very close to it.
Yep.

NARRATOR:
It's a striking detail.

Did the B-24s have some kind
of fatal design flaw?

KINNEY:
The B-24 was nicknamed

the Flying Coffin by its crews,

because it's very hard
to get out of the airplane.

NARRATOR:
The B-17 bombers,

despite being an older design,
seemed to enjoy

a better reputation.

KINNEY:
The B-17 was a much more robust
aircraft

in the combat environment.

It was able
to take combat damage.

It was able to get back on less
engines, less than four engines.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
An obscure but startling

piece of test footage
offers insight.

A controlled crash of a B-24.

Despite the optimal conditions,
the plane still comes apart.

The front end is mangled,

just like the Tulsamerican.

Only 25 percent of B-24
intentional water landings

were successful, and that's due
to the construction

of the airplane.

NARRATOR:
The body of the B-24
rests below the wings,

exposing it
during a water landing.

KINNEY:
So as the airplane
hits the water,

it could break in half
very easily.

NARRATOR:
In contrast, the B-17
had a low wing,

giving it
a broad landing surface.

KINNEY:
Which allowed the airplane
to be set down into the water

much more easily.

NARRATOR:
As the dive team gets back
to work on the Tulsamerican,

they've come to terms with the
fact that the c*ck is empty.

They decide to investigate a
feature

that they had seen earlier...
A parachute.

With time running out, this may
be their last best hope.

Divers typically try to avoid
underwater obstacles

that can snag and tangle.

The parachute is trapped,
snagged on, wrapped around

this part of
the aircraft wreckage.

We need excavate
underneath that.

NARRATOR:
They have just a few days left

to make it happen.

♪♪

Moving the parachute

generates dangerous
clouds of silt,

obscuring jagged metal
and tangling wire.

♪♪

But through the haze,
divers see something...

[muffled chatter]

that may be just
what they're looking for.

For hours,
the crew says nothing,

keeping the sensitivities
of the families

foremost in mind.

Finally, permission is granted
to reveal what they've found.

FOLEY:
We're under
very strict guidelines

as to what we can say
and what we can't say,

but I am authorized to say
that today we recovered

possible human remains.

And it's
extraordinarily emotional.

This hit me in a way no other
dive has ever hit me.

It was the most worthwhile thing
I've ever done under water.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
After repeated dives
on the parachute,

the team recovers a significant
number of intact bones,

teeth, and numerous
other fragments.

♪♪

For now,

they can only hope it will be
enough to answer the question

on everyone's mind...
Whom have they found?

♪♪

FOLEY:
I hope that we fulfill

the biggest promise
of the mission,

which is to bring closure
to a family or families.

[bugle playing Taps]

NARRATOR:
The fallen are finally
returning to U.S. soil.

And waiting families

will find out who they are.

♪♪

The DPAA operates

the largest forensic
anthropology lab in the world.

FRANKLIN DAMANN:
We process the site
like a crime scene.

There's never a day
in which you don't remember

that these are somebody's son.

♪♪

NARRATOR:
The work is done

entirely in the blind

to ensure no bias is introduced.

So there'll be anthropological
analyses, dental analyses.

There could be histological
or DNA analyses

as well as material evidence
analysis.

NARRATOR:
Larkin Kennedy
is a forensic anthropologist

assigned to analyze
the artifacts.

In addition to the wedding ring,

Larkin can glean some detail
from the flight wings...

They're definitely
not the pilot's.

So we would expect if those
wings belonged to the pilot

that they would have

this shield shaped
central motif.

The object that we do have

is more specific
to an air crew member.

We can be fairly sure
that that would have belonged

to a different individual.

So it looks like we have

at least two individuals
represented in this assemblage.

NARRATOR:
As Larkin continues
her analysis of the artifacts,

forensic anthropologist
Tyler Dunn

conducts his assessment
of the bones.

But he and Larkin
do not trade notes.

It's my job to do
a skeletal analysis blind,

so I don't bias myself.

We were presented with 11 teeth,

a right humerus
that's relatively intact

compared to everything else,
a fragment of a vertebra,

a handful of sort of
non-diagnostic

long bone fragments.

We can more or less just tell
that they're bone.

Some fingers, a bit of a toe,

and then most of the lower right
leg, so a tibia and a fibula.

♪♪

The first question
I generally ask is

the minimum number
of individuals.

So we try and figure out
if this could, or is,

more than one person.

NARRATOR:
The recovery team had hopes

that they had found
more than one airman.

But this is not what Tyler sees.

DUNN:
Based on this case,

the skeletal... it's called MNI,

or minimum number
of individuals,

the skeletal MNI is one.

So I have good reason to think
that this is one individual.

NARRATOR:
This is backed up
by the dental analysis.

So I can tell that this is all
teeth from one individual

based on tooth shape,
the size of the tooth,

and more or less
what they look like.

NARRATOR:
It appears that only
a single airman was recovered

based on the skeletal evidence.

But is it Pilot Ford?

Or one of the others?

DUNN:
Based on condylo-malleolar
length of the tibia,

so we more or less
measure how long the tibia is,

and the stature for this
individual that we estimated

was right around 5'10".

NARRATOR:
Growth patterns also
give an estimate of age.

So this is called the epiphysis.

And right about 23 years of age,

the epiphysis
is firmly attached.

So we have some idea
that this loss incident

was of someone who was at least


NARRATOR:
Yet neither the skeletal remains

nor the artifacts
allow them to make

a definitive identification.

Their only hope
to sort it out now

rests with the DNA.

The Armed Forces Medical
Examiner System now takes over.

This is where
we take the unknown

and we put a name to them.

[drill running]

NARRATOR:
First they extract DNA

from the bones and teeth,

and then sequence
many different regions.

They then compare the sequence

against family
reference samples,

until, finally,
a match is confirmed.

Is it the pilot Ford?

Or the navigator Landry?

Or the flight engineer
Charles Priest?

♪♪

How do you do?
So nice to meet you.

You want to go on into
the meeting room?

WOMAN:
Yes.

Get started... I know
you're anxious to hear this.

NARRATOR:
More than 70 years ago,

three airmen disappeared

beneath the waves
along with their plane.

Now one of them
has been identified.

JIM BELL:
So based on that,
the laboratory analysis

established remains of those as

First Lieutenant Eugene Ford,

serial number Oscar 8-0-5-8-0-4,

U.S. Army Air Forces.

NARRATOR:
The DNA reveals
the definitive truth:

Lieutenant Eugene Ford
has been found.

Ford's daughter Norma was just
six months old when he died.

Her family told her little
about what happened.

I knew nothing
about what happened to him.

When I was 13
and my brother was 12,

that's when I first saw
a picture of my father.

And I found a packet of letters.

And I immediately
knew what they were,

but I just put them back.

Now I can't find them.

I can't find them.

NARRATOR:
But now her father
has been found.

And she can put him to rest in a
way that her mother never could.

PAUL BEARD:
Mrs. Ford, 49 years later,

she said, "I would give
all of my life

to have 15 more minutes
with Gene."

I thought that was remarkable...

Give everything she had

for just 15 minutes with him.

NARRATOR:
In a ceremony like this,

Eugene Ford will be buried at
Arlington National Cemetery.

♪♪

The DPAA is still reviewing

whether flight engineer
Charles Priest

and navigator Russell Landry
could be recovered.

But 82,000 more missing American
soldiers are still out there.

Like Ernest Vienneau,
possibly still inside the B-17

that crashed
near the Tulsamerican.

♪♪

HEATHER HARRIS:
I'd like to talk with you

about how we're moving forward

on trying to recover
his remains.

I'd love to hear it.

NARRATOR:
And Captain Lawrence Dickson.

Of 27 Tuskegee Airmen missing
since World w*r II,

he is the first and so far only
one to have been recovered.

In July 2018, the DPAA
notified his daughter...

Captain Dickson had been found.

ANDREWS:
Because he wasn't treated
properly when he was alive,

I'm taking him
first class to Arlington.

I want to take my CD of
Donald Byrd, the jazz trumpeter,

because that is so cool.

He would really, really
like that.

And he'd say, "Thanks, Marla.

You know how to
send a person off."

["Cristo Redentor"
by Donald Byrd playing]

NARRATOR:
There remain 26 more airmen

from this storied command
still to be found.

Hope remains,
but time is the enemy.