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Cotswold Archaeology is working in conjunction with Operation Nightingale and the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) to search for the remains of a missing US Army Air Forces pilot, whose P-47 Thunderbolt crashed in rural Essex on 26 January 1944.
The pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Lester Leo Lowry from the 487th Fighter Squadron, 352nd Fighter Group, was the sole occupant of the aircraft when it departed RAF Bodney, Norfolk, on a training flight. It was the last in a string of four P-47s that were practising manoeuvres, but when it entered thick cloud in a steep dive and hit open ground at a 60° angle there was no sign that Lowry had managed to bail out. After the crash, the crater smouldered for several days, and by the time the scene was safe for military teams to investigate no remains of Lieutenant Lowry could be found. In 1979, an amateur excavation by Essex Aviation Group was carried out at the crash site, but while they were able to recover multiple aircraft components, including machine-gun parts and propeller blades, they could see no sign of the pilot.
In 2018, DPAA specialists surveyed the area and recommended that a professional excavation to modern standards be carried out. Subsequently, a six-week archaeological recovery operation – led by a team of nearly 250 volunteers from both sides of the Atlantic, including UK and Canadian veterans, active-duty US military personnel, archaeologists, researchers, the local community, and trusted metal-detectorists – was carried out at the site this past September and October. Using a combination of geophysics, careful machine-stripping, and controlled dry and wet soil-screening, and covering an area of more than 2,300m2, the team have recovered close to 5,000 artefacts relating to the aircraft’s cockpit, fuselage, wings, engines, and machine-guns. In particular, they have found charred Perspex from the windshield, the dial used to trim the plane’s wings, and, most poignantly, what appears to be the buckle of Lowry’s unused parachute harness. Any possible human remains that are recovered will be sent to the US Government laboratory in Nebraska for analysis and identification.
Commenting on the endeavour, Sam Wilson, Lead Archaeologist, said: ‘This is painstaking, highly respectful work. Our goal is to document the crash scientifically, responsibly recover any evidence, and support DPAA’s mission to account for missing US personnel.’
Text: Kathryn Krakowka / Image: Cotswold Archaeology (Rosanna Price)
