Lancaster Bomber Had Gone Down In A Field Now Slated For Development

Ronald Barton was 34-year-old and a flight engineer aboard Lancaster Bomber PD214 in 1944. He was one of a crew of eight lost when his airplane was shot down during what was to have been their final mission over Germany before rotating home.

Most of the crew was never recovered, and now, the field where the plane went down has been marked for development by a German developer.

Barton's granddaughters tracked down the field, and found that the developers planned to simply bulldoze the field without making an attempt to recover any human remains that were still lying where the Lancaster went down. The online news site GetWestLondon.com reports that the granddaughters, Julie Barton, 52, and Debbie Bartlett, 48, began negotiations with German authorities to prevent that from happening ... and eventually won.

Remains of two of the crewmen had been recovered by German troops immediately following the crash, but the others are believed to still lie under the earth, along with the wreckage of the plane. The site was well known, and there were plans to use ground-penetrating sonar to determine if there was any unexploded ordnance at the site before the earth movers began their work.

Now, Ms. Barton says, they will do a proper excavation of the site. She and her sister will be present to be sure "any potential human remains [are] treated with respect." Representatives from the German War Graves Commission are also expected to be present.

(Lancaster Bomber pictured in file photo)

FMI: www.spiritofremembrance.com/page/german-war-graves-commission-1