Pilot  1st Lt Charles R. Freas, O-735560 (MIA/KIA)
Crashed  August 17, 1943
MACR 6604

Wartime History
One of two dozen B-24s that took off at 23:44 hours on August 16th from 5-Mile Wards Drome on a mission to bomb Wewak area airfields at night at 6,500' altitude. At around 0300 hours next morning, directly over Wewak, another B-24 "Yanks From Hell II" was hit by an anti-aircraft shell. Eye-witnesses saw it collide with Twin Nifty’s as it fell. No one knows precisely what happened to Twin Nifty’s after that. Came to grief in the Sepik swamplands, approximately 100 kilometers south-west of Wewak. What we can safely deduce is that the mid-air collision did not cleanly remove Twin Nifty’s from the sky. Her resting place, remote from Wewak, dictates that somehow pilot managed to keep her airborne another 20 minutes or so, on a heading which would have returned him to Port Moresby. The layout of the wreckage suggests Freas attempted to force-land the damaged Liberator.

Wreckage
The strewn wreckage of "Twin Niftys" was positively located and identified by a RAAF recovery team on April 30, 1946. They interviewed villagers at Angoram who stated that the aircraft had crashed and exploded at night. They claimed that one body had floated away, however there was confusion over whether a survivor had been captured by the Japanese or not. It was wet season at the time, and much of the wreckage was under fresh water. A token number of bones were recovered from the site. The villagers demonstrated that they had retrieved and buried three bodies near Angoram mission.

Remains Recovered
The buried remains were located and reclaimed by the U.S military in 1948, which also visited the crash site, noting that the wreckage was still mostly submerged in swamp. They elaborated that, if re-visited in the dry season, more human remains would certainly be recovered from the wreckage. More visits were made to the site in the 1980s by the U.S military, without remains recovery.

Re-Discovery
Rediscovered in swamp during a salvage operation of P-38H 42-66534 in early June 2003 by Robert Jarrett /  Classic Jets Museum. and discovery of substantial remains by villagers due to the exceptionally dry season. It was rediscovered about 30nm SSW of Wewak, reportedly near vicinity of Timbunke). Coded PNG #3 by US Army CILHI.

Memorials
The crew is listed on the tablets of the missing at Manila American Cemetery.

References
Legacy of the 90th Bombardment Group page 74
Thanks to Aerothentic for additional information

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