WW2 bomber with remains of Allied pilots found 01/12/2006 00:00

1 December 2006

Warsaw (dpa) - After being missing in action for 62 years, the remains of two Allied airmen have been discovered by Polish historians excavating the wreck of a Halifax allied bomber shot down by the Nazis near Tarnow, Southern Poland, in August 1944.

Their identity has not been established, but Poland's Dziennik daily reported Thursday there were four Canadians and two British airmen plus a pilot aboard the Halifax II bomber JP 276A.

The Canadian airmen presumed to have died in the Halifax crash were identified as: C.B. Wylie, G.A. Chapman, H.L. Brown, and A.G.W. Liddell. The two British nationals named by Dziennik were F.G. Wenham and K.J. Ashmore.

Polish historians intend to ask the British and Canadian authorities for more information about the airmen.

A small gold-coloured Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) emblem was among the artefacts found in the wreckage.

The Allied bomber took off from the Campo Casale airfield in southern Italy August 4, 1944 to support the doomed Warsaw Uprising by Polish Home Army partisans against retreating Nazi German forces, according to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

The excavated aircraft and the airmen's remains were expected to arrive at the Warsaw Uprising Museum in the Polish capital Thursday where they will be prepared for a special exhibition.

DPA

Subject: German news

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