Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507210094
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL LENGTH: Short
The military investigators came upon the fuselage of the B-24 Liberator on July 4 after a 250-mile journey through remote, unexplored jungle in the northern state of Amapa, officials said Thursday.
After 16 days of digging and blasting the swampy soil with high-powered water hoses normally used by wildcat gold prospectors, the searchers recovered bone fragments and 77 teeth.
``They dug several meters deep and were starting to lose hope when, suddenly, they starting finding bones, rings, necklaces, and dog tags with names and ranks written on them,'' Fernando Allegretti, a spokesman for the Amapa international affairs department, said by telephone from Macapa, 2,355 miles northwest of Rio.
One investigator recovered a wallet containing family photos. Another pulled several 1944 dollar bills from the earth, said Allegretti.
``This was no easy dig,'' he said. ``They were up against the jungle heat, malaria, and man-eating jaguars. At one point, two of our men got lost in the jungle running away from a jaguar. They hid in a tree for two days before the animal went away.''
The Liberator went down in a storm on April 11, 1944, while flying from Trinidad to Belem, a port city at the mouth of the Amazon River. Over the years, several search teams failed to find the wreckage.
In December, the U.S. Embassy learned that Brazilian soldiers had spotted the remains of a plane. The soldiers sent back human bones and a leather artifact indicating the wreckage was that of the B-24.
by CNB