From the March 26, 2024, CBS News "WW II ace pilot Richard Bong's plane crashed in 1944. A team has launched a search for its wreckage in the South Pacific."
The Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior, Wisconsin, (far northern part of the state) and the nonprofit World War II historical group Pacific Wrecks announced a search for the plane's remains on Friday according to Minnesota Public Radio.
Bong grew up in Poplar, Wisconsin and is credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft during World War II-- the most ever, according to the Air Force.
He flew a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane nicknamed "Marge" in honor of his girlfriend, Marjorie Vattendahl. He plastered a blowup picture of her on the nose of his plane (known as nose art). At the time, Bong said that Vattendahl "looks swell, and a hell of a lot better than these naked women painted on most airplanes."
Bong was not in the plane when it crashed.
--GreGen
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