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Divers Find Remains of Finnish WWII Plane That Was Shot Down by Moscow With US Diplomat Aboard

A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week that it had located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero - The AP
A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week that it had located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero - The AP
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Divers Find Remains of Finnish WWII Plane That Was Shot Down by Moscow With US Diplomat Aboard

A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week that it had located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero - The AP
A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week that it had located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero - The AP

The World War II mystery of what happened to a Finnish passenger plane after it was shot down over the Baltic Sea by Soviet bombers appears to finally be solved more than eight decades later.

The plane was carrying American and French diplomatic couriers in June 1940 when it was downed just days before Moscow annexed the Baltic states. All nine people on board the plane were killed, including the two-member Finnish crew and the seven passengers — an American diplomat, two French, two Germans, a Swede and a dual Estonian-Finnish national.

A diving and salvage team in Estonia said this week that it had located well-preserved parts and debris from the Junkers Ju 52 plane operated by Finnish airline Aero, which is now Finnair. It was found off the tiny island of Keri near Estonia's capital, Tallinn, at a depth of around 70 meters (230 feet), The AP reported.

“Basically, we started from scratch. We took a whole different approach to the search,” Kaido Peremees, spokesman for the Estonian diving and underwater survey company Tuukritoode OU, explained the group’s success in finding the plane’s remains.

The downing of the civilian plane, named Kaleva, en route from Tallinn to Helsinki happened on June 14, 1940 — just three months after Finland had signed a peace treaty with Moscow following the 1939-40 Winter War.

The news about the fate of the plane was met with disbelief and anger by authorities in Helsinki who were informed that it was shot down by two Soviet DB-3 bombers 10 minutes after taking off from Tallinn’s Ulemiste airport.

“It was unique that a passenger plane was shot down during peacetime on a normal scheduled flight,” said Finnish aviation historian Carl-Fredrik Geust, who has investigated Kaleva’s case since the 1980s.

 

 

 

 

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Danish Archaeologists Unearth 50 Viking Skeletons

Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA
Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA
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Danish Archaeologists Unearth 50 Viking Skeletons

Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA
Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford. Photograph: Thames Valley Archaeological Services/PA

The excavation of a large Viking-era burial site in Denmark has unearthed 50 unusually well-preserved skeletons that archaeologists expect will help shed light on the lives of the Nordic people best known for their seafaring exploits in the Middle Ages.

The skeletons, discovered near Denmark's third-largest city Odense, were kept intact by high water levels and favorable soil conditions that prevented them from decomposing, according to Michael Borre Lundoe, the excavation leader from Museum Odense, Reuters reported.

"Normally when we excavate Viking graves, we'd be lucky if there were two teeth left in the grave besides the grave goods. But here we have the skeletons fully preserved," said Lundoe.

"The skeletons are so amazing. They are so well preserved. There are five fingers, five toes. And that opens up a whole new set of possibilities for discoveries," he said.

Rare artifacts such as knives, glass pearls and brooches dated between year 850 to 970 were also found at the excavation, which began six months ago.

Lundoe said the grave gifts indicate most of the people were part of a small community of farmers, although a woman of higher status was buried with a silver-ornamented knife and a piece of glass which was rare in the Viking Age.

Archaeologists took soil samples to search for pollen to determine which season the person was buried in and what textiles they wore.

An x-ray of a soil block from the site revealed an oval brooch, an iconic Viking Age jewelry piece associated with women's garments, covered with wood and human remains.

On the back of another brooch with period-specific ornaments, mineralized woven textile fragments provided evidence of the type of dress worn in the Viking Age, the archaeologists said.

Most of the skeletons have been removed from the graves and packed in cardboard boxes at the museum to dry out before the examination and final cleaning.