WWII ace pilot Richard Bong’s airplane crashed in 1944. A crew has launched a seek for the wreckage within the South Pacific.

A Wisconsin museum is partnering with a historic preservation group in a seek for the wreckage of World Struggle II ace Richard Bong’s airplane within the South Pacific.

The Richard I. Bong Veterans Historic Heart in Superior and the nonprofit World Struggle II historic preservation group Pacific Wrecks introduced the search on Friday, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

Bong, who grew up in Poplar, is credited with capturing down 40 Japanese plane throughout World Struggle II — essentially the most ever, in response to the Air Pressure. He flew a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter airplane nicknamed “Marge” in honor of his girlfriend, Marjorie Vattendahl. Bong plastered a blow-up of Vattendahl’s portrait on the nostril of the airplane, in response to a Pacific Wrecks’ abstract of the airplane’s service.

Bong stated on the time that Vattendahl “appears swell, and a hell of rather a lot higher than these bare ladies painted on many of the airplanes,” the Los Angeles Instances reported in Vattendahl’s 2003 obituary.

One other pilot, Thomas Malone, was flying the airplane in March 1944 over what’s now often known as Papua New Guinea when engine failure despatched it right into a spin. Malone bailed out earlier than the airplane crashed within the jungle.

Pacific Wrecks founder Justin Taylan will lead the seek for the airplane. He plans to depart for Papua New Guinea in Might. He believes the search may take virtually a month and price about $63,000 generated by means of donations.

Taylan instructed Minnesota Public Radio that he is assured he’ll discover the wreckage since historic data present an approximate location of the crash website. However he is unsure there will likely be sufficient left to conclusively establish it as Marge.

“Hopefully we’ll be capable to discover the final word proof, which will likely be a serial quantity from the airplane that claims this airplane is Marge,” Taylan stated.

Bong shot down extra planes than some other American pilot, incomes celeb standing. Gen. Douglas MacArthur awarded him the Medal of Honor, the U.S. army’s highest ornament, in 1944.

In accordance with the Air Pressure Historic Assist Division, his Medal of Honor quotation reads: “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity on the danger of his life above and past the decision of responsibility in motion within the Southwest Pacific space from Oct. 10 to Nov. 15, 1944. Although assigned to responsibility as gunnery teacher and neither required nor anticipated to carry out fight responsibility, Main Bong voluntarily and at his personal pressing request engaged in repeated fight missions, together with unusually hazardous sorties over Balikpapan, Borneo, and within the Leyte space of the Philippines. His aggressiveness and daring resulted in his capturing down enemy airplanes totaling eight throughout this era.”

Bong additionally earned the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses and 15 Air Medals, in response to the Air Pressure.

Bong married Vattendahl in 1945. He was assigned to responsibility as a take a look at pilot in Burbank, California, after three fight excursions within the South Pacific. He was killed on Aug. 6, 1945, when a P-80 jet fighter he was testing crashed.

He died on the identical day the USA dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Vattendhal was 21 when Bong died. She went on to turn out to be a mannequin and {a magazine} writer in Los Angeles. She died in September 2003 in Superior.

The seek for Bong’s airplane comes simply weeks after a deep-sea exploration crew trying to find the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s misplaced airplane within the South Pacific stated it captured a sonar picture that “seems to be Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra” plane.