Latest news with #RoyalDanishNavy
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Georgia airman who went missing in action during WWII recovered
A Georgia airman who went down in the Baltic Sea during World War II has been declared recovered six years after divers found an American bomber off the coast of Denmark. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Thursday that U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Milton L. Hymes, Jr., 22, of Savannah, was accounted for Nov. 21, 2024. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Hymes, the navigator onboard a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber, died on June 20, 1944, when his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark. The aircraft, with 10 crew members, had departed Bungay, England, on a bombing mission to Politz, Germany. The plane collided with another B-24 in the same formation. The aircraft exploded when it hit the water, and two crew members were blown clear. The pilot and co-pilot survived and were rescued by Danish fishermen, taken into captivity by the Germans and eventually returned to Allied control. German records indicate they recovered the body of one crew member but do not report how they disposed of the body. Evidence suggested that Hymes and the six other crew members were killed in the crash. Hymes was declared dead by the U.S. War Department on June 21, 1945. The American Graves Registration Command tried to find Hymes and the rest of the crew, even searching remains that washed up on the coast. These efforts were ultimately fruitless, and Hymes was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. In 2019, divers alerted the Royal Danish Navy to a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the general area where Hymes' aircraft crashed. A .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number pointed to the craft being the lost bomber. The Royal Danish Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal cleared the site of unexploded ordnance in August 2021. This allowed Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency partner the University of Delaware and the Royal Danish Navy to survey the underwater site. The survey found human remains and enough evidence to recommend the site for further study. Additional excavation and recovery operations in 2022-2024 found more evidence, including remains and the ID tags of two crew members. Organizations that helped in the search and record efforts include Trident Archäologie, Wessex Archaeology, volunteers from Project Recover, stakeholders from the Royal Danish Navy and the Langelands Museum. To identify Hymes' remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material evidence. Scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System also used mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA analysis. Hymes' name is recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Hymes will be buried in Thunderbolt, Georgia, on a date yet to be determined. TRENDING STORIES: Driver charged in crash that killed South Fulton police captain appears in court Driver pulls out knife on couple driving too slow in Kennesaw neighborhood, police say 'Black Mecca' no longer? Atlanta prices cause families to move out of the city [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Danes have given up on their best warships: Lessons for the Royal Navy
Building warships is hard. To those who have been in one this will come as no surprise but for the majority who have not, and who see them like one's phone or car, then this is not well understood. A warship is a complicated assembly of many different complicated things, most of which need to be networked and connected to each other. Any given class of warship tends to be made in small numbers, too, and there may be major differences even between warships of the same class. The first Arleigh Burke class destroyers in the US Navy, for instance, were 8,400 tons: the latest are 9,700. To some extent, every warship is custom built. And they're so expensive that there isn't usually much scope for prototypes and extensive tests on them before building the actual ship. The Danes, however, do know all this, having lately found out just how difficult it is to get right. The Danish Chief of Defence recently announced that ongoing attempts to repair and upgrade the Royal Danish Navy's Iver Huitfeldt-class frigates will be abandoned. This is painful for the Danes as these three ships are the most modern in the Danish navy: and, on paper at least, they are the most capable. The reality, dramatically exposed in the Red Sea last year, is rather different. In the case of the Iver Huitfeldt herself, an integration failure between different weapons and sensors caused the ship's crew to lose the use of their air defence missiles for up to half an hour during a Houthi attack. They rebooted the command system and subsequently fired more missiles but in the hottest missile environment of recent times, this could have ended very differently. Their fallback option for shooting down drones – twin 76mm cannons – had similar command and control issues with 'up to half' the shells detonating too close to the ship to be effective. The then Chief of Defence was relieved of his position and the ship removed from theatre: red faces all round (which was better than the alternative). The problem was that a ship's detection and fire control radars, other sensors, command system, weapons and power delivery train all need to work as one and all at once. The search radar must find the incoming threat, it must then pass the information to the fire-control radar, the fire-control radar needs to get a lock on the threat, the missile system then needs that information – usually a human gets briefly involved here. Then a missile must launch and acquire the threat itself at some point, either using the reflections from the fire-control radar or its own active radar, or both at different times: or it may be guided initially by networked commands, possibly using information provided from a completely different ship, or an aircraft. Meanwhile the ship's installed generation must be powering and cooling all this kit reliably and in many modern cases driving the propulsion too. Good ships – the US Navy's Arleigh Burke destroyers and the Royal Navy's Type 23 frigates, for example – do all this well. Bad ships – the US Littoral Combat Ships and our early Type 45 destroyers before they were partly fixed – do not. One of the issues is that all the various systems may not originally have been built to work together. The Arleigh Burkes use Mark 41 missile launch tubes, originally built to work with the Burkes' Aegis combat system and its accompanying, hugely powerful radars: that configuration is proven and reliable. The Iver Huitfelts use Mark 41 tubes too, but connected to different, European made radars and command systems. In this case of the Red Sea failure, many fingers point at the Thales phased array radar's ability to talk to the command system, but the detail isn't as important as noting the complexity. The problem is obviously a deep-seated one, as it has evidently proved uneconomic to fix. One lesson that is crystal clear is that no feasible amount of laboratory work, peacetime testing and training can replicate the stresses and strains of combat. Whilst the gun issue was known about before, the missile fire control system problem was not, and only became exposed when real weapons were in the air. Our Type 45 destroyer operating in the Red Sea, HMS Diamond, had the opposite issue when it shot down a ballistic missile previously thought to be outside its capabilities. This is a nice surprise, but it was a surprise, and it shows again that you don't know until you do it for real. Looking back in time, we had terrible problems in the Falklands and in the Gulf with our old Sea Dart and Sea Wolf missiles. (The sole Sea Dart engagement of 1991, in which an antique Silkworm missile was shot down, was claimed as a success. It should be noted that the Silkworm had already – luckily – missed HMS Gloucester and carried on past before the destroyer managed to shoot it down.) The difficulty of weapons systems integration is also why I get a little nervous when plug-in or containerised systems are cited as a more flexible way of fighting ships in the future. On paper they can appear to be but if they don't integrate into the command system properly then you quickly end up with the Iver H problem. And by the time you've spent enough money to get around this, then maybe you should have just made that system part of the ship in the first place.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Savannah man and World War II airman has been accounted for
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) – Former U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Milton L. Hymes, Jr., 22, of Savannah, Georgia, was accounted for today by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Lt. Hayes was killed during World War II. According to information released by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, in June 1944, Hymes was assigned to the 565th Bombardment Squadron, 389th Bombardment Group, 2nd Combat Bomb Wing, 2nd Air Division, 8th Air Force, in the European Theater. On June 20, Hymes, the navigator onboard a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber, went missing in action when his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark after colliding with another B-24 in the same formation. The pilot and co-pilot of Hymes' aircraft were able to bail out and survived, but all evidence points to the rest of the crew being killed in the crash. The U.S. War Department issued a Finding of Death for Hymes on June 21, 1945. In early 1948, the American Graves Registration Command, the organization that searched for and recovered fallen American personnel in the European Theater, investigated the crash, but was unable to find any of the missing crewmen. Over the next couple of years, the AGRC also assessed unidentified remains that washed ashore in the area where Hymes' aircraft crashed, but were not able to identify any of the crew. Hymes was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. In 2019, Danish divers alerted the Royal Danish Navy to a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the general area where Hymes' aircraft crashed. A .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number that partially matched the guns on Hymes' aircraft was recovered. In August 2021, after the Royal Danish Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal cleared the site of unexploded ordnance, DPAA partner University of Delaware, along with the Royal Danish Navy, returned to conduct an underwater survey. The survey found possible human remains as well as enough evidence to recommend the site for an archaeological excavation. From Sept. 21, 2022 to June 9, 2024, DPAA primary partner Trident Archäologie, along with Wessex Archaeology and volunteers from Project Recover, and with stakeholders from the Royal Danish Navy and the Langelands Museum, returned to the site to conduct further operations, during which they found further material evidence and possible remains. That evidence was also accessioned into the DPAA laboratory. To identify Hymes' remains, scientists from DPAA used dental and anthropological analysis, as well as material evidence. Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA analysis. Hymes' name is recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery, Cambridge, England, along with others still missing from WWII. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Hymes will be buried in Thunderbolt, Georgia, on a date yet to be determined. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
WWII soldier from Cleveland identified 80 years after crash
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has now accounted for a Cleveland soldier killed during World War II. According to an announcement, U.S. Army Air Forces 2nd Lt. Robert T. McCollum, 22, was officially accounted for on Dec. 10, 2024. His family received a briefing on the identification process, allowing for the release of further details. McCollum served in the 565th Bombardment Squadron, part of the 389th Bombardment Group, during the European Theater in June 1944. On June 20, he was the bombardier on a B-24J 'Liberator' bomber that went missing after crashing into the Baltic Sea near Denmark. The crash occurred when McCollum's plane collided with another B-24 in the same formation. While the pilot and co-pilot managed to bail out and survive, it is believed that the rest of the crew perished in the incident. The U.S. War Department declared McCollum dead on June 21, 1945. In early 1948, the American Graves Registration Command investigated the crash but was unable to recover any of the missing crew members. Over the years, the AGRC assessed unidentified remains that washed ashore in the crash area but could not identify any of the crew. McCollum was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. In 2019, Danish divers discovered a WWII-era aircraft wreck in the vicinity of McCollum's crash site. They recovered a .50 caliber machine gun with a serial number that partially matched the guns on McCollum's aircraft. In August 2021, after the Royal Danish Navy cleared the site of unexploded ordnance, a team from the University of Delaware and the Royal Danish Navy conducted an underwater survey. This survey uncovered possible human remains and prompted an archaeological excavation. From Sept. 21 to Oct. 11, 2022, a team including Trident Archäologie and Wessex Archaeology recovered remains and material evidence from the site, including ID tags of two crew members. More work took place from Sept. 4-23, 2023, and May 18 to June 9, 2024, leading to additional findings. All evidence was sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. To confirm McCollum's identity, scientists employed dental and anthropological analysis, along with mitochondrial and autosomal DNA testing. McCollum's name is inscribed on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery in England. A rosette will be placed next to his name to signify his accounting. McCollum will be buried in San Jose, California, on a future date. This story was created by Jane Imbody, jimbody@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Cleveland soldier killed in WWII officially accounted for
