US Air Force,
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE: Though the Air Force is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, U.S. Air Forces in Europe is marking 65 years of service.
One reason for this seemingly strange discrepancy was recently found deep in the muddy farmlands of the southwest Netherlands.
Dutch workmen from the district water board stumbled across the wreckage of a U.S. World War II plane in April during a survey to establish a new industrial site, according to Mireille Zoet, a spokeswoman for the municipality of Oostflakee, a small agricultural community near the North Sea.
The aircraft, excavated by the Royal Netherlands Air Force and local authorities near the village of Oude-Tonge, has been identified as a U.S. Army Air Forces P-47 Thunderbolt that crashed in 1943 while escorting the withdrawal of allied bombers from a raid on the German city of Emmerich.
Formerly the Army Air Corps, the Army Air Forces were created as an autonomous part of the U.S. Army in preparation for expected combat in World War II. USAFE was born into battle as the Eighth Air Force in 1942, eventually uniting into a separate service after allied victory.
Also on-hand for the excavation was a representative from the U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command to take charge of any remains. It was hoped that the P-47 would be that which belonged to Lt. Frederick D. Merritt, a pilot who has been missing and assumed killed in action.
“Normally, remains and personal effects recovered on Dutch territory would be transferred to our identification laboratory in Soesterberg for anthropological research, but in this case we would hand them over to JPAC once the operation is finished,” said Capt. Paul Petersen, a RNLAF Salvage Officer.
After matching serial numbers to a missing aircraft report, however, officials concluded that the plane was that flown by Lt. Robert Stover. When Stover's aircraft was hit by a Focke-Wulff-190 he bailed out, but his parachute failed to deploy and he was killed on impact. He was initially buried in the Oude-Tonge General Cemetery and later transferred to U.S. Military Cemetery Neupre-Ardennes in Belgium after the war.
Stover was a member of the 56th Fighter Group “Wolfpack,” famous for being the most successful fighter group in the Eighth Air Force, with more than 665 aerial victories, and producing 47 “aces.”
Today the 56th Fighter Wing, now at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, exemplifies the Air Force's 60th anniversary motto of “Heritage to Horizons” by maintaining “Thunderbolts” as both its nickname and unit shied, and continuing the tradition of flying international missions by training pilots from the U.S., Taiwan and Singapore on F-16 Fighting Falcons.
