On June 20, 1944, a 22-year-old bombardier from Cleveland named Robert T. McCollum was flying in a B-24J Liberator over the Baltic Sea near the coast of Denmark when his plane accidentally collided with another aircraft in their own formation.
Department of DefenseThe remains of Robert T. McCollum had been missing for the past eight decades.
A few weeks after D-Day, an American B-24J Liberator accidentally crashed into another plane in its own formation off the coast of Denmark. Though the pilot and co-pilot managed to survive, the rest of the crew, including 22-year-old bombardier Robert T. McCollum, went down with the plane. McCollum was labeled missing in action and declared dead a year later, but his remains were never found — until now.
Eighty-one years after his plane crashed into the Baltic Sea, McCollum’s remains have been recovered, identified, and set for return to the U.S. After eight decades, the young bombardier can finally go home.
Robert T. McCollum’s Bomber Crashes Into The Baltic Sea In 1944
According to a press release from the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Robert T. McCollum’s plane went down on June 20, 1944.
The 22-year-old from Cleveland, Ohio, was part of the 565th Bombardment Squadron, which had been deployed to England in 1943 to fight in World War II. The squadron had been tasked with bombing major Nazi industrial sites, including several in Berlin and Münster. In June 1944, the squadron was flying over the Baltic Sea, off the coast of Nazi-occupied Denmark.
Then, on June 20, the squadron suffered a tragic accident.
U.S. Air ForceA B-24 Liberator, similar to the plane that Robert T. McCollum was in when it went down on June 20, 1944.
McCollum was working as a bombardier when his B-24J Liberator crashed with another B-24 in the same formation. Though the pilot and co-pilot of McCollum’s plane were able to safely bail out, the rest of the crew vanished into the Baltic Sea. They were presumed dead, and the U.S. War Department issued a “Finding of Death” for McCollum on June 21, 1945.
However, subsequent searches for his remains were unsuccessful. In 1948, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC), which sought to recover fallen American personnel in Europe, investigated the crash but did not locate the remains of McCollum or his crew. The AGRC also examined unidentified remains that washed ashore, but similarly determined that they were not connected to the downed B-24J Liberator.
Robert T. McCollum was declared non-recoverable on May 12, 1950. Then, more than half a century later, Danish divers came across a World War II-era aircraft wreck in the same area where McCollum’s plane went down.
Recovering The Lost B-24 And Identifying Robert T. McCollum’s Remains
Trident ArchäologieA piece of Robert McCollum’s plane recovered from the Baltic Sea.
In 2019, the Royal Danish Navy was alerted to the discovery of a World War II-era aircraft. Upon investigating the scene, divers were able to recover a .50 caliber machine gun with a damaged serial number, one that partially matched Robert T. McCollum’s missing plane. Two years later, the site was cleared of unexploded ordnance and quickly became an archaeological site due to the presence of human remains and other evidence.
On several occasions in 2022, 2023, and 2024, Trident Archäologie, Wessex Archaeology, volunteers from Project Recover, the Royal Danish Navy, and the Langelands Museum teamed up to conduct excavations and recovery operations. Their endeavor was a success and they recovered human remains as well as ID tags from two of the crew members.
Next, using dental records and DNA tests, scientists were able to identify one of the sets of remains as belonging to Robert T. McCollum.
Department of DefenseFor 80 years, the exact location of Robert T. McCollum’s remains had been a tragic mystery.
Eighty-one years after his plane went down off the coast of Denmark, McCollum has been located. His name, recorded on the Wall of the Missing at Cambridge American Cemetery in Cambridge, England, has now been adorned with a rosette to signify that his remains have been recovered. According to the Department Defense, his remains will also be flown back to the United States, where he’ll finally be laid to rest in San Jose, California.
The recovery of Robert T. McCollum’s remains will surely bring solace to his family, but the Department Defense is still actively searching for tens of thousands of soldiers who went missing in action. As of 2023, some 81,000 American service members from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and other conflicts, remain missing.
After reading about Robert T. McCollum, the young World War II bombardier whose remains were just recovered from the Baltic Sea, go inside the dramatic full story of the London Blitz. Then, read about the Sullivan brothers, the five brothers who all perished together during World War II.
