The excavation in Arundel comes to an end. The target was an American B-24 Liberator heavy bomber that crashed with several members of its crew still on board after bombing a target in France in 1944. Picture: Steve Robards SR2107143The excavation in Arundel comes to an end. The target was an American B-24 Liberator heavy bomber that crashed with several members of its crew still on board after bombing a target in France in 1944. Picture: Steve Robards SR2107143
The excavation in Arundel comes to an end. The target was an American B-24 Liberator heavy bomber that crashed with several members of its crew still on board after bombing a target in France in 1944. Picture: Steve Robards SR2107143

The Arundel Bomber: Veterans complete excavation to recover remains of American B-24 Liberator aircrew

Work to recover the remains of the crew of an American bomber that crashed in a farmer’s field in Arundel in June 1944 has been completed and now the long job of identification begins.

American Veterans Archaeological Recovery chief executive Stephen Humphreys said all relevant finds will be hand-delivered to the American Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Hawaii and it could be years before we know for sure whether the aircrew are no longer classified as Missing in Action.

Stephen said: “We won’t really know for sure if we have found what we are looking for some time but we are very happy with how it has gone. We have not lost a single hour to the rain in the past four weeks and we are finishing a day early. It has been physically pretty hard. At any one time 15 people have been screening, with two or three people shovelling for eight hours a day.”

Large parts of the American B-24 Liberator heavy bomber that crashed were recovered in 1974, including three of the engines and most of the machine guns, but all remaining parts that were found this time will stay with the local team of military historians, under the care of co-project investigator Mark Khan, and they will be working with the Armed Forces & Veterans Breakfast Club in Littlehampton to clean up and identify each piece.

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