Missing U.S. soldier’s dog tag found at WWII plane wreck in UK. ‘No man left behind’
From the first days of World War II in 1939 until the last soldier came home, more than 400,000 American troops died. Countless others became prisoners of war or were listed as “missing in action,” their final whereabouts never discovered.
In 1944, one of these soldiers was 24-year-old Aaron Brinkoeter, the co-pilot of Little Boy Blue, a B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber, according to a July 29 news release from Cotswold Archaeology, a commercial archaeology organization.
Brinkoeter was one of 10 crew members on the night of July 19, 1944, en route to bomb Schweinfurt, Germany, when the plane collided with another aircraft and tumbled to the ground, Cotswold Archaeology said. One crew member fell from the plane without a parachute, and the aircraft crashed somewhere in the fields outside Thurston, causing an explosion on impact.
Only two crew members survived, the organization said, but three others were never accounted for: Brinkoeter, the 26-year-old pilot Walter Malaniak and 27-year-old radio operator Ronald Grey.
In 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, an U.S. agency that works to identify missing soldiers, reached out to Cotswold Archaeology to help in the search for Little Boy Blue’s missing crew, according to the release.
Fifty volunteers joined historians and archaeologists to scour the areas around Thurston where the wreck may have occurred to make sure there is “no man left behind.”
“Employing systematic geophysical surveys, fieldwalking, test-pitting, and metal detecting, the team meticulously mapped the debris field to locate aircraft wreckage, personal effects and any potential remains,” Cotswold Archaeology said in the release.
The crash site was narrowed down to an agricultural field, the organization said, posing challenges as the soil has been turned over for the better part of a century.
Then a local metal detectorist named Clive Smither arrived at the site.
On Sept. 12 — Brinkoeter’s birthday — Smither’s metal detector picked up on a piece of metal in the soil. It was Brinkoeter’s dog tag.
“This moving discovery provided a tangible connection to the lost airman that will stay with us all for some time to come,” the organization said.
The mother and sister of radio operator Ronald Grey had at one point requested a service be held for their lost son and brother, Cotswold Archaeology said, and that request was finally fulfilled.
On July 19, 2024 — the 80th anniversary of the crash — a memorial honoring all 10 men who lost their lives was held at the wreck site, according to the release.
Around 30 other family members of the lost crew were able to watch the service on a live stream.
A permanent memorial has been erected on the wreck site, and B-17 pins were created from the plane’s wreckage, according to the release.
Thurston is in eastern England, about a 35-mile drive east from Cambridge.
This story was originally published August 1, 2024 at 4:12 PM with the headline "Missing U.S. soldier’s dog tag found at WWII plane wreck in UK. ‘No man left behind’."
