PILOT'S HUNCH LOCATES TWO LOST BOMBERS.

PLANES MISSING SINCE WEDNESDAY FOUND IN WRECKAGE ON SHORES OF GREAT SALT LAKE BY CAP FLYER.

Salt Lake City, Jan 1 (AP) -- A civilian air patrol pilot, flying "on a hunch," located the burned wreckage of two four-engined army planes near the western shores of Great Salt lake Saturday.
Vanish Yesterday.
Capt. CARL H. HELLBERG, wing operations officer of the Utah CAP, located the two planes, missing from the Wendover, Utah, army air base, since Wednesday, after flying several miles south of the area in which the search was being concentrated.
Position of the wreckage, he said, "gave indications of a collision." He said the two planes apparently "spun down" to earth after crashing together.
One plane was virtually destroyed by fire and the other partially burned. There was no sign of any survivors, HELLBERG said.
Carried 24 Men.
Wendover base officials, announcing that the two planes were missing, said they carried 24 men.
Search for the craft had been centered on the Utah-Idaho line approximately 150 miles north of the area in which HILLBERG found them. The civil air patrol had been called in by army officials to aid in the hunt.
"I was assigned to the area to the north of the place I found the planes," HELLBERG said. "I worked it on a hunch, however, and decided to cover all the territory to the south."
West Of Ogden.
The wreckage was found about 30 miles south of Kelton, Utah, and approximately 15 miles north of the Southern Pacific railroad tracks which cross the lake west of Ogden.

Brigham City, Jan. 1 -- Sheriff WARREN W. HYDE, who knows the desolate country well in which the bombers crashed said, he believed the scene of the crash was about 10 miles from any type of road. "I believe, however, that a jeep could drive to the wreckage," Sheriff HYDE. said.

The Ogden Standard Examiner Utah 1944-01-02

__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!