NEW ORLEANS ( WGNO ) — Less than two weeks after D-Day in 1944, two American B-24 bombers crashed into each other over the Baltic Sea.
The bombers were flying in tight formation when the propeller of one plane clipped the tail of the other. As both planes spun out of control, some of the airmen were able to parachute out, drifting into the water off the coast of Denmark.
The co-pilot of one of the bombers, Lt. Oscar Boudreaux, was picked up by Danish fishermen, only to be spotted by a German patrol boat. He spent the next ten months as a POW.
When the war ended, Boudreaux returned to his family’s home in Napoleonville and moved on with his life. But his family says he always felt that his chapter in WWII was not completely closed. The wreckage of the two planes that crashed–carrying his fellow airmen– was never found.
Fast forward to 2019, when recreational divers discovered an area in the Baltic where there appeared to be pieces of a plane. The Danish and American navies were alerted, along with Trident Archeologie, a private company in the Netherlands, to explore the wreckage.