After the end of World War II in 1945, Nazi-occupied Austria was restored to its 1937 frontiers and divided by the victorious allies – the USA, the Soviet Union, the UK, and France – for a decade.

The day Dan Wilson was MIA, February 19, 1945, his fighter plane was lost at Schwanberg, Austria, then held by the Germans. When Austria was divided after the war, Styria (which included Schwanberg) was occupied by the British.

A British Graves Registration Team at Klagenfurt, Austria, first learned where Lt. Daniel S. Wilson had been buried at Schwanberg was in late November, 1945, from captured Dulag Luft (German) records and reported it to the Americans. An American Graves Registration team removed his remains to France in 1946.

Dan Wilson’s missions had included Vienna, in Eastern Austria. If his P-38 had been lost in that area, which became part of the Soviet occupation, his whereabouts might not have been known for years.

Lt. Henry D. Mitchell, a P-38 pilot from the same fighter group, was lost a few weeks before Dan Wilson arrived in Italy. His remains were not finally accounted for until 2021.

Because Germany was also divided after the war, relatives of those who fell in East Germany were not allowed to learn what happened until decades later. Here’s the poignant story of a P-51 pilot who went down in an area of East Germany.

Dan Wilson’s story is told in What Leora Never Knew: A Granddaughter’s Quest for Answers.