WW II plane wrecks must be salvaged, say Dutch MPs

A national programme should to be put in place to salvage the last remaining World War II plane wrecks on Dutch soil, according to MPs from the CDA and ChristenUnie.

In addition, the cost of the salvage operations should be shouldered by the government, the parties told public broadcaster NOS.

Some 30 to 35 allied plane wrecks containing the bodies of their crews are not being salvaged at the moment because of the prohibitive costs for local authorities.

‘We are hoping to celebrate 75 years of freedom in 2020. That freedom was hard fought. We need to do justice to the efforts of these airmen and we must respect the wishes of their relatives,’ the broadcaster quotes CDA MP Harrie van der Molen as saying.

The wrecks are spread all over the Netherlands. Some are in the IJsselmeer or buried in sand or in land that has not yet been built on.

The subject will come up for discussion in parliament soon, NOS writes.

In all the bodies of some 1,085 airman missing in action during World War II are likely to be in the Netherlands, according to research by broadcaster Nos and air war experts.

There are another 501 crash locations in the Netherlands which have never been investigated, the broadcaster said. Of the missing crew members, some 600 are British, 228 American and 247 German.