On March 25, 1944, an American bomber took off from the tiny island of Attu, in the Aleutian chain, to strike the Japanese in the Kuril Islands. Like so many planes from that time, Bomber 31 simply vanished. Unlike the most of the others, however, this one reappeared more than half a century later, at a crash site in the wilds of Kamchatka. Tomorrow night, the PBS show Nova will debut an excellent one-hour program on Bomber 31 and its mysterious fate. (Nova’s PR people kindly sent me an advance tape.) Investigators try to piece together what happened to the plane on its last flight, examine evidence that the KGB interfered with the wreckage 30 years ago, and scratch their heads over whether any of the seven crew members survived the crash. The filmmakers also followed the son of Bomber 31’s radioman–the boy was just 10 months old when the plane went down, and he visits the site on a quest to find a fragment of human remains that can be linked to his dad, so that a man he never knew can receive a proper burial at Arlington National Cemetry. It’s a fascinating and moving hour of TV.