The Bomber That Was Never Found

Episode 02 · B-29 wreck, Saipan Channel · all sources

In 2016, an ROV a thousand feet down in the Saipan Channel swept its lights across a B-29 Superfortress — upside down, three of four engines still attached. No serial number has been matched; no crew list has been tied to the site. The link to Capt. Preston's crew is a lead, not a confirmation, and the film states it as such.

The narration is a synthesized voice. All footage and claims are real and sourced.

Sources

NOAA Ocean Exploration — 2016 Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas (EX1605), Dive 22 “Romeo and Juliet”; daily update, 9 July 2016
NOAA Ocean Exploration — 2022 “Deepwater Surveys of World War II U.S. Cultural Assets in the Saipan Channel” (Scripps Institution of Oceanography · University of Delaware · Project Recover)
NOAA Ocean Exploration feature — Colin M. Colbourn, Ph.D., “The Key to the Central Pacific” (Operation Forager; North Field, Tinian)
6th Bomb Group Association (6thbombgroup.com) and philcrowther.com/6thBG — the 24th Squadron, 6th Bomb Group loss of 7 April 1945 (Victor 5347; aircraft commander Capt. Clark A. Preston)
Pacific Wrecks — squadron and mission detail
Post (Guam) — contemporaneous coverage of the 2016 discovery
Wright R-3350 overheating and magnesium-alloy fire risk — independently verified WWII aviation-history sources

Footage & stills

B-29 wreck (ROV) — NOAA Ocean Exploration, EX1605 (2016) Public domain
Side-scan sonar & multibeam of the wreck / channel — NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2022 survey Public domain
2022 expedition (REMUS 600 AUV, ROV, R/V Kilo Moana, team) — NOAA Ocean Exploration Public domain
B-29 airfield operations, takeoff, formation, a burnt-out B-29, a Wright R-3350 close-up — U.S. Army Air Forces “Combat Subjects” films CS-3404 / CS-3415 / CS-1773 and training film TF 1-3354, U.S. National Archives Public domain
6th Bomb Group B-29 in flight — U.S. National Archives (via NOAA’s 2022 expedition page) Public domain
Task Group 58 underway; 8th Marines landing, Saipan, June 1944; B-29s at North Field, Tinian, 1945 — U.S. Navy / U.S. National Archives (NHHC), via Wikimedia Commons Public domain
Sea-floor relief — GMRT, Global Multi-Resolution Topography (Ryan et al., 2009)
Maps and diagrams built by ColdProvenance from the above. Music & sound design produced for ColdProvenance.