[Boris Ciglic]

I fully agree with your observation that locations from MACR's should not be counted as final historic evidence. I know for instances when the reported and actual crash locations were hundreds of kilometers apart and when the last sighting of a plane was reported over Austria and the plane crashed in Albania.

In 14 October 1944 case, we know that Mustang groups started from area of Foggia and Termoli in Italy (52.FG from Madna, 325.FG from Lesina and 332.FG from Ramitelli).

We know that 52.FG was supposed to escort B-24's of 55.BW to Blechhammer (today Blachownia Slazka), but when the bombers aborted, received instructions to fly a sweep in the area of Balaton lake in Hungary and in this rough area Leary was shot down and became POW and Mann was last sighted.

We know that 325.FG was escorting B-17's of 5.BW on a raid against Blechhammer. They were supposed to take over the bombers on retour leg west of Budapest. Before they did that, Houghton aborted and was last seen.

We know that 332.FG was escorting B-24's of 49.BW and 304.BW on a raid agaiinst Odertal. First leg of the 332.FG journey was Ramitelli - Zagreb. If you pull a line between these two location, on Google map for example, you will find that it passes closely to Cazin, roughly the area where Bell bailed out. If you look at the same map where Bela Crkva is, you will see that there is almost no chance that the group could have strayed so much off course to get over there. If you pull a line between Lesina or Madna, Budapest and Bela Crkva, and when you add a Danube as an landmark between Budapest and Bela Crkva you will see that a Mustang could have veered off course and come above Bela Crkva, especially if it was trying to reach Soviet lines in the southeast.