DOUGLAS Boston Mk.V BZ590, an 18 Squadron aircraft, took off from Forli near Rimini at 20.45 hours on 21 April 1945, the crew's target being a river crossing on the Po at Taglio di Po, followed by an armed reconnaissance of the Po Valley. The aircraft failed to return and was believed to have been brought down by anti-aircraft fire just days before the end of the war in Europe. After BZ590 failed to return, all four crew members on board were listed as missing believed killed. Those four men were Sergeant David Raikes, who was the pilot, Flight Sergeant David Perkins, the navigator, Flight Sergeant Alexander Bostock, the wireless operator and air gunner, and Warrant Officer John Hunt RAAF, the air gunner. All of the crew were aged 20, except for Hunt who was 21. Eye-witnesses of the last moments of BZ590 would later recall the crash with clarity, it having been nicknamed locally as the "Pippo". The wreckage continued to burn for a number of hours after it was shot down. Based on these accounts, the remains of the aircraft were unearthed in 2011 by the Italian amateur archaeological society Archeologi dell'Aria, a group that searches for the remains of Second World War aircraft.
