SUPERIOR, Wis. — A family in Superior, Wisconsin celebrates a major discovery from World War II.
A few months ago, the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center hired a crew to find a plane that crashed in the Pacific jungle during the war.
“This has been a long, long saga, shall we say, for a lot of us growing up,” said Terry Lundberg, president of the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center.
Bong was known as a top pilot during World War II. He loved airplanes and he loved his girlfriend Marge. So much so that he painted her face on his P-38. But 80 years ago the plane crashed in the jungle of Papua New Guinea.
“From then on, its existence remained a mystery,” Lundberg said.
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Lieutenant Thomas Malone was the pilot that day. He bailed out and survived and from then on there was a mission to find Marge. A few months ago, the Bong Center reached out to Pacific Wrecks, a group that tries to solve mysteries from World War II.
“This has been an incredible journey. An incredible expedition,” said Justin Taylan, Pacific Wrecks.
From Madang province, Taylan and his crew talked about working with locals and hiking through the jungle before finally taking a break.
“When we found the crash site it was an amazing experience,” Taylan said.
The plane was found in a jungle ravine. It hit the ground so hard that most of the engines were buried in dirt. But they saw red paint, a color on the P38 Marge aircraft. And as they dug further, they finally found the serial number, which left no doubt that it was Bong’s plane.
‘There was a stencil at the base of it. A US Air Force stencil, with the last three digits of the serial numbers,” Taylan said. “The emotion I felt was not only my own joy, but also thinking about what this means for the Bong family.”
In the audience for the Zoom press conference was Richard Bong’s 99-year-old sister, Gerry Fechtelkotter. Although the expedition’s mission is accomplished, she is eager to take a piece of Marge home with her.
“We know it’s been found. We’ve seen pictures of it, so we know it’s the right one,” Fechtelkotter said. “It’s great to know it’s been discovered.”
Bong is considered America’s top ace by many World War II historians. He is credited with shooting down 40 Japanese plans during the war.
