TALLINN, May 26, BNS – USNS Pathinder, a US Oceonongraphic Survey Ship in the Military Sealift Command Special Mission Ships Program, has arrived in Tallinn in order to look for the wreck of the Finnish aircraft Kaleva shot down by Soviet military aircraft on 14 June 1940 over the Gulf of Finland.
The Kaleva was shot down near Keri Island about ten minutes after taking off from Tallinn. The incident took place on the first day of an anti-Estonian blockade the Soviet Union established in World War Two, the US embassy said.
The news of the blockade and the shooting down of the Kaleva was blotted out by the entry of the Nazis into Paris on the same day.
The wreck of the aircraft and the nine persons on board it have not been found until the present.
Henry W. Antheil, a US diplomatic messenger, was on board the aircraft.
On May 4, 2007 the US State Department remembered Henry W. Antheil, adding his name to the marble tablet commemorating diplomats killed while performing their duty.
This January Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo sent a letter to US Defense Minister Robert Gates, asking a US naval survey ship to look for the wreck of the destroyed aircraft.
“It is very exciting for us to take part in the search for the Kaleva together with the Estonian armed forces,” said Capt. Nicholas H. Holman.
Holman is European forces’ sealift logistics commander, with all the US naval non-combat ships and aircraft in Europe and Africa under his subordination.
“This is a splendid opportunity for cooperation and strengehening of the two countries’ well-functioning partnership,” Holman said.
Eric A. Johnson, press and cultural attache at the US embassy, said that it was very symbolic that USNS Pathdinder arrived in Estonia on the day when the United States marks Remberance Day and commemorates those killed in wars.
USNS Pathfinder is one of seven US Military Sealift Command ships used by the Oceanography Survey.
The ships study the floor of the world ocean round the year, using different hydrolocators near the shore and in the open sea.
“Our investigation group is very excited by the opportunity to look for the Kaleva and to demonstrate the technology of its autonomous underwater craft, said Marty Ammond, a senior surveyor on the Pathinder.
Oceanographic Survey ships have earlier experience in the search for missing aircraft. Last January a sister ship of the Pathfinder, USNS Mary Sears, together with other participants found the remains of a commercial aircraft in West-Sulawesi in Indonesia.
Tallinn newsroom, +372 610 8861, [email protected]