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Three U.S. Army soldiers were found dead in Lithuania on Monday, nearly a week after the armored vehicle they had been using during a training mission became stuck in a deep and muddy bog, the Army said.
Search and recovery operations for a fourth soldier who was also in the vehicle continued on Monday, the Army said.
The 70-ton vehicle was pulled out of the bog early on Monday morning, the Army said. For days, hundreds of people, including technical experts and U.S. Navy divers, had worked to solve the complex engineering challenge of recovering the vehicle from the bog. The operation required excavators, pumps and other construction equipment.
The soldiers were reported missing on Tuesday after they did not return from a training mission, according to the U.S. military. Their vehicle, an M88 Hercules, was found submerged in the bog on Wednesday.
The missing soldiers, from the First Brigade, Third Infantry Division, were training near Pabrade, a city in eastern Lithuania near the border with Belarus, a close ally of Russia and a stalwart supporter of its war in Ukraine.
Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, the Third Infantry Division’s commanding general, said in a statement on Monday that “the search isn’t finished until everyone is home.”
“Words cannot express our gratitude to those still working around the clock during these extensive search and recovery efforts and your unwavering commitment not to rest until all are found,” General Norrie said.
The soldiers had been sent out in the M88 Hercules, essentially a giant armored tow truck, to extract another Army vehicle, the military said. They may have driven off the road and into the bog, and the soldiers appeared to have been trapped inside, according to an Army official in Europe.
U.S. Navy divers swam into the muddy bog, with zero visibility, to attach two cables to the sunken vehicle on Sunday night, the Army said. It took about two hours of winching to pull it out of the bog.
On Sunday, rescue efforts were hampered by a landslide, Dovile Sakaliene, the Lithuanian defense minister, said on social media. She described the effort as an “exhausting fight with the power of the deep swamp.”
The search for the fourth soldier will be challenging, according to a senior U.S. Army official in Europe.
American and Lithuanian search crews were able to use sophisticated sonar technology to find the large, armored vehicle but such technology is less useful for locating a human body in a peat bog. The dive team has set up a grid system to methodically search for the fourth soldier, the official said.
The initial search for the soldiers, through thick forests and swampy terrain, involved Lithuanian military helicopters and dive teams, and hundreds of American and Lithuanian soldiers and law enforcement officers, the U.S. Army said.
Both Belarus and Russia have frequently criticized Lithuania, a member of NATO that used to be part of the Soviet Union, for hosting American and other allied troops.
Lithuania and other former Soviet states in Eastern Europe are growing worried that President Trump will weaken NATO. Their participation in recovery efforts to find the missing U.S. soldiers showcased what President Gitanas Nauseda of Lithuania said was the value of allies acting together. Poland, Lithuania’s neighbor and another member of NATO, also sent military engineers to help.
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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