Agreed – if you read any of Andy’s “Finding the…” books, it’s obvious that very odd bits may remain at the surface in these cases – there’s one case where an ID was confirmed by a tab in a sock, I think, but the pilot concerned was never recovered. I’ll let you imagine the processes by which such things might escape the cockpit, if you don’t mind.
I don’t think there’s actually any legal standard, at least in the UK, but IIRC most coroners assume that average birth weight (about 7lb) of remains is enough to constitute a body, especially if there’s evidence of important bits such as head, spine, pelvis in there – so 7lbs of leg on its own might not constitute a body, but if you had 7lbs of leg and a kidney… I don’t know what the requirement is in France (or was in 1940) but presumably someone locally had enough remains to be worth burying, and something that provided an ID as well.
It’s not necessarily that simple – there’s at least one case in the UK where it’s likely that a pilot has two separate graves, and various cases where remains were apparently recovered at the scene but there is no record of a burial etc. The latter isn’t restricted to “the enemy” either, as I’m sure I’ve read accounts of that happening in the case of JFK’s brother in Suffolk – so there’s plenty of room for a body being in more than one place! Given the circumstances I don’t think there’s any way of knowing what happened that day in France in 1940 that could have led to Time Team being able to say one way or another what they would find beforehand, but with a gravestone standing in the churchyard it’s surely hard to describe the aircraft as a grave before you excavate and find otherwise?
Adrian
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