Aviation Archaeology

[MikeC]

Aviation archaeology, also known as aerospace archaeology, aircraft archaeology, crash hunting, or wreck chasing, is an activity practiced by both military enthusiasts and academics, in pursuit of finding, documenting, recovering, and preserving sites important in aviation history. For the most part, these sites are aircraft wrecks and crash sites, but also include structures and facilities related to aviation.

Over time, I will post current events as they develop, in addition to examples of salient recoveries from the past. Please feel free to add to this thread or start one of your own.

Mike

[MikeC]

Dateline : From The Budapest Sun

"Wreck comes up for air By Krisztián R Hildebrand Jun. 10, 1999 - Vol. VII, Is. 23 While Hungary and the world were paying attention to modern fighter planes arriving at Taszár, a team of aeronautical enthusiasts were busy recovering a submerged Soviet airplane shot down over Lake Balaton by the Germans during the Second World War.

The IL-2, a ground-attack aircraft, was recovered near Balatonkenese, on the northeastern tip of the lake, by a team of divers, explosives experts and policemen.

The plane was discovered this spring by fishermen when their nets became snarled in the wreckage about 100 meters off-shore, said Colonel Gábor Máté, of the Museum of Military History.

Máté said the museum was "very happy" to recover the plane as existing IL-2’s on market are very expensive.

He added that most members of the recovery team worked for free, and that there were sponsors to cover material costs.

According to Máté, the Ilyushin IL-2, or the "Shturmovik" as it was popularly called, will become a valued piece in the Military History Museum’s collection as there are only four others on display in the world: In the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Bulgaria.

The plane formed the backbone of the Soviet ground-attack units.

About 70 were used in air-battles over Hungary. It was extremely robust, not least because of the armor that protected most of the vital parts.

This is one of the reasons why the machine has remained in a relatively good condition after 54 years under water.

"Wooden parts of the plane have decayed, but the body is in one piece and it is possible to restore this Shturmovik," Máté said.

Experts believe that the plane was hit but the crew had time to carry out an emergency landing and escape, as no bodies were found in the cockpit.

This is not the first plane to be found in the Balaton. In 1994 a Russian PE-2 wing was found by swimmers and in 1996 a German Junkers 88G-1 plane was discovered.

There could well be other planes under Hungarian waters, because metal-detectors indicate further objects, Máté said.

However, it is very difficult and expensive to determine exactly what they are because the objects need to be lifted from the bottom first."

[MikeC]

WWII P-38 fighter discovered in Wales Associated Press

NEW YORK - Sixty-five years after an American P-38 fighter plane ran out of gas and crash-landed on a beach in Wales, the long-forgotten World War II relic has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried.

Beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers often frolicked within a few yards of the aircraft, unaware of its existence until last summer, when unusual weather caused the sand to shift and erode.

The revelation of the Lockheed "Lightning" fighter, with its distinctive twin-boom design, has stirred interest in British aviation circles and among officials of the country's aircraft museums, ready to reclaim another artifact from history's greatest armed conflict.

Based on its serial number and other records, "the fighter is arguably the oldest P-38 in existence, and the oldest surviving 8th Air Force combat aircraft of any type," said Ric Gillespie, who heads a U.S.-based nonprofit group dedicated to preserving historic aircraft. "In that respect it's a major find, of exceptional interest to British and American aviation historians."

Gillespie finds romance as well as historic significance in the discovery of the aircraft, long forgotten by the U.S. government.

"It's sort of like `Brigadoon,' the mythical Scottish village that appears and disappears," he said. "Although the Welsh aren't too happy about that analogy — they have some famous legends of their own."

Gillespie's organization, the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, learned of the plane's existence in September from a British air history enthusiast and sent a team to survey the site last month. The group plans to collaborate with British museum experts in recovering the fragile but nearly intact aircraft next spring.

The Imperial War Museum Duxford and the Royal Air Force Museum are among the institutions expressing interest.

"The difficult part is to keep such a dramatic discovery secret. Looting of historic wrecks, aircraft or ships, is a major problem, in Britain as it is worldwide," Gillespie said.

British aviation publications have been circumspect about disclosing the exact location, and local Welsh authorities have agreed to keep the plane under surveillance whenever it is exposed by the tides of the Irish Sea, he said. For now, the aircraft is again buried under sand.

Officially, the U.S. Air Force considers any aircraft lost before Nov. 19, 1961 — when a fire destroyed many records — as "formally abandoned," and has an interest in such cases only if human remains are involved.

The twin-engine P-38, a radical design conceived by Lockheed design genius Clarence "Kelly" Johnson in the late 1930s, became one of the war's most successful fighter planes, serving in Europe and the Pacific. About 10,000 of the planes were built, and about 32 complete or partial airframes are believed to still exist, perhaps 10 in flying condition.

Another P-38, part of a "lost squadron" of warplanes marooned by bad weather in Greenland while being flown to Europe in 1942, was recovered and extensively restored with new parts. Dubbed "Glacier Girl," its attempt to complete the flight to Britain earlier this year was thwarted by mechanical problems.

The Wales Lightning, built in 1941, reached Britain in early 1942 and flew combat missions along the Dutch-Belgian coast.

Second Lt. Robert F. "Fred" Elliott, 24, of Rich Square, N.C., was on a gunnery practice mission on Sept. 27, 1942, when a fuel supply error forced him to make an emergency landing on the nearest suitable place — the Welsh beach.

His belly landing in shallow water sheared off a wingtip, but Elliott escaped unhurt. Less than three months later, the veteran of more than 10 combat missions was shot down over Tunisia, in North Africa. His plane and body were never found.

As the disabled P-38 could not be flown off the beach, "American officers had the guns removed, and the records say the aircraft was salvaged, but it wasn't," Gillespie said. "It was gradually covered with sand, and there it sat for 65 years. With censorship in force and British beaches closed to the public during the war, nobody knew it was there."

It was first spotted by a family enjoying a day at the beach on July 31.

The discovery was stunning news for Robert Elliott, 64, of Blountville, Tenn., the pilot's nephew and only surviving relative. He has spent nearly 30 years trying to learn more about his namesake's career and death.

All he knew of the Wales incident was a one-line entry saying Elliott had "ditched a P-38 and was uninjured."

"So this is just a monumental discovery, and a very emotional thing," said Elliott, an engineering consultant. He said he hopes to be present for the recovery.


Photo Courtesy of TIGHAR

[MikeC]

On 5 October 2006, The HAF Underwater Operations Team (KΟΣΥΘΕ) successfully carried out the salvage of a Luftwaffe Ju87D-3/Trop Stuka, from a depth of 15 metres, half a mile off the coast of Prassonisi at Rhodes island.

The aircraft is S7+GM (100375), crewed by Lt. Rolf Metzger & Uffz. Hans Sopnemann – both MIA), which was shot down on 9 October 1943.

On that very day, the II/St.G. 3 lost a total of nine Ju 87D-3/Trop when they were intercepted during their mission against Royal Navy and Hellenic Navy ships in the Aegean. Of these nine, seven crashed into the sea and two made emergency landings on Rhodes. A week before, German troops had landed on the island of Kos, which fell the next day. On 9 October 1943, HMS cruiser "Carlisle" and other destroyers, returning from a sweep west of Kos, were dive-bombed SW of Rhodes Island by a formation of Ju-87 Stukas. "Carlisle" was seriously damaged and HMS destroyer "Panther" was sunk. Most of her crew were saved by the RHN destroyer “Miaoulis”, which has also claimed firing against the Ju-87 formation and probably hit a couple of them.

According to information supplied by HAF Museum experts, from a first inspection of the fuselage, it is suggested that the aircraft has most probably been hit by aircraft fire. In this case, a plausible explanation is that it was downed by P-38s (Ligtning) belonging to USAAF 37th Fighter Squadron, led by the famous double Ace Major William Leverette. On that same day, seven P-38s on a mission to protect RN warships in the Mediterranean sighted a formation of 30 German Ju-87 dive bombers. Following fierce dogfights, 37th Sq has claimed downing several Luftwaffe Stukas and a Ju-88.

Almost sixty years after her loss, in October 2004, the wreck was caught to the net of the fishing boat “Konstantinos” belonging to Captain Spyros Varvaris from Kalymnos Island, seven miles off the southern cape of Rhodes. It was then drugged all the way to shallow waters and the incident was reported to the Hellenic Coast Authorities. Given the historical importance of the aircraft, the HAF General Staff decided to proceed to its salvage. The precise position of the wreck was pointed out by diver Yannis Glinatsis, resident of Rhodes. Following this, the aircraft was videotaped by the HAF divers in order to determine the optimum salvage method. Technical drawings were made available by the HAF Museum, while HAF experts suggested the strongest points, from which the aircraft could safely be suspended and lifted. All these were taken into consideration by the HAF diving engineers, who have more than 20 years accumulated experience in salvage and deep submergence operations, including the successful salvage of a RAF Blenheim in 1996 at Crete (and another one at Prespes Lake), a Ju-52/3m off Leros Island, not to mention several modern fighters, fire-fighters and helicopters (including a CH 47/D from the unprecedented depth of 960 metres!). All the above led to an exceptionally precise weighing of the A/C, which was smoothly lifted from the seabed intact.
Soon after the aircraft was brought to the surface, the HAF Museum technicians took care of her. The plane was washed with water and special chemicals were applied in order to avoid corrosion due to exposure to the atmospheric air. Following this, the aircraft was taken to the local airfield of Maritsa, where first degree restoration has been applied. The outer parts of the wings were then properly dismantled and the plane was shipped to the HAF Museum at Dekeleia Air Base, Tatoi, where a full restoration programme will be carried out. It is anticipated that the Stuka will be available for viewing during the HAF Celebration Day on 8 November 2006.

Those who would like to pay a visit to Dhekeleia Air Base on that day should contact the HAF Museum at the following numbers: ++30 210 8195254 (5255, 5265) or fax at: ++30 210 2461 661.

[MikeC]

Ju-87 Cont'd. All images Courtesy of The Hellenic Air Force.

[Santi]

Excellent thread! ;)

[MRomanych]

From: http://www.modbee.com/life/friendsfamily/story/452727.html

A German fighter plane is carefully restored
By Guy Keeler
The Fresno Bee
October 05, 2008

During World War II, more than 30,000 German Messerschmitt Me 109 fighter planes darkened the skies over Europe. Most of them didn't survive the war.

But a few live on in museums and hangars around the world. One of them, painstakingly restored by Harold Kindsvater at his ranch in the foothills east of Clovis, will be featured on the Military Channel's new aviation history series, "Showdown: Air Combat."

The episode with Kindsvater will air at 7 p.m. Oct. 12. A film crew visited Central California in early August to interview Kindsvater and photograph his plane, which is stored in a hangar at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater.

"Harold's hard work really shines through in his beautiful and meticulously restored airframe," says Maj. Paul "Max" Moga, host of the show and an F-22A demonstration pilot with the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.
The Me 109 was one of the most important fighters in the German Luftwaffe during World War II; it destroyed more planes than any other aircraft.

"It was the workhorse for the German fighter fleet during the early stages of World War II," Moga says. "It was designed for short-range intercept missions, primarily defense of the homeland."

"It was so good in the air you never worried about getting shot down," says Skip Holm, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who has flown Kindsvater's Me 109. "Harold's plane is very close to original. He's done a very good restoration."

Detailed paint job

Although the plane never flew during the war, Kindsvater used manufacturer's blueprints to reproduce the paint scheme of the Luftwaffe's 26th Squadron, a unit that saw action in North Africa and the Baltic. From nose to tail, the plane looks just like one from the war.

"It took two months to paint it," Kindsvater says.

The detailed paint job includes the German lettering "nicht betreten" (don't step on) and "nicht anfassen" (don't touch) at key points on wings and tail.

Holm, president and CEO of Bear Aerospace in Calabasas, flew Kindsvater's plane to the Experimental Aircraft Association's 2004 convention in Oshkosh, Wis., where it received a judges' choice award in the foreign fighter division.

Kindsvater, a native of Fresno, got interested in aviation after he started jumping out of planes in 1963.

Sky diving provided a wonderful rush, he says, but every time he looked at the pilot as he was about to jump, he wondered if it might be more fun to fly a plane. So he quit sky diving, earned his pilot's license and bought his own plane, a Cessna 195.

Kindsvater's fascination with restoring old planes began as a dream. Although he had never served in the military, he thought it would be interesting to fly an old fighter. And he became interested in German planes because of his German ancestry.

In 1978, he bought an Me 108 Messerschmitt at an estate sale in Florida. After three years of work and a couple of trips to Europe to search for parts, Kindsvater got the plane flying and won awards at air shows in Madera and Watsonville.

He added two other planes to his collection -- a Messerschmitt 208 liaison plane and a Storch ambulance plane -- before trading the Storch in 1988 to the Commemorative Air Force, a nonprofit organization that restores and flies vintage military aircraft, for the Me 109.

"It was a basket case," he says, referring to the Me 109's condition. The engine had been removed and the wings had been taken off, Kindsvater says, adding, "I drove back to Texas and hauled it home."

The plane's airframe was made in Germany and was sent to Spain during the war, but it never got into the air because its Daimler-Benz engine failed to arrive. After the war, it was equipped with a Rolls-Royce engine and became part of the Spanish Air Force, which continued flying Me 109s until 1965.

When the plane's military service ended, it was one of several purchased at auction by a film production company for use in filming the 1968 movie "Battle of Britain." After the film was completed, Texas pilot and airplane collector Wilson Edwards acquired that plane and 10 others in payment for his flying services; Edwards eventually donated it and two others to the Commemorative Air Force.

Worth the wait

It took Kindsvater more than 10 years to restore the Me 109. Even with a large collection of spare parts he got when he traded for the plane, he still needed to make three trips to Europe to search for things that were missing.

"I could have made everything myself, but that would have taken longer," he says.

Kindsvater swapped parts with the Luftwaffe Museum in Berlin and with Gunter Leonhardt, director of an air museum in Hannover, Germany.

"I wanted original stuff," he says. "About a half-dozen times, I hit a brick wall."
But Kindsvater's persistence paid off. A collector in Austria provided four original screws for a panel cover. Kindsvater obtained a clock for the instrument panel on eBay from a man in England who found it at a World War II crash site.

When the restoration work was done, Kindsvater fired up the plane's engine but did not want to risk a takeoff because he feared the 2,000-foot runway at his home was too short.

With the help of some friends from the Experimental Aircraft Association, he took the plane apart, hauled it to the Castle Air Museum and put it back together. English test pilot Charlie Brown flew the restored plane in 2000.
A year later, Kindsvater flew the Me 109 himself.

Moga says inspecting vintage planes such as Kindsvater's Me 109 fills him with admiration for World War II pilots.

"I don't know how those guys did what they did," he says. "It must have taken unbelievable guts to go up against other fighters in do-or-die situations. It's eerie. You can almost feel their ghosts in those old planes."

Photos courtesy of www.modbee.com

[Javi E]

hello take a look t othis....

The fate of the pilot Lazarev
February, 21st, 1943 from the Soviet military air base in Chupa two fighters P-40 and five Hurricanes flight to the operation one of the Hurricanes was piloted by the pilot of 760-th IAP sergeant Lazarev

In the same time German pilot Oberfeldwebel Rudolf Muller from 6/JG5 ' Expertenstaffel with his squad of the four of fighters Bf109G has been escorted five bombers Ju87D, and entered to the fight on his Bf109G-2 with the Soviet fighters of 760-th IAP. In action, near the area of railway station – Polyarnyi Krug, he shot down his last plane in his life, before he got the same fate- he was knock out on April, 19th 1943. Muller's plane has been hit in 8 km to the east of lake Maljarvi, then catch by soviets and sent in POW camp where was killed on October, 21st 1943 when attempting to escape. The military historian Jury Rybin, has found out the information confirming the fact in archive, that in that day Muller has hit down two Soviet planes, one of which was piloted by sergeant Boris Aleksandrovich Lazarev.


Most likely after the Hurricane was hit, Lasarev having unfastened belts on his hands, tried to leave the machine falling down, but has loose time. Probably, the low height has not allowed it to make it. ' Hurricane ' has fallen in a bog. The pilot was died from the strongest kick to a control panel of the plane. When he died he was only 22 y.o

Boris Aleksandrovich Lazarev burried in the cemetry of Chupa, Karelian Republic

[MRomanych]

Thanks for sharing this incredible find. Although ghoulish, it aptly demonstrates how truth can be stranger than fiction.

[MikeC]

Javi,

Thanks for posting this. I saved this story for future research when it first came out a few years ago, but somehow had lost it in the interim.

I remember there was slight concern that the story was fabriacted, the circumstances do seem a bit unreal, but the majority of media agreed that it was accurate. It piqued my interest to pursue it further.

Outstanding!

[MRomanych]

New map reveals locations of unexploded World War Two bombs
Maps showing the likely locations of thousands of unexploded bombs dropped during World War Two have been created for the first time.
By Jasper Copping
18 Jul 2008

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2391450/New-map-reveals-locations-of-unexploded-World-War-Two-bombs.html

Up to one in ten bombs dropped by the German Luftwaffe failed to detonate leaving a deadly legacy which still lies under the nation's streets and fields.

The new map will be used by builders to tell them the risks from unexploded bombs where they are working. Members of the public will also be able to access the map, which identifies 21,000 locations where there could be unexploded bombs.

Experts have studied aerial photographs taken by the RAF after the war and maps created by insurance companies to assess the extent of the bombing damage.

They have been able to pinpoint sites across the UK where unexploded munitions are most likely to be concealed. The cities with the highest number of sites are London, Plymouth, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham.

David Mole, from the Landmark Information Group, which has compiled the charts, said: "Bombs were dropped in sequence and the photographs and maps show where buildings have been demolished. From that we can work out the patterns and where there is most likely to be unexploded ordnance.

"In between the areas that were cleared by bombs are pockets that were untouched. Looking at them now, 60 years later, with detailed images of the pattern of destruction around them, you know there is a very good chance there is a bomb in the vicinity."

The online maps are available for all major cities and areas of the countryside where bombings took place.

Unexploded German bombs are still unearthed across Britain, with relative frequency, in gardens, fields, allotments and building sites, where their sudden discovery can cause lengthy and expensive disruptions.

Last month, work on the Olympic site, in east London, had to be halted, after the discovery of a 1,000kg unexploded device. A survey has found that the site could contain as many as 200 devices.

If a bomb is suspected in an area, specialist firms are able to use electromagnetic equipment to scan for buried metal that may be ordnance. They can also sink probes into the ground to search for deeply buried devices.

At the Weld Arms, a thatched pub in East Lulworth, Dorset, a 50kg bomb was unearthed last year while a new patio was being laid in the beer garden.

Krista Pall, who works at the pub, said: "It was a pretty big surprise. We don't know if there are any more around but if we find another, at least we won't be quite so surprised.

Many of the bombs dropped over Britain by the Luftwaffe were faulty and failed to explode when dropped.

Historians believe many were sabotaged by workers in occupied Europe who were forced to produce them for the Germans.

Some devices were timed to go off some time after hitting the ground, in order to maximise their disruptive and destructive effects.

However, the clockwork mechanisms jammed in several cases.

Their impact created shallow craters and they were then covered up by earth disturbed by nearby explosions or later construction work. The bombs can become inert over time, but when disturbed, the timing mechanism can restart.

Terry Charman, senior historian at the Imperial War Museum, in London, said: "It was often sheer carelessness in their manufacture that meant they didn't explode. In some cases, there was perhaps sabotage as well.

"There is still great interest when these things turn up, because for so many people it is still a living memory. Bombings were far more widespread than just in London."

Here is the link to the actual bomb maps on-line: http://www.zetica.com/uxb_downloads.htm

[MRomanych]

Mapping of seabed to locate lost war aircraft
By Jasper Copping
12 Nov 2007

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1568975/Mapping-of-seabed-to-locate-lost-war-aircraft.html

The wrecks of thousands of aircraft that crashed in the sea off the English coast are to be located in a major new mapping of the seabed.

Most went down during the Second World War and the project, being co-ordinated by English Heritage, is to ensure their final resting places are protected.

This follows the discovery of a growing number of plane wrecks, some containing human remains, by crews of barges dredging for sand and gravel for the construction industry.

Many of the aircraft may be carrying unexploded munitions. The Government wants to chart their positions to restrict dredging in some areas and to help manage future offshore development such as wind farms.

Charts already pinpoint known shipwrecks, but this is the first time aircraft wrecks are to be mapped.

Recently located planes include a Supermarine Attacker, an early British jet fighter, off Worthing in West Sussex, and an American B-17 Flying Fortress bomber off Newhaven, East Sussex.

Two wrecks off the Suffolk coast, a German bomber and a US bomber, had human remains on board. Veterans groups and the RAF Museum have been informed of the project and will be kept updated over any finds.

The project could also help to solve the mysteries of the crashes involving Amy Johnson, the pioneering flyer, and the bandleader Glenn Miller. Johnson died in 1941 after ditching in the Thames estuary. Her body and her plane were never found.

Miller died in 1944 when the military plane he was in vanished over the Channel. It is thought it might have been hit when a plane returning from an aborted raid on Germany jettisoned its bombs.

Britain, the US and Germany have been asked to provide records of aircraft lost in the First and Second World Wars, and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch is giving information on civilian crashes.

An estimated 11,000 RAF aircraft have been lost in the North Atlantic, North Sea, the Channel, Irish Sea and the Bay of Biscay since 1939.

At Runnymede, in Surrey, an RAF memorial contains the names of more than 20,000 airmen missing in operations over northern Europe, many of whom were lost at sea.

[MRomanych]

Fw 190A-2 Yellow 16 rises from the deep

http://www.flightjournal.com/Me2/Default.asp

"December 15, 1943 Fw-190A2 'Yellow 16' took of from the airfield Herdla in Norway. Shortly after takeoff, the pilot experienced engine trouble and had to make a controlled emergency landing on the water near the village of Solsvika west of Bergen. Almost 63 years later, on November 1, 2006, the aircraft got air under its wing again, when it was raised from a depth of 60 meters after a 5 hour recovery operation.

"Local enthusiast knew about this aircraft but the Royal Norwegian Navy vessel KNM Tyr first plotted the exact location on May 11, 2005. The enthusiast formed the “Working Group Fw 190 A2 – Gelbe 16” and began preparations to raise the wreck from the water. Connections with local museums was established and the group gained a mandate from the Norwegian Defence Museum regarding handling and administration of the aircraft which would see it recovered and eventually displayed at its former airfield of Herdla in connection with Herdla Museum.The Working Group was formed by: Geir Tangen, Halvor Sperbund, Ole Sælensminde, Svein Ove Agdestein, Olav Helvik and Ivar Nordland.

"Between May 2005 and June 2006 units from Royal Norwegian Navy led by LtCdr Wiggo Korsvik (Mine & EOD Diving Command with assistance from Royal Norwegian Navy Diving School) conducted several diving expeditions to the aircraft to discern the condition of the wreck and the surrounds in preparation for the lifting of the aircraft. To prevent theft and to gain a picture of the quality of the wreck, the two MG17 guns, along with some cockpit equipment and hatches were recovered. Activity also included the mounting of lifting equipment on the aircraft. From June until September a civilian diving team led by Mr Didrik Venge completed the remainder of the work to rig the aircraft.

"Wednesday November 1, the aircraft was raised. The operation went exactly as planned. The aircraft was lifted onto the former ferry Flekkerøy and transported to the Naval Base Haakonsvern near Bergen. The Naval Base will be hosting the Working Group whilst cleaning and preservation is undertaken up until March 2007. The aircraft will be separated in 6 – 8 main components and place in containers with fresh water to prevent corrosion. When the aircraft parts are cleaned and preserved they will be transported to Herdla museum to make a static display as it is today. There is no plan at the moment to restore the aircraft.

"Fw190 A-2 werk.nr.5425, ‘Yellow 16’ served with 12./JG.5. The pilot was rescued by local fisherman and handed over to German authorities, which in turn released a prisoner held for illegal use of a radio. Several Werk nr have been found on the parts recovered so the actual Werk nr is still open for question. It also have had several tactical markings like, two times Black 6 and one white number before servicing as Gelbe 16, indicating an old war horse that had served with several units. One of the black 6 numbers may be from its time from 11./JG 5 at Sola where it had a accident and had to go through extensive repair. The pilot’s name is at the moment not known but several sources indicate that Kurt Kundrus of 12./JG 5 was the pilot of Gelbe 16 that day. He was later killed while flying with JG 3. The group is looking for information and history regarding 12./JG in Norway, and any help on this matter will be greatly appreciated.

Photos from: http://www.luftwaffe.no/wreck/index.htm

For more photos: http://www.bt.no/lokalt/hordaland/article310875.ece

[MRomanych]

Here is a good resource for those interested in aviation archaeology - Simon Parry's aviation archaeology site. It has information about recent excavations that have been carried out in Europe and to provide useful links to web based resources. I think it is very nicely and professionally done.

http://www.redkitebooks.co.uk/aa/

[Frogprince]

I don’t know if this is the right place for this or not. But from a summer trip to the Northwest and the Tillamook Oregon Air Museum. This Nakajima Ki 43 Hayabusa (“Oscar”), which as I understand it, is a fairly rare aircraft. Unfortunately I don’t have any of the “before” pictures, but it was recovered in what was essentially a relic condition. Extensively rebuilt it is flyable, although they had to re-engine it to do so. Making the cowling only very slightly larger. FP

[MRomanych]

Absolutely this is the place for such posts. Thanks for the post and the photos.

I did some Internet searching and found that at the moment there is only one airworthy Oscar and it is the one located at the Tillamook Air Museum. There are six other survivors which are in potentially flyable condition. From the Tillamook Air Museum's own webpage (http://www.tillamookair.com/html/oscar.html), here is a short description of the aircraft and a few photos of it flying:

A very rare Japanese fighter recovered from the Kuril Islands North of Japan
and restored to flying condition.

The Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa, nicknamed Oscar by the Allies, was the Imperial Japanese Army's most widely flown fighter of World War II. In combat, it was often confused with the similar-looking Mitsubishi Zero. Although 5,919 were produced, there are few survivors, for as the war drew to a close many of the remaining Oscars were used as Kamikaze suicide aircraft. The museum is pleased to add this rare aircraft to its warbird collection.

[RaymondG]

It has been a pleasure catching up on the latest additions to the thread.

It always amazes me how well preserved when they are recovered. If you take the example of the FW 190. To say it has been sat in highly corrosive sea water it is pretty well preserved.

Thanks for the latest finds

Raymond

[Norman LaBarge]

Very interesting site. I have been an aircraft nut ever since I was young and found out my father was a tail gunner in B-29s.
Norm

[MikeC]

I may have already posted these P-47 images, but they are an excellent illustration of the high degree of preservation of some aircraft submerged in a high alpine, low oxygented environment. This plane was recoverd several years ago off Ebensee.

Apart from the fabric covered control surfaces and slight damage caused during the hoist, the plane is in pristine condition and will be restored to flight status.

[Frogprince]

Compared to the condition of many other various wartime artifacts, it’s amazing to me that some of these aircraft have survived as well as they have.

I think that some of these might have been used domestically in a military capacity during WW II. Also at the Tillamook Air Museum, is the first one of these I have ever seen (outside of a picture book). The 1938 Bellanca Aircruiser. It might not exactly be a military aircraft, but it would have very easily (IMO) fit right into a movie like “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. :thumbup1:

PS: The structure these aircraft are housed in is a very large wooden hanger made for airships during WWII. FP

[MRomanych]

Navy To Recover WWII Plane From Lake Michigan
Apr 21, 2009
Source: Sun-Times News Group Wire

A World War II bomber plane sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan off the Chicago shoreline for more than 60 years will be brought to the surface this week.

The Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber was credited with winning the Battle of Midway and turning the tide of the Pacific Theater in America's favor, according to a release from the Illinois Office of Communication and Information. This particular plane crashed in Lake Michigan during aircraft carrier qualification training during the early to mid-1940s.

More than 17,000 pilots completed the training, including LTJG George H.W. Bush, later to become U.S. President. The aircraft carriers used for training docked at Navy Pier, while the planes and pilots flew from the Glenview Naval Air Station.

The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, which administers state and federal historic preservation programs, approved the salvage operation. The agency has jurisdiction over historic resources in Illinois, including those located beneath Illinois territorial waters in Lake Michigan.

The recovery of the aircraft is the continuation of a program started by the National Naval Aviation Museum in the 1990s to recover and preserve Navy craft lost in Lake Michigan during World War II, the release said.

The National World War II Museum in New Orleans has sponsored the location, recovery, restoration, and eventual display of the Douglas SBD Dauntless.

The U.S. Navy will complete the recovery portion of the effort this week using a crew from A&T Recovery, according to the release.

The salvaged plane will be removed from the water at about 10 a.m. Friday, April 24 -- weather permitting -- at Larsen Marine at Waukegan Harbor.

[MRomanych]

A very thought provoking article about the negative impact of relic hunting.

Remains are lost in race for relics
Brisk trade in WWII planes thwarts efforts to recover missing fliers

By Kevin Baron and Bryan Bender
Globe Newspaper Company: www.boston.com
May 25, 2009

To the US military, Carter Lutes, a pilot who vanished in Papua New Guinea in April 1944, is one of the lost heroes of World War II. The Pentagon still hopes to recover him. Until then, it considers his jungle crash site a sacred place - and the last known clue to finding him.

Yet while the military was making plans to search for Lutes's remains, other visitors arrived on the site seeking different remains: Lutes's aircraft - a P-47D Thunderbolt, a highly sought-after model in the booming market for authentic World War II planes.

Driven largely by wealthy American collectors, interest in such "warbirds" has grown into a multimillion-dollar frenzy that rivals the most feverish art trend or real estate boom, according to interviews with dozens of collectors, aircraft restorers, museum curators, and government officials.

Now, as the US military invests hundreds of millions of dollars to recover the remains of World War II pilots, it is in a race against relic hunters. In recent years the Pentagon has found nearly 500 missing soldiers from World War II, about half from Papua New Guinea, scene of the most dangerous air battles of the war.

But by the time recovery teams arrive at suspected MIA sites, the locations often have been picked over and crucial evidence is missing.

For example, the P-38 Lightning flown by one of Lutes's missing comrades, John R. Weldon, is now registered to Artemis Aviation Group LLC in Wilmington, Del., according to FAA records. An advertisement published in January said the plane had a "documented combat history with the historic 475th Fighter Group." It was for sale for $495,000. Officials from Artemis did not return calls for comment.

Weldon, who was last seen flying over the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea in January 1944, is still considered a missing soldier, and the Pentagon hopes to recover his remains for a hero's burial.

"We have had to address at least one case that involves this type of site disturbance on every mission that we've done," said Chris McDermott, a historian with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. "The salvaging of the plane leaves us with little to go on. The opportunity to evaluate all the evidence has been lost."

Lisa Phillips, head of the Maine-based WWII Families for the Return of the Missing, considers taking the planes to be akin to grave robbing.

"Disturbing an MIA site is devastating to the identification of our war dead," she said. "There is a very systematic way to recover remains and identify them. When individuals disturb a site . . . it could ruin all chances of having our missing loved ones identified."

Salvage trumps recovery

A decade ago, a World War II fighter plane could be purchased for a few hundred thousand dollars at most. Now, the price for a restored P-51 Mustang, a sleek single-engine fighter called the "Cadillac of the sky", is increasing by tens of thousands of dollars a month; one was offered last summer for $2.7 million, according to Trade-A-Plane, a listing of aircraft sales.

Prices are even higher for the exotic-looking, twin-engine P-38 Lightning; the last two that exchanged hands reportedly went for a whopping $3.8 million and $7 million, respectively.

To feed the demand, wreck hunters are congregating on Papua New Guinea, where jungles mask hundreds of World War II planes - along with at least 2,200 missing American fliers.

The plane last flown by Lieutenant Marion C. "Carter" Lutes is now the pride of two wreck hunters: Fred Hagen, 51, a Pennsylvania millionaire who became "obsessed" with warbirds after searching for the remains of a pilot who was his great-uncle, and Robert Greinert, 51, an Australian aircraft restorer who proudly displays the shell of Lutes's plane in his workshop south of Sydney.

Sitting on a dolly in a cluttered hangar, the wings, tail, and nose of Lutes's plane are gone, and cables spill from its rusty fuselage. The readings on the cockpit dials that Lutes relied on are frozen behind cracked glass.

"It's neat," said Greinert, wiping grease from his hands and gesturing toward the P-47D Thunderbolt.

For Hagen, a construction business owner who says he paid $100,000 for Greinert's help in the salvage operation, the plane is a treasure.

"It's going to be a work of art," Hagen said in an interview in his stone farmhouse overlooking the Delaware River. "It's going to be a masterpiece of engineering and it's going to be an important historic artifact."

But to Pentagon MIA searchers looking for their "brothers," people like Greinert and Hagen make their mission much harder.

"There is a lot of evidence in there - once you start poking around and moving things, that evidence can be lost or destroyed," said Johnnie Webb, a Vietnam veteran and the top civilian official at the MIA recovery command. "If there are remains in there, they have given their life for this country. We have a responsibility to bring them home."

The Pentagon believes the remains of Lutes, who was a 39-year-old former Firestone clerk from Oklahoma, could still be near the crash site. When military investigators first visited it, they called for an excavation by a forensic anthropologist.

But the anthropologist never got to see the undisturbed site.

Major Brian Desantis, a military spokesman, said Hagen and Greinert persuaded the Papua New Guinea National Museum, which is in charge of protecting the sites, to let them recover the aircraft for salvage, even as the MIA recovery command "tried unsuccessfully to have this blocked."

Islands full of wrecks

Under a blazing August sun in Oshkosh, Wis., three men sat under the wing of a restored P-38 known as "Ruff Stuff."

There was the pilot, the chief restorer, and the man considered the godfather of wreck hunting, a 71-year-old, soft-spoken New Zealander, Charles Darby.

The plane was among the biggest draws at last year's EAA AirVenture, the country's largest gathering of aircraft enthusiasts, with more than 400 warbirds and a half million spectators.

Many trace the modern wreck-hunting trade to Darby, author of a 1979 book, "Pacific Aircraft Wrecks . . . And Where To Find Them." It contains dozens of pictures of nearly intact World War II aircraft in Papua New Guinea's fields and jungles. Greinert calls the book his bible.

Darby's father once managed coconut plantations in Papua New Guinea and told stories of islands littered with the wreckage of war.

On Darby's first visit to the islands in 1963, he hunted wrecks. While still a university student, he said, he got a call from an American, asking, "Hey Sonny, I hear you can get me a P-39," an early-war fighter called the Airacobra.

Darby's reply: "I can get you a whole squadron."

So began a series of salvages. In his book, Darby explained how to combine parts of different wrecks to create a complete aircraft.

"So what you do is you get one or two airplanes and you start taking them apart, piece by piece," explained Gerald Yegan, a collector from Virginia Beach, Va..

Darby, in an interview, acknowledged finding human remains in some of the planes. Once, when he and his team found a B-24 bomber with the crew and its bombs still inside, they tried to do the right thing, he said. "We got some bones, put them in body bags, called the [New Guinea] authorities."

But the authorities declared the site a danger and blew "the bombs, plane, and rest of the crew to smithereens," Darby said.

Thereafter, Darby said, when his team found planes with remains inside, they simply left them in place.

The greed of the original wreck hunters, however, would eventually upset island authorities. A collector who worked with Darby was banned for life, accused of corrupting officials and stealing national war relics.

But a new generation would take their place, led by Greinert, who is known for traveling deep into the jungle to find the most valuable wrecks, those that were lost in combat.

Pieces with murky origins

One of the planes Greinert pulled out of the jungle was a P-39 Airacobra, serial number 42-66534. According to military records, it was last flown by Lieutenant Charles H. Chapman before it collided with a Japanese bomber on May 18, 1942.

Spotted by local hunters near the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby in 2001, the plane soon came to the attention of the MIA command, which dispatched a local contractor to the site to begin searching for Chapman's remains.

But before an anthropologist could get there, Greinert salvaged the wreckage, according to the military command.

Greinert said he placed the parts from Chapman's wreck in storage at the Papua New Guinea National Museum. Another well-known wreck hunter removed them and shipped them out of the country, according to Greinert and two others who worked with the wreck hunter.

The whereabouts of Chapman's plane could not be confirmed, and some wreck hunters believe that it has been cannibalized for parts - a common occurrence that usually takes place far from the eyes of the rich collectors who fund the warbird trade.

The most famous collector in the United States - owner of at least 15 of the most prized warbirds - is Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft and owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team.

Allen's collection, envied among warbird enthusiasts, has been restored, in part, by a US-based workshop called WestPac, whose operator, Bill Klaers, told the aviation trade magazine Aeroplane that he receives wrecks from Papua New Guinea. Klaers did not respond to numerous Globe messages.

David Postman, Allen's spokesman, said in a written statement, that "We strongly believe that obtaining information about fallen pilots and crew is far more important than collecting vintage aircraft" and that none of Allen's planes themselves were involved in fatal crashes.

He acknowledged that Allen uses WestPac for parts and restoration, but said: "While we can't know where every part for every aircraft comes from, it is highly unlikely that parts from overseas wrecks of American planes were used in our restorations. There is a readily available supply of authentic but unused parts for vintage American war planes in the United States."

Despite Postman's assertion, numerous wreck hunters and restorers - including Greinert, Yegan, and Allen's own curator, Adrian Hunt - noted in interviews that many types of parts are scarce in the United States and that restorers often rely on New Guinea wreckage, both for the parts and for templates for making replacements.

And critics insist that collectors should make certain that none of the parts come from MIA wrecks, rather than shift the responsibility to their restorers.

"A museum that says, 'Oh, we don't know where this stuff comes from,' to me, it's a reckless statement," said Justin Taylan, who runs the website PacificWrecks.org. "If it were an art museum or any type of historical entity, that wouldn't fly."

But others make the same contention, including the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's restoration facility in Maryland. The Smithsonian relies on the workshop at Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson, to provide parts for its planes.

Al Bachmeier, museum specialist at the Smithsonian facility, said he does not ask the suppliers to verify the origin of each piece mounted on a Smithsonian display plane.

"Boy, I don't know whether we've asked those kind of questions," he said. "Our biggest problem is monitoring something like that from 3,000 miles away."

Inside Pima warehouses, however, sits a lineup of seven P-47 Thunderbolt fuselages, each wingless, cut off at the nose, and battered - some of the original planes chronicled in Darby's ground-breaking wreck-hunting book, according to museum curator Scott Marchand.

Good deed or greed?

From his office in a run-down industrial park in Port Moresby, John Douglas has had a front row seat to watch the scramble for World War II relics.

An environmental assessor and helicopter pilot, Douglas knows the remote terrain probably better than anyone. He has a card catalog of roughly 600 to 700 World War II aircraft wrecks. Stashed away in his special collection of war memorabilia are the dog tags of dozens of American soldiers.

By the 1990s, he gained a reputation as one of a handful of people who could help enthusiasts find wrecks and negotiate with locals.

Although it is technically illegal to remove aircraft from the island, wreck hunters simply "pay a little grease money to somebody and the container disappears," Douglas said.

"The museum here has policies that say we'll only trade with museums or government to government," he added. "But if somebody turns up with a few donations, a few caps of beer and a bit of loose cash, it's, 'Yes, whatever you want.' "

Simon Poraituk, the director of the cash-strapped National Museum in Port Moresby, calls these payments a "donation."

"It's sort of a donation that was put in, in exchange for taking the aircraft," he said in an interview.

To the US military, however, they are bribes.

Hagen, for his part, maintains that his search for prized aircraft has helped bring answers to families who lost loved ones, such as that of 19-year-old Wilfrid J. Desilets Jr. of Worcester, whose remains he recovered in 1997.

At Desilets's funeral, Hagen spoke at the family's invitation.

He says the US military, with its limited ability to search for the 78,000 personnel missing from World War II, should be grateful for his willingness to invest his money and undertake personal risks to reach some of the wreck sites.

"They need an army of people like me if they are serious about it," Hagen said. Wreck hunters, he added, "shouldn't be excoriated and put down because they've taken the trouble to do something which is very noble."

But the race between the military and the wreck hunters is accelerating, the Pentagon says. Because Papua New Guinea has opened its unexplored terrain to mining, timber, and energy companies, more warplanes are being discovered each week - and many likely contain the remains of their fliers.

If wreck hunters get there first, warned former Navy archeologist Wendy Coble, the crews may never be found.

"Is that fair to the families?" Coble said. "Because somebody decided they wanted to have something to fly?"

Photo from article: Australian Robert Greinert finds and restores wrecked airplanes.

[MRomanych]

Recovered WW II bomber, bombs cause stir in Watson Lake
From CBC News
June 4, 2009

Second World War artifacts, including a pile of vintage 500-pound bombs and the nose section of an American B-26 bomber, have surfaced in Watson Lake, causing a small turf war between the Yukon government and the Alberta couple that salvaged the plane wreckage.

The couple recovered a section of the B-26 Marauder bomber, which was part of an Allied training fleet during the Second World War, from a nearby lake last week.

While details are sorted out between the government and the couple, the recovered material isn't going anywhere.

"What we have right now is a section of the aircraft, the nose section, on a trailer, out at the lake," Watson Lake RCMP Cpl. Tom Howell told CBC News on Wednesday.

"What we're dealing with here is an aircraft that's been known to be there for a while, but people who have salvaged it were doing it basically as a … working holiday, just trying to raise this wreck and perhaps restore it."

Yukon heritage not for export, official says

Officials with the Yukon's Department of Tourism and Culture, however, say the Alberta couple had no right to go treasure hunting for the bomber plane, and it's not theirs to keep.

"These assets are part of the Yukon's heritage and we manage them under the Historic Resources Act," said Jeff Hunston, the department's manager of heritage resources.

"Our heritage is not for acquisition and export outside of the Yukon without proper authorization, and these individuals do not have any permits or authorities from the Yukon government to undertake this sort of activity."

Hunston said the territorial government does not want any more of the aircraft recovered. The department is sending officials to Watson Lake to meet with the couple, he added.

National Defence to check out old bombs

Federal defence officials are also going to Watson Lake this week to address safety concerns with the bombs, which were found late last week near the local airport.

Howell said the bombs appear to weigh about 225 kilograms (500 pounds).

Mark Ritchie, the Yukon's superintendent for community airports, said it's no secret that Allied forces used the Watson Lake area as a practice field during the Second World War. Finding the bombs is a bit unusual, however, he added.

"We're currently working with the Department of National Defence to come up and investigate it," he said.

Howell said RCMP and airport authorities are expected to secure the area in the meantime.

"From our perspective, we're treating it as all live ordnance and keeping the public away — although, from what I understand, some of the public has snuck into the area having their pictures taken with these bombs," he said.

The Defence Department will decide what will happen next with the vintage bombs, Howell said.

Photos from article:
- The bomber wreckage will stay on a trailer near Watson Lake until a dispute is worked out between the couple and Yukon heritage officials.
- RCMP are trying to keep people away from the vintage bombs, which were found last week near the Watson Lake airport

[MikeC]

The shame is the once that fuselage section was removed from the water, preservation should have begun immediately. The longer it is exposed to the elements, the faster the aluminum will degrade, and the ferrous parts will rust.

[MRomanych]

According to this article "An estimated 300 military airplanes went to the bottom of Lake Michigan during World War II." Wow!

'Pristine' WWII aircraft lifted from Lake Michigan

Dive bomber will be put on display at Pearl Harbor

Katie Urbaszewski
Honolulu advertiser
20 June 2009

The Pacific Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor currently displays a full-size fiberglass model of a type of dive bomber that played a crucial role in World War II. Now that museum officials helped bring about the recovery of one of those historic planes from the bottom of Lake Michigan, the model will be replaced with the real thing.

A Douglas SBD Dauntless, one of several types of aircraft the U.S. Navy used to defeat the Japanese navy at the Battle of Midway, was raised yesterday from a depth of 300 feet where it had lain for 65 years. The museum's executive director, Ken DeHoff, flew to Waukegan, Ill., to observe the retrieval, an operation that took about a year to plan.

When the plane broke the surface of the water, everyone present was "ecstatic," DeHoff said.

"People were so excited to see how well it was intact."

The lake's conditions — a combination of cold water and lack of sunlight — are excellent for preserving aircraft wrecks, and officials were aware even before they lifted it that the Dauntless would be in "pristine" condition, DeHoff said.

Once the plane was on land, it quickly became clear what good condition it was in. The structure of the body, wings and tail were undamaged, much of the underside's blue paint remained and only one wheel had fallen off.

"There was still gasoline in the tank," DeHoff said.

Still, it will take the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla., about three years to dissemble and clean each part of the plane, and DeHoff doesn't expect it to arrive in Hawai'i until 2012.

PLANE SERVED IN HONOLULU

An estimated 300 military airplanes went to the bottom of Lake Michigan during World War II in training accidents and mechanical malfunctions, according to the national museum. The U.S. Navy's underwater aircraft recovery program has recovered 39 of them since 1990.

The Dauntless bound for Hawai'i, No. 2173, served in Honolulu in 1942, flew off the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and was later used for carrier qualifications out of Chicago's Navy Pier and Glenview Naval Air Station, DeHoff said.

The carburetor iced up in 1944, resulting in a belly-landing in the lake. Pilot John Lendo survived, DeHoff said.

The plane had been resting nose down at a 45-degree angle at the bottom of the lake ever since, he said.

Chicago-based A&T Recovery, which helped the Navy recover most of the 39 World War II planes retrieved from Lake Michigan, began to slowly raise the Dauntless two days before the recovery to ensure that it wouldn't be damaged by the lift.

Crews attached air balloons to the plane underwater and let it rise naturally, and a crane retrieved the aircraft in the final stage of the recovery yesterday morning.

ARRIVAL GREETED WITH HULA

Hula dancers and a kahu's blessing greeted the Dauntless as the crane pulled it to the surface.

Taras Lyssenko of A&T Recovery was surprised not only by the plane's condition — better than most of the 36 planes the company has recovered from the lake — but also by the ceremony.

"Nobody ever does that," he said, explaining that people hardly ever celebrate the raising of a plane at all, let alone with hula dancers.

Between paperwork the Navy required and collaboration with the National Naval Aviation Museum, the planning took about a year, DeHoff said.

It was worth it, he said, not only for the museum, but for Hawaii as well.

"Every time we bring an aircraft to Hawaii that flew out of Hawaii, we're bringing back a piece of history," he said. "We always have people come back to say, 'I worked on that airplane.'"

[MikeC]

AWESOME:thumbup:

[MRomanych]

There are probably lots more aircraft still waiting to be found in the Mediterranean.

P-47 remains excite Italian aviation buffs

Kent Harris
Stars and Stripes
November 15, 2009

CHIOGGIA, Italy — It doesn’t look like much today.

In fact, casual observers might be hard-pressed to figure out it used to be a plane.

But on closer inspection, the wings and cockpit can be identified. Perhaps with closer inspection, clues might be found to help identify the aircraft and the pilot that disappeared into the Adriatic Sea during World War II.

That’s what a few groups of Italian aviation enthusiasts hope to do over the coming years.

The remains of the P-47 were discovered by a fisherman looking for octopus.

Filppo Salvagno, who has fished the local waters for about three decades, said he knew he had captured something unusual in his nets while out on his boat on May 11.

As he trolled the net along the sea floor about 65 feet below the surface, his boat came to a stop. Salvagno didn’t want to lose the net, so he decided to slowly tow the cargo back to the harbor.

He wasn’t sure what he had until he arrived and asked for assistance from local port authorities.

The remains of the P-47, one of the most heralded American fighter planes from World War II, created a stir.

Andrea Anesini, president of a local aviation enthusiasts association, said the group quickly decided to pay to get the aircraft restored. Members also are eager to try to identify the pilot.

No human remains were found with the wreckage, and any obvious markings have long worn away. Much of the plane’s aluminum exterior that remains is brittle and in tatters.

Anesini, who served as host for a short memorial ceremony Saturday attended by dozens of Italians and Air Force personnel based at Aviano Air Base, said at least three P-47s are known to have plunged into the northern Adriatic during the war.

“Today, the sea has given back one of the aircraft,” he said.

Anesini said German destroyers were known to have hovered in the waters around Venice, and German and Italian pilots engaged in numerous dogfights with Allied aircraft in the area. It’s also possible the plane experienced mechanical problems and crashed.

Since no remains were found, it’s possible the pilot might have survived. Col. Patrick Miller, commander of the 31st Operations Group at Aviano, said detailed records were kept at the time, but planes didn’t have the locator beacons that today’s aircraft do.

If a pilot saw another aircraft go down, the general location was noted. But there were many instances of single-seater planes disappearing and the pilots never being heard from again.

“The good news is that there are a lot of records,” Miller said. “So if they can find some indicators …”

Some clues might have already been found. Miller received a scarf — remarkably preserved after decades in the water — that was found tucked away in a corner of the cockpit. It’s also believed that the plane’s engine was found earlier and is now at the Dal Molin airfield in Vicenza.

Photos from article:

Left: First Lt. Justin Cleveland, a pilot with the 555th Fighter Squadron at Aviano Air Base, Italy, looks at the remains of a P-47 airplane brought up from the Adriatic Sea earlier this year. A local fisherman snagged the remains of the World War II-era aircraft in his nets. Now Italian aircraft enthusiasts are vowing to restore it and hope to find clues to identify its pilot.

Center: The remnants of a scarf presumably owned by the pilot of the P-47 that crashed into the Adriatic Sea during World War II -- were turned over to Air Force officials. It could help identify the pilot of the plane, which was brought up from the floor of the Adriatic earlier this year.

Right: Much of the remains of the P-47 are hard for casual observers to distinguish. This pedal in the cockpit doesn't work today, but it once helped control the rudder.

[MRomanych]

Pilot ditched Helldiver in Maalaea Bay in ’44
By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer
http://www.mauinews.com/page/content.detail/id/530164.html
April 4, 2010

WAILUKU - A World War II-era wreck off South Maui first documented in January has been identified as an SBC-2 Helldiver, ditched in Maalaea Bay on a training flight by a Navy pilot in 1944.

Maritime archaeologist Hans Van Tilburg of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dived to the site Saturday and confirmed that it was the plane identified by two groups of private divers separately investigating the wreck. He said the U.S. Navy was in the process of making a plaque to mark the site, which is protected under state and federal law, and that officials may also consider installing a mooring nearby.

Van Tilburg said the aircraft was a rare find, not only because the wreck was almost completely preserved, but also because there are very few Helldivers left in existence.

"I'm definitely impressed," he said. "It's remarkably intact. I've seen a number of aircraft like this, and this one is very intact. That makes it very special."

When the wreck was first documented in January, it was initially believed to be an SBD Dauntless dive bomber. But B&B Scuba Maui owner Brad Varney, who first reported the site to government authorities after learning about it from a local fisherman, said he realized after visiting the wreck a second time that it was actually a Helldiver.

Today the plane rests on the sandy bottom of Maalaea Bay in about 50 feet of water, encrusted with coral and surrounded by schools of fish.

According to Navy crash records researched by private divers investigating the site, the plane was making a dive-bombing practice attack Aug. 31, 1944, when high-speed maneuvers damaged the tail fin and jammed the rudder controls. With only limited ability to control the aircraft, pilot William E. Dill, a Navy lieutenant, made a water landing, surviving the crash without injuries.

Varney, a self-described "history nut," said it was exciting to pore over 60-year-old crash reports and other documents as he and colleagues pieced the story together.

"It was pretty cool," he said. "It wasn't that hard to figure out, once you had all the records."

Maui-based documentary producer and photographer Harry Donenfeld, who investigated the site with a group of divers from North Shore Explorers, said he was impressed by how smoothly Dill put the plane down in the water with only limited control. The only part of the plane to break off was the tail fin, which had been damaged during the maneuvers.

"Clearly he did an incredible landing," he said. "It's like he parked it there."

According to Navy records researched by Donenfeld, Dill survived another water landing in a Helldiver just three months later, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, where his flight group was assigned to the USS Essex aircraft carrier. Leyte was the scene of the largest naval battle during World War II, and it represented a push by the United States to reclaim the Philippines from the imperial forces of Japan.

Donenfeld said he wanted to research more of Dill's story and hoped to make contact with his family or people who knew him to help "fill in the blanks."

"I would love to hear what the rest of his life was like," he said. "I think it would put an excellent end to the story."

Van Tilburg said the wreck represents an important time in Hawaii's history, when thousands of soldiers, sailors and pilots came to the islands to train and prepare for war before being shipped on to the brutal battles of the Pacific.

As special as this particular wreck may be, the Helldiver off Maalaea is actually just one of 1,484 naval aircraft known to be lost in waters off the Hawaiian Islands, most on training flights like the one made by Lt. Dill, Van Tilburg said.

Pilots like Dill put their planes through extreme maneuvers to prepare for battle, and those steep dives and sharp turns were too much for some aircraft to take.

"That's what happened with this one particular crash - the rudder's broken off completely," he said.

Pilots also practiced how to ditch a plane, and Van Tilburg said he'd seen cases of pilots who'd survived three, four or even five water landings over the course of the war.

The Helldiver was a heavy plane with a large payload, designed to carry 1,000-pound bombs, with a large wing and tail so that it could take off from the short decks of aircraft carriers.

"They called it 'the Big-Tailed Beast' or just 'the Beast,' " Van Tilburg said.

While the dive site may see a rush of visitors now that its location is public knowledge, anyone visiting the wreck should be aware that the plane is still property of the U.S. Navy, and it's against the law to touch or disturb the site.

"It's always exciting to dive an aircraft like that, because that was such a significant period for the island," Van Tilburg said. "It's a bit of history on the bottom of the ocean. I'm glad to see the dive shops are taking a careful approach to accessing the site."

[MRomanych]

Incredible story after all these years.

World War pilot and his downed Lancaster bomber found in Germany
by Thom Morris
April 15, 2010
tmorris@thekmgroup.co.uk

The remains of a Second World War pilot and his downed Lancaster bomber which dived into woodland have been discovered in a small German village.

For Ashford resident John Tutt it marks the end of decades of searching for his brother, Sgt Bernard Frederick Tutt, who died aged just 29.

They grew up in Willesborough and attended the South Central School. Both worked as greengrocers for the Co-operative.

The father-of-two said: "To have found him after all these years is just amazing.

"I know for Bernard’s son Keith it is wonderful because Bernard died when he was just two-months-old and all he knew of his father was what his mother and I told him.

"He feels that his father is something more than just a story now."

It was thanks to John’s persistent investigations that he received a response to a letter he sent 11 years ago to the Burgermeister of Brandau, a small village 22 miles south east of Frankfurt where the plane came down.

He continued: "I’d written a letter and had never received a response but then out of the blue just before Christmas a young German archaeology student called Felix Klingenbeck wrote to me to say he had found the wreckage.

He’d informed the Burgermeister when human remains were found and the Burgermeister said he had remembered the letter I sent in 1999 and dug out my address."

The 87-year-old, who served in an anti-tank unit from 1941-1946 and saw action in Normandy and Germany, was at home on leave when he received the telegram telling him about the death of his wireless operator brother Bernard.

John added: "Felix sent me a lovely letter with all the information he had discovered and told me how he had been out with his metal detector and found parts of the plane.

"It was a bit of a shock. I was able to telephone Keith and after 67 years without knowing where his father was it was amazing."

Archaeology buff Felix Klingenbeck, 20, made the discovery after becoming interested in stories told by villagers about an English bomber that had crashed in the woods east of the village.

He found sections of the plane with serial numbers, which he posted online in the hope that someone would confirm the type of aircraft.

It was discovered to be the Avro Lancaster III JB221, a make famed for featuring in the film The Dambusters.

Work has now stopped on excavating the site in dense woodland following visits by families of the seven airmen aboard which was made up of English, Scots, a Canadian and an American.

It is hoped a permanent memorial can be erected and grandfather-of-three John plans to pay his final respects later in the year.