By Barbara A. Schmitz
About 82 years after crashing into the jungles of Papua New Guinea, a piece of Marge is coming home. And just for this week, you can see it on the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh grounds.
John Gidley, executive director of the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior, Wisconsin, said a significant portion of the P-38 Lightning’s right wing with identifiable marks, including the last three serial numbers of the airplane, arrived in Wisconsin about a week ago. The marks indicate without doubt that this was the plane of Maj. Richard Bong, a Wisconsin native and ace who downed 40 enemy airplanes in the Pacific theater. Bong was ordered home for his own safety as America’s top pilot, and he quickly married his sweetheart, Marge. About six months later, Bong, then 24, was killed test-flying a Lockheed P-80 fighter in California. It was said that he bailed out too late after steering the aircraft away from civilian homes.
Pilot Tom Malone was flying Marge in 1944 when the twin-engine fighter malfunctioned and crashed into a ravine in the jungle. He was able to bail, but Marge was lost.
John said he didn’t see the piece of the wing himself until Monday morning. During AirVenture, it is located in the Pitcairn Hangar on Pioneer Airport, just beyond the KidVenture activities.
The work to bring closure about the airplane’s location began about three years ago. “In about 2023, our curator Briana Fiandt said she wondered whatever happened to Marge,” John recalled. “We were doing an oral history on veterans when one of the veterans said the Wisconsin International Guard goes to the Madang Province all the time. She always wondered if the plane was still there since there was no record of anyone going out to find it when it went down.”
They called the effort to locate the plane “Mission Marge,” John said, and partnered with Pacific Wrecks and its director Justin Taylan in 2024 to help find it. Within 10 days, they found it, then surveyed it and did a documentary about their find. You can find the documentary on YouTube.
Then things kind of snowballed, John said, and soon they were facilitating a sister city connection between Poplar, Wisconsin, where Bong was born, and Madang. It was during their second visit there to secure the site that the government agreed to permanently loan them a piece of the airplane.
“Our intention was to establish a community where it could be kept safe,” John said. The remaining parts of the airplane will stay where they landed. “Our hope is that the villagers in the area will make sure no one removes anything from the site. We plan to keep our relationship going as long as we can.”
Once AirVenture ends, the wing will be making a stop in Poplar and then heading to the Bong museum in Superior, where they will create a new exhibit. John said they plan to hold a big event in September when they open it to the public.
On Saturday, Justin, Briana, and others will tell the recovery story at Theater in the Woods. It begins at 6:30 p.m. Richard Bong’s family members will also be present.
EAA Museum Director Chris Henry said he worked with the Bong museum for years to get the wing at AirVenture. Because it is an artifact that needs to be preserved, it is in Pitcairn Hangar because they can better protect the piece from humidity, rain, and UV rays. It is under the wing of EAA’s P-38.
“When we unboxed the wing, it was surreal,” Chris said. “In these times of warfare, you will never see an ace fighter pilot again that exceeds 40 victories. Richard Bong was always one of my heroes, and I’m happy that we can have an artifact of his here, even if it is for a short period of time.”