Homecoming: The Story of Dixie and Bob

Homecoming; The Story of Dixie and Bob

Installment #1:  Markus Mooser

In 2007, German citizen Markus Mooser was hiking through a forest near his home in Starnberg Germany. He happened upon a piece of ground, a clearing in a dense forest, which seemed unnatural in such a thicket. Markus stopped his hike to look around at the area to see if he could figure out why there was this area of bareness in a forest. He also had a spiritual feeling as he stood there in wonderment. He felt that something important had occurred right in this very spot. Unable to clear the image from his mind, he went home and did research about the area. He felt sure that there had been a crash of some sort which caused the clearing. After a year of research, he went to the closest town to ask the townspeople if they knew what had caused the bare area in the thick forest. He was given directions to an older man’s home and told that this man knew what had happened in that place. So he went and spoke with the older gentleman who remembered that day well, July 21, 1944. The man told a story about a downed aircraft. It was an American plane he said. He saw airmen parachute out of the plane and that one parachute had not opened. He remembered the remains, the wreckage, and the Nazi soldiers who came and captured the 6 airmen who survived the crash. The crash site was closed and it was forbidden for citizens to go there. The old soul said they did as they were told by the Nazi soldiers, they didn’t go into the forest. Markus thanked the old man for his help; three weeks later the old man died. This story started Markus on a journey that would take him from his home in Germany to a funeral in West Virginia in 2013. It’s a remarkable story.

On July 21, 1944 the Eighth Air Force launched 960 bombers on air raids on key industrial targets in southern Germany. They were targeting German aircraft plants. One of those planes, a B 24 Liberator, was headed toward the village of Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich. On that plane were 9 airmen and one of those airmen was a local boy, Sergeant Charles Marshall. The aircraft came under heavy enemy fire. Artillery fire severely damaged the aircraft before it reached its target and it crashed somewhere southwest of Munich. Seven crewmen bailed; one was killed when his parachute failed to open, six were captured, two were unable to escape and went down with the aircraft in an unknown location in the forest. Sergeants Jerome Kiger and Charles R. Marshall were declared missing in action by the U.S. War Department. In 1945 searches were conducted in the presumed crash area by the War Department and neither the crash site nor remains were discovered. The soldiers were declared “Killed in Action” in 1945. And so the families of Kiger and Marshall were left to grieve without closure. The Kiger and Marshall families were left with no choice but to remember their loved ones and move forward with their lives. And the years passed by.

In 2008 Dr. Robert Marshall received a call from Germany. The man introduced himself as Markus Mooser and he had news for Dr. Marshall about the father he didn’t remember. Markus was certain he had identified the crash site of Marshall’s downed plane and had recovered items that provided proof. He had completed a year of research into the crash, spending hundreds of hours in the forest searching for evidence before he reached across the ocean to the families of the two airmen. His research had led him to conclude that he in fact had found the long lost wreckage of the B 24 Liberator. He was relentless in his quest as he has said, “You can’t leave them unknown in a forestside in Germany. They have to come back to their families.” Markus kept in touch with the Marshall family and periodically called and emailed Dr. Marshall to update the family about the search efforts. Eventually Markus had enough evidence in the form of metal, plane fragments and ammo to prompt the U.S. military to send a team of search specialists. In June 2012 a team of 13 soldiers from the US Army, US Marines and the Royal Air Force start excavation of the crash site. Working in shifts from 9 am to 5 pm daily the soldiers found metal parts, bone fragments and personal objects belonging to the airmen. One item that was found was a Saint Christopher medal. Etched in the back of the metal were the words “in case I am injured, please call a Priest.” And to honor this request, the search team contacted a local Priest and held a ceremony on the anniversary of the crash, July 21, 2012. They also found a wrist watch, it’s face and hands intact. The time was frozen at 10:40. Historically the estimated time of the crash had been said to have been estimated at 11:oo am. Also found were British coins, which correlates with the fact that the flight originated in Great Britain. Miraculously the dog tags belonging to Sergeant Charles R. Marshall were discovered along with one precious piece of metal: a portion of an ID bracelet that had belonged to Bob Marshall. The story of the bracelet, and the story of Bob and Dixie will surely fill you with amazement.