Memorial

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The plane was hit by flak and attacked by FW-190s over the Brest peninsula during a mission on 21 October 1942. The navigator, Lt Spire, got wounded and one engine, the ball turret, the top turret, the intercom system and the elevator controls were shot away. The bombardier, Lt Ewart Sconiers, salvoed his bombs and bailed out over land. At 13:00 the plane landed 10 miles from shore in the Bay of Biscay and remained afloat for 30 seconds, giving the crew time to ditch. No swimmer, Lt. Spire inflated his Mae West and paddled to the half-inflated large dinghy, which supported all of the crew except the engineer who sat in his own small dinghy. All were picked up by French fishing boats and turned over to the Germans at Quimper, France.

Nine crew members were taken prisoner, one was able to evade capture and returned to England.

He spent 12 days in the "cooler"at Dulag Luft in Oberursel near Frankfurt. Dulag Luft was a Luftwaffe interrogation center for Allied airmen. He was imprisoned 11 November 1942 in German-occupied Poland, in Stalag Luft II. This prisoner of war camp is known from the movie 'The Great Escape'. Sconiers is the only American yet unrecovered from Stalag Luft III. While interned there and during initial tunneling escape efforts, Sconiers worked security for Lt Col Albert P. Clark, Senior American Officer of the camp. About fourteen months after capture, Sconiers purportedly slipped on ice at the camp, ruptured his ear drum and perhaps had a severe concussion, developed complications, was taken to a reserve hospital in what is now Lubin, Poland, and died there 24 January 1944. His 27 January 27 1944 burial party included Lt Col Clark and Milton Stenstrom, his pilot. Sconiers was laid to rest in what was enemy soil at the time, and according to Sconiers' IDPF, a captured German record indicates he was buried in the cemetery for POWs, grave no. 7, at Lueben/Schleswig, Germany. In 2006, the site was confirmed to be Lubin/Schlesien, an area ultimately returned to Poland.

In 2015, during an independent investigation, a headstone with Sconiers name was identified in Poland. The remains were disinterred in 2016 and sent to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. Laboratory analysis and circumstantial evidence were used in the identification of his remains. His name is permanently engraved on the Walls of the Missing at Henri-Chapelle

A full story about himself and the recovery of his remains can be found on this website: www.bringsconiershome.com