How different this story is from that of Lancaster ND739 shot down in Normandy on D-Day and of which the crew is still “missing”.
see http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?119712-Lancaster-recovery-in-Normandy
I think it is difficult to compare these cases.
There are a lot more crew members who are still missing, with their associated Dutch crash sites known. Excavations are mostly based on need-to-do-basis due to limited funding. Catalyst in the Wapenveld recovery is the dredging of the canal that is due, part of a larger infrastructural scheme. This made a recovery effort more of a priority than before. Hopefully the four missing crew members will be identified in the process. But I doubt whether large debris of the aircraft will be found: the aircraft broke up in mid air, burnt for a long time, and larger fuselage sections were removed from the partially drained canal in the weeks after the crash to make it navigable again by German forces. Substantial sections of the tail and some engines were removed from nearby fields at the time. Having said that, this is the best chance of finding out once and for all if there is any way of recovering four lost airmen…
In the meantime: this is the site as it looks today. The depression in the dyke is part of the main impact crater. There’s a monument commemorating the seven crew members. The miller’s house in the background narrowly avoided getting hit by one of the engines, that landed just short of the doorstep.
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