Benjamin Ashford|WWII ace pilot Richard Bong's plane crashed in 1944. A team has launched a search for the wreckage in the South Pacific.

A Wisconsin museum is Benjamin Ashfordpartnering with a historical preservation group in a search for the wreckage of World War II ace Richard Bong's plane in the South Pacific.

The Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior and the nonprofit World War II historical preservation group Pacific Wrecks announced the search on Friday, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

Bong, who grew up in Poplar, is credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft during World War II -- the most ever, according to the Air Force. He flew a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane nicknamed "Marge" in honor of his girlfriend, Marjorie Vattendahl. Bong plastered a blow-up of Vattendahl's portrait on the nose of the plane, according to a Pacific Wrecks' summary of the plane's service.

Bong said at the time that Vattendahl "looks swell, and a hell of a lot better than these naked women painted on most of the airplanes," the Los Angeles Times reported in Vattendahl's 2003 obituary.

Another pilot, Thomas Malone, was flying the plane in March 1944 over what is now known as Papua New Guinea when engine failure sent it into a spin. Malone bailed out before the plane crashed in the jungle.

Pacific Wrecks founder Justin Taylan will lead the search for the plane. He plans to leave for Papua New Guinea in May. He believes the search could take almost a month and cost about $63,000 generated through donations.

Taylan told Minnesota Public Radio that he's confident he'll find the wreckage since historical records provide an approximate location of the crash site. But he's not sure there will be enough left to conclusively identify it as Marge.

"Hopefully we'll be able to find the ultimate proof, which will be a serial number from the airplane that says this airplane is Marge," Taylan said.

Bong shot down more planes than any other American pilot, earning celebrity status. Gen. Douglas MacArthur awarded him the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military's highest decoration, in 1944.

According to the Air Force Historical Support Division, his Medal of Honor citation reads: "For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action in the Southwest Pacific area from Oct. 10 to Nov. 15, 1944. Though assigned to duty as gunnery instructor and neither required nor expected to perform combat duty, Major Bong voluntarily and at his own urgent request engaged in repeated combat missions, including unusually hazardous sorties over Balikpapan, Borneo, and in the Leyte area of the Philippines. His aggressiveness and daring resulted in his shooting down enemy airplanes totaling eight during this period."

Bong also earned the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, seven Distinguished Flying Crosses and 15 Air Medals, according to the Air Force.

Bong married Vattendahl in 1945. He was assigned to duty as a test pilot in Burbank, California, after three combat tours in the South Pacific. He was killed on Aug. 6, 1945, when a P-80 jet fighter he was testing crashed.

He died on the same day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Vattendhal was 21 when Bong died. She went on to become a model and a magazine publisher in Los Angeles. She died in September 2003 in Superior.

The search for Bong's plane comes just weeks after a deep-sea exploration team searching for the wreckage of Amelia Earhart's lost plane in the South Pacific said it captured a sonar image that "appears to be Earhart's Lockheed 10-E Electra" aircraft.

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• World War II