A piece of a World War II fighter plane that crashed 80 years ago and belonged to the country’s top ace has been found and returned to his home state of Wisconsin.
The P-38 Lockheed Lighting was flown by United States Army Air Corps Maj. Richard Bong, who holds the record for the most shoot-downs with 40 confirmed combat victories in the air. The plane was named after his future wife, Marjorie “Marge” Vattendahl, according to the Wisconsin National Guard.
He used the plane for dozens of missions, but another pilot flying it was forced to bail out in March 1944, sending it crashing into the rainforest.
Eighty years later, the search for the plane, dubbed “Mission Marge,” began.
The Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center worked with the organization, Pacific Wrecks, to find what was left of the plane scattered on a remote hill.
