Connect with us

CBS News

In 1944, a U.S. WWII pilot crashed in England during a secret mission. A search for his remains has revealed new clues.

Avatar

Published

on


Metal detectors beeped across a quiet, five-acre plot of forest and field on England’s eastern Suffolk coast as dozens of American and British service members sifted clumpy, wet soil from a deep impact crater. The tiniest of remains of U.S. Air Force pilot Lt. John Fisher might be here. Exactly 80 years ago Sunday – August 4, 1944 – his B-17 bomber crashed while on a secret mission targeting Nazi rocket sites in Europe during World War II. 

“It can make you feel emotional, you know? They’ve found some personal artifacts that are very endearing,” said Garret Browning, a U.S. air repair specialist from Colorado with the U.S. 100th Maintenance Squadron, currently stationed in England.

Experienced in crash damage recovery, Browning is one of about 150 American and British active duty and retired military volunteers looking for a fallen fellow soldier. At 26 years old, Browning is already older than the pilot he was looking for. 

“I could only imagine if I was in an airplane during that time, there’s a lot going through your head and there’s a lot of responsibility,” he said. 

pilot-capture.jpg
Lt. John W. Fisher Jr.

CBS News


Steps from the rim of the 10-foot deep gash in the ground, pairs of volunteers methodically kneaded dirt through several fine wire nets hanging on wooden frames. 

“We’re pretty much sifting the mud through the grate,” said Browning . “Any of the bigger pieces will stay behind. And then we’ll inspect those to see whether they’re rocks, wood or metal.”

“Or possibly bones,” said his nearby colleague. 

Lt. John W. Fisher Jr., from New York, was just 21 years old when he was killed during Operation Aphrodite, the codename for flying planes on one-way missions to destroy Nazi rocket sites and submarine pens in Europe. Those planes were old, war-weary B-17 “Flying Fortress” bombers, first stripped down for more space, then loaded up with tons of explosives. But Fisher’s plane stalled soon after takeoff. He pushed his co-pilot out and sacrificed himself. The plane nosedived into the ground just before the English Channel with France on the horizon. 

“This aircraft, it blew apart pretty much in every direction,” said Browning. “So something as small as just a bolt or a thread just kind of tells a story.” 

The remnants these volunteers have found include shattered bits of glass from an oxygen bottle – which might suggest Fisher’s remains are nearby. The biggest and heaviest piece of debris was the central part of a propeller with much of its blades sheared off. Other pieces were fragments of the fuselage, engine and even some fabric from a parachute.

Volunteers also found a rusted horseshoe, believed to have been taken on board Fisher’s B-17 for luck, and a twisted, fire-darkened nameplate reminding excavators of the origin of the plane from across the Atlantic Ocean: Detroit, General Motors Corporation. 

In all, more than 3,000 fragments have been found. It represents a fraction of the entire aircraft. 

“No man left behind”

“I know that there’s a big piece of plane under here,” said Rosanna Price, head of digital engagement at Cotswold Archaeology, which oversees the cleaning, sorting and cataloguing of every remnant unearthed. Price is standing in the 10-foot deep crater, in thick, muddy water nearly up to her knees. 

There is excitement with every new find, she says, with daily flybys overhead by pilots wishing them well and in respect to Lt. Fisher. But there is also a grounding, Price adds. She knows the work here can impact families by “doing something that brings tangible closure and peace to people who are living today, who remember the person that you’re recovering.”

Any possible remains found will be flown on a U.S Air Force plane to a Defense Department lab in Hawaii, she says, with tests run by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, which recovers lost U.S. service members from past wars. The DPAA will first confirm if remains are human, then try to match DNA to family. If successful, a full military burial is ordered.

“This really is the manifestation of ‘no man left behind’,” said Price, nodding to the so-called warrior ethos to bring home fallen soldiers. The DPAA estimates about 80,000 U.S. service members are still lost around the world with only about half considered recoverable. 

0803-satmo-nomanleftbehind-inocencio-3096773-640x360.jpg
More than 3,000 fragments have been found. It represents a fraction of the entire aircraft. 

CBS News


Price also says there’s a poignancy seeing U.S. and British military men and women sifting soil side by side – a symbol of the two countries’ enduring “special relationship,” a term coined by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the 1940’s as the U.S. helped Europe in the war. 

“When you talk to local people, even today in their 80s, 90s, they remember the Americans coming,” said Price. “They still remember the excitement – how they watched those planes go out every morning. And they counted them back in the evening. And they were as bereft as anybody else when planes didn’t come back. And they were really grateful for the Americans coming over. And you still feel that.” 

And work carries on, under this quiet canopy of trees on the English coast, to hopefully bring Lt. Fisher home. 



Read the original article

Leave your vote

CBS News

Eric Adams set to be arraigned on federal charges

Avatar

Published

on


Eric Adams set to be arraigned on federal charges – CBS News


Watch CBS News



New York City Mayor Eric Adams is set to be arraigned Friday on federal charges that include bribery, conspiracy and campaign finance charges. CBS News’ Anna Schecter reports.

Be the first to know

Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.




Read the original article

Leave your vote

Continue Reading

CBS News

Former intelligence chief convicted of “aggravated torture” of Colombian journalist sentenced to 12 years in prison

Avatar

Published

on


A Bogota judge has sentenced a former intelligence chief to 12 years in prison for crimes including “aggravated torture” of a journalist, the Colombian public prosecutor’s office said.

Enrique Ariza, former head of Colombia’s defunct DAS intelligence service, was convicted of “persecution, harassment” and other crimes against journalist Claudia Julieta Duque, the prosecutor’s office said Thursday.

Ariza was found guilty of “the crime of aggravated torture,” it said on social media.

With the latest conviction, “eight former officials of this agency have now been sentenced for the persecution to which my family and I were subjected,” Duque said on social media.

On Monday, the former DAS deputy director, Jose Narvaez, was also sentenced to 12 years in prison in the same case. Former intelligence director Giancarlo Auque, also linked to the case, is yet to be tried, Duque said.

The journalist, who had to be protected by bodyguards until she sought refuge in Spain, has accused the DAS of spying on her between 2001 and 2004, and threatening to murder her and rape her daughter when she was 10.

Colombia GPS Tracking
Journalist Claudia Julieta Duque poses for a portrait in Bogota, Colombia, on July 29, 2022. Colombia has for a decade been quietly installing trackers in the armored vehicles of at-risk individuals as well as VIPs, including presidents, government ministers, senators and Duque.

Fernando Vergara / AP


The origin of the harassment was Duque’s investigation of the murder of journalist Jaime Garzon in 1999, in which she denounced DAS involvement in crime.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, two gunmen killed Garzón, host of a daily morning show in Bogota, as he was driving his Jeep Cherokee to the studio. Garzón, who was 38 when he died, was a beloved figure in Colombia whose life story inspired a television mini-series, CJR reported.

In November, another former Colombian state security agent, Ronal Harbey Rivera Rodríguez, was also convicted of aggravated torture against Duque, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported.

 In 2017, the Latin American and the Colombian Federations of Journalists granted Duque with a “special recognition for her bravery in the fight for justice,” according to the International Media Women’s Foundation.

“JUSTICE!!” Duque tweeted on Thursday after Ariza was sentenced to prison.



Read the original article

Leave your vote

Continue Reading

CBS News

Naomi Campbell banned from running Fashion for Relief charity as U.K. regulator cites “serious misconduct”

Avatar

Published

on


London — Former supermodel Naomi Campbell has been barred from running a charity after an inquiry found funds raised by an organization she founded was spent on spa treatment and room service charges. The inquiry into Fashion for Relief, released Thursday, identified “multiple instances of misconduct,” including use of charity money to pay for a five-star hotel stay for Campbell in the south of France.

The finding by the U.K. Charity Commission means Campbell, 54, has now been disqualified from running a charity in Britain for five years. Two other trustees also received bans.

The watchdog probe found that between April 2016 and July 2022, only 8.5% of Fashion for Relief’s overall expenditure went on grants to charities.

H&M & London Event
Naomi Campbell attends the H&M & London Event, in London, Sept. 12, 2024.

Hollie Adams/REUTERS


Campbell, who in 1987 became the first black model to feature on the cover of U.K. Vogue in 20 years, achieved worldwide fame in the 1990s and remains a highly influential figure in the industry.

In June, an exhibition dedicated to her opened at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

Campbell says she “put the control in the hands of a lawyer”

Speaking in Paris Thursday after receiving an honor from the French government, the British celebrity denied any responsibility for the mishandling of donations.

“I was not in control of my charity. I put the control in the hands of a lawyer,” she told reporters after she was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. The model added that she was “investigating to find out what and how — as everything I do and every penny I ever raised goes towards charities.”

Campbell’s charity held a string of glitzy, star-studded events to raise funds for good causes in London and Cannes. These were said to include projects ranging from supporting child refugees, to helping victims of the Ebola crisis and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

One event in the French Riviera resort in 2017 was attended by over 1,000 guests, including stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Antonio Banderas, Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda and Uma Thurman.

A three-night hotel stay for a similar event in 2018 cost about $10,400.

The Charity Commission said it saw no evidence the trustees had made sure that such costs were “reasonable.”

The regulator also looked at additional expenses totaling £6,600 (about $8,800) for Campbell’s hotel stay, including spa treatments, room service and the purchase of cigarettes.

It said the trustees had argued hotel costs were usually met by a donor but failed to provide any supporting evidence.

“The commission concluded that there had been serious misconduct and/or mismanagement in the administration of the charity by the trustees since it was established,” the report said.

Fashion for Relief was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year.

Set up in 2005, it described itself as “dedicated to improving the lives of those living in adversity by uniting the fashion industry as a force for good.”



Read the original article

Leave your vote

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2024 Breaking MN

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.