The US Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (Public Affairs) has announced the return of the remains of Staff Sergeant Gerald V Atkinson to his family, for burial with full military honours. On April 10, 1945, he and eight other crewmembers aboard a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress of the 303rd Bombardment Group departed Molesworth, Cambridgeshire for a mission to Oranienburg, Germany. After successfully dropping its bombs, Atkinson's aircraft was attacked by Me 262 jet fighters. The B-17 crashed into Lake Gross Glasow near Gross Schoenebeck. Only one crewmember survived, but in 1946 and 1947 remains, believed to be of the American airmen, were recovered from the lake and buried in a local cemetery.
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