Rain delay, Tuesday, 23 August 2005: It's not just raining, it is relentlessly drenching all of our work and rendering it impossible to know the difference between a rock, a piece of metal, or a bone fragment. Thus, work is suspended until further notice. A scout will return to the site at 13:00 to see if it has, by chance, stopped raining there. We wait......
The documentary crew from Der Spiegel TV showed up late yesterday afternoon. The cameraman immediately began sifting with us. He is a war plane enthusiast and from my conversation with him later, a expert in German history as well. There are three of them: the main reporter, the cameraman and the sound guy. They have just comleted work in the U.S. on a story about an American Thunderbolt pilot who crashed his plane in Austria in May of 1945. This was possibly the last plane crash in the war. He survived the crash and the Der Spiegel team filmed his story and reunited him with his plane after 60 years.
Yesterday's energy in the field was different from the first day after our reprieve. The work centered around sifting which, according to Dr.Fox, is the bottleneck of any excavation. It takes far longer to sift and sort than to dig the dirt. He worked all day on what he believes is the impact crater and the imprint of what lies beneath is becoming more apparent. A piece of twisted metal protrudes above the surface as do several clumps of wire. Material that looks like battery acid litters the site - evidence of corroded metal in the soil. As the soil is laboriously peeled back, the footprint what is hopefully the cockpit and the fuselage, will emerge. It is called a "crash feature."
I am reminded by the focus of the work that the point of this excavation is to retrieve my father's remains. Airplane parts (ACS)are only puzzle pieces that may or may not prove important unless they are parts from the cockpit. As Dr. Fox sorts through the accumulated and sorted ACS at the end of the day, most of it is tossed into a screen and saved until the end of the excavation. In the midst of piles of rubble, he found a tiny piece that was the pilot's headphone connection. This is a valuable find. Among all the hundreds of pieces of leather,webbing, twisted and molten metal, rivets, bakelite, clear glass shards, and questionable material, the tiny radio connection was designated the MVP of the day. Also, we all found bone fragments - I found two - but their origin will be determined at the Central Identificaion Lab. For now, we can only speculate. Linda, our photographer, found a gopher tooth which is clearly non-people variety.
So, we have a growing collection of evidence and a hopeful place to dig. If the possible crash feature proves fruitful, the cockpit will be present, and so will the majority of remains. Allowance is made for the passage of time, the direction the field was plowed over the decades in between, and whatever pieces have been retrieved from the site already by relic hunters and necessary disposal by the farmers. To further intrigue us, a new eyewitness came by yesterday, with stories of a "golden ring with a dark red or black stone." Each day brings news from the past from local people who remembered or were there to watch the wreckage burn and explode for three days.
It was a catastrophic and traumatic event for the tiny village of Elsnig amidst a more daunting force that was constant war. They continued to plow their fields and plant their crops despite the possiblity of fighter planes exploding overhead. No wonder their generous spirit touches me. Today, Mrs. Thiel sent over another bouquet of gladiolas for my father's cross. Each day I am reminded of how time heals wounds even though this is a blunt reminder for everyone of the effects of war.
Last night Ernst and I were telling the Der Spiegel crew about our negotiating adventures with the angry land owner. Our conclusion is that we solved this problem with "love not war." I vote for that.
The documentary crew from Der Spiegel TV showed up late yesterday afternoon. The cameraman immediately began sifting with us. He is a war plane enthusiast and from my conversation with him later, a expert in German history as well. There are three of them: the main reporter, the cameraman and the sound guy. They have just comleted work in the U.S. on a story about an American Thunderbolt pilot who crashed his plane in Austria in May of 1945. This was possibly the last plane crash in the war. He survived the crash and the Der Spiegel team filmed his story and reunited him with his plane after 60 years.
Yesterday's energy in the field was different from the first day after our reprieve. The work centered around sifting which, according to Dr.Fox, is the bottleneck of any excavation. It takes far longer to sift and sort than to dig the dirt. He worked all day on what he believes is the impact crater and the imprint of what lies beneath is becoming more apparent. A piece of twisted metal protrudes above the surface as do several clumps of wire. Material that looks like battery acid litters the site - evidence of corroded metal in the soil. As the soil is laboriously peeled back, the footprint what is hopefully the cockpit and the fuselage, will emerge. It is called a "crash feature."
I am reminded by the focus of the work that the point of this excavation is to retrieve my father's remains. Airplane parts (ACS)are only puzzle pieces that may or may not prove important unless they are parts from the cockpit. As Dr. Fox sorts through the accumulated and sorted ACS at the end of the day, most of it is tossed into a screen and saved until the end of the excavation. In the midst of piles of rubble, he found a tiny piece that was the pilot's headphone connection. This is a valuable find. Among all the hundreds of pieces of leather,webbing, twisted and molten metal, rivets, bakelite, clear glass shards, and questionable material, the tiny radio connection was designated the MVP of the day. Also, we all found bone fragments - I found two - but their origin will be determined at the Central Identificaion Lab. For now, we can only speculate. Linda, our photographer, found a gopher tooth which is clearly non-people variety.
So, we have a growing collection of evidence and a hopeful place to dig. If the possible crash feature proves fruitful, the cockpit will be present, and so will the majority of remains. Allowance is made for the passage of time, the direction the field was plowed over the decades in between, and whatever pieces have been retrieved from the site already by relic hunters and necessary disposal by the farmers. To further intrigue us, a new eyewitness came by yesterday, with stories of a "golden ring with a dark red or black stone." Each day brings news from the past from local people who remembered or were there to watch the wreckage burn and explode for three days.
It was a catastrophic and traumatic event for the tiny village of Elsnig amidst a more daunting force that was constant war. They continued to plow their fields and plant their crops despite the possiblity of fighter planes exploding overhead. No wonder their generous spirit touches me. Today, Mrs. Thiel sent over another bouquet of gladiolas for my father's cross. Each day I am reminded of how time heals wounds even though this is a blunt reminder for everyone of the effects of war.
Last night Ernst and I were telling the Der Spiegel crew about our negotiating adventures with the angry land owner. Our conclusion is that we solved this problem with "love not war." I vote for that.
posted by Team Estill From the Field at
1:54 AM
