Innovations in Geophysical Survey of a WWII B-24H in a duck pond in Morgo, Italy

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "East Carolina University Partnerships and Innovation with Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

On January 30, 1944 a B-24H was struck by anti-aircraft during an attack on Udine, Italy, lost altitude, and crashed on the Morgo Island. One member of the ten-man crew survived and two bodies were recovered; seven crew members remain on site today. Preliminary investigations of the site reveal a complex and highly disturbed context with years of post-crash impact through aquaculture farming and recreational hunting. ECU put together a team of US, Italian, and Australian archaeologists and geophysical specialists to characterize the site so that DPAA cab focus efforts in the recovery of the lost crew. The team applied waterborne and terrestrial ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), and metal detection at the site to map the disarticulated remains of the aircraft. This paper outlines the innovative approaches to survey, including the first time that ERT has been applied to mapping an underwater aircraft crash site in 3D.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• East Carolina University Partnerships and Innovation with Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 899