U.S. Navy to help Estonia solve WWII mystery of Finnish airliner, missing American courier
The Associated Press
Published: May 29, 2008
U.S. naval experts will begin searching Friday for the wreckage of a Finnish airliner that crashed into the Baltic Sea in June 1940, just days before the Soviet Union annexed Estonia.
Nine people were on board the aircraft when it disappeared, including a U.S. diplomatic courier now regarded as one of the first American casualties of World War II.
Most Estonian and Finnish experts agree the small plane — named Kaleva — was shot down by two Soviet fighter bombers on June 14, 1940, a mere 10 minutes after taking off from Tallinn en route to Helsinki, Finland.
The wreckage is believed to lie 300 feet (90 meters) underwater near the tiny island of Keri, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of Tallinn.
"If the aircraft is in the area where we're searching, I'm highly confident we'll find it," said Martin Ammond, senior surveyor aboard the USNS Pathfinder, one of the U.S. Navy's oceanographic survey vessels.
The vessel was sent to Tallinn following a request by Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo to his U.S. colleague, Robert Gates, in January. The Estonians hope to learn the fate of Kaleva, a German-made Junkers Ju-52 that was operated by Finland's Aero, later renamed Finnair.
"This is a unique mission," Ammond said Thursday. "We're not in the business of looking for aircraft or sunken ships, so this is very exciting for my surveyors."
One of Kaleva's passengers was Henry Antheil, a 27-year-old U.S. diplomatic courier at the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki.
Antheil, based in Moscow 1933-39, had been rushed to Tallinn once it had become evident that the Soviet Union was preparing to swallow up Estonia and its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania.
"Henry came here to help evacuate materials from U.S. Legation in Tallinn," said U.S. Embassy spokesman Eric A. Johnson, who has done research and written articles on Antheil and the Kaleva case.
"It was feared that Soviets would come anytime, so all the sensitive materials had to be removed. He was doing a job for his country," he said.
Carrying several diplomatic pouches, including material from the U.S. Embassy in Riga, the capital of Latvia, Antheil boarded Kaleva along with six other passengers. They never reached their destination.
Estonia was annexed to the Soviet Union three days later.
Neither the Soviet Union, nor Russia, acknowledged shooting down Kaleva.
Kaleva's mystery remained unsolved, and the wreckage was not found despite intense efforts after Estonia regained independence in 1991.
If the plane is found, it will be up to the Estonian and Finnish governments whether to organize a salvage mission, Johnson said.
Finnish authorities kept silent about Kaleva for decades, saying only the plane crashed due to technical failure. In March 1940 the country had just signed a peace treaty with the Soviet Union after a costly war and did not want to provoke Moscow.
Max Jakobson, a veteran Finnish diplomat, says he recalls Kaleva's case "vividly."
"It was a dramatic situation when this plane went missing," Jakobson, a former envoy to the United Nations, told The Associated Press. "There was plenty of talk about it in Finland. Hopefully the Americans will help solve this case."
U.S. Navy to help Estonia solve WWII mystery of Finnish airliner, missing American courier - International Herald Tribune