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Florida B-17s!

Thu Jan 17, 2013 9:28 pm

O.K. here it is, lets get it going. Now whats all this mumbo-jumbo about B-17's in the lake? If there really is one why has no one salvaged it? Are there any pictures of it? If there is I'd really like to see them. Anyone have more information? :drink3: :drink3:
Last edited by cooper9411 on Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Lake Okeechobee B-17

Thu Jan 17, 2013 9:41 pm

pop1 i'm waiting too. my curiosity is very provoked by this!!

Re: Lake Okeechobee B-17

Thu Jan 17, 2013 9:47 pm

tom d. friedman wrote:pop1 i'm waiting too. my curiosity is very provoked by this!!


We've all heard the stories about P-40's, P-51's, etc., etc., being scattered around Florida, today is the first I've heard about B-17(s) being there! :? :shock:

Re: Lake Okeechobee B-17

Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:09 pm

EDIT: Wait... I just realized were talking about 2 different crash sites here..... anyways:

I didn't say lake, or Okeechobee, I said Sebring. :wink:

What got me started searching for any B-17's was the fact that Hendricks Feild was a major B-17 training base, and I knew that around 10 crashed North of the airport.

Well, me being a racecar driver, I got to chat with the track manager, who just so happened to have posted here a few years back:

http://forum.armyairforces.com/WW-II-bo ... 72522.aspx

My husband's family owned the property adjacent to Hendrick's Field, now Sebring Airport (but not at the time of the crash).

My husband's father worked at Hendrick's Field when the crash occurred.

When clearing the land several years ago, they came across not one, but two different crashed B17 bombers. With the heavy equipment, they dug a hole and buried both of them.
I believe the property the B17 crash site you are showing in the photos is part of the swamp land they sold. There had been a sod farm on that property.


What she doesn't say here is that in the 80's, her husband's father was doing some digging with a tractor around the North end of runway 18, and ran over the tail of a B-17. They spend a few months trying to pull it out, but the suction from the mud that the plane was stuck in was too great. They tried trucks, crane's, even a helicopter, but they didn't work, so they just left that B-17 where it was.

If you look at google earth, I think you can see a wing sticking out of the ground... But that might also be a patch of concrete.

Where the other 2 B-17's are I have no clue, as she didn't bring those up in our conversation.



BTW, Can we get the topic name changed to Florida B-17's? :D

Florida B-17's

Fri Jan 18, 2013 11:42 am

BTW, Can we get the topic name changed to Florida B-17's? :D[/quote]


You guys sure ask for a lot! :lol: :lol:
Wildchild, ask and it will be done! :drink3: :drink3:

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:27 pm

In regards to the B-17 in Lake Okeechobee, I haven't heard about that one before.

A couple of years ago I stumbled across a site that listed all the aircraft crashes in florida during WW2, along with tail number, but i'm not sure what happened to that site.

Chris.

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 1:18 pm

I grew up in Tallahassee and there's a lot of mystery behind crash sites there. Some will swear they've walked up to crashed airplanes at specific places, but when you go there you clearly see nothing has ever been down there. Other places there are crash sites, nobody seems to know about them (for example, there's a Corsair upside down in a lake, in horrible condition, in the Northern part of the state that is very poorly documented as it's on private land, hardly anyone knows it exists and the owners wanna keep it that way, I've stood on what was left of the wing of this very airplane). And some have been well documented but not very well known outside of where they are/were (like the P-47 sitting on the bottom of Lake Talquin, I've seen many photos of it when they drained the lake for dam work in the 80s).
I'd doubt any B-17 stories, though. Fighters, I can see being missing all these years.

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:47 pm

p51 you are correct. A lot of the aircraft are well documented and others are not. Here lately been hearing a rumor about a P-39 in northern Florida, around the Keystone Heights area (Crystal Lake)? I don't know if this is true or not I have not been there to check it out and I would think that someone would have taken pictures of it by now! The rumor also says the lake is surrounded by private property and the only way to get to the lake is with permission from a local.
Then theres the rumor of a B-17 that ditched in the eastern end of Lake Erie. It's possible as that is the deepest part of the lake. But once again, just rumors and until there is some type of proof I will be very skeptical. :roll: :shock: :drink3:

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:51 pm

p51 wrote:I grew up in Tallahassee and there's a lot of mystery behind crash sites there. Some will swear they've walked up to crashed airplanes at specific places, but when you go there you clearly see nothing has ever been down there. Other places there are crash sites, nobody seems to know about them (for example, there's a Corsair upside down in a lake, in horrible condition, in the Northern part of the state that is very poorly documented as it's on private land, hardly anyone knows it exists and the owners wanna keep it that way, I've stood on what was left of the wing of this very airplane). And some have been well documented but not very well known outside of where they are/were (like the P-47 sitting on the bottom of Lake Talquin, I've seen many photos of it when they drained the lake for dam work in the 80s).
I'd doubt any B-17 stories, though. Fighters, I can see being missing all these years.


I wonder where these photos are and if there are any plans to snatch it pop2 , or has it already be snatched :shock: ? oh wait, we are supposed to be talking B-17s here :axe:

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:52 pm

gary1954, we can talk about what type aircraft we want! So what if we get side tracked, a lot of topics on WIX get side tracked now and then! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:12 pm

cooper9411 wrote:gary1954, we can talk about what type aircraft we want! So what if we get side tracked, a lot of topics on WIX get side tracked now and then! :lol: :lol: :lol:

i feel another thread name change comeing on! :rofl:

:axe: :toimonster: :butthead: :gib: :rip: :ouch: :nuker: :minigun:

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:52 pm

I have a ROV that I built for this purpose if someone wants to borrow it.

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:57 pm

gary1954 wrote:I wonder where these photos are and if there are any plans to snatch it pop2 , or has it already be snatched :shock: ? oh wait, we are supposed to be talking B-17s here :axe:

Yeah, sorry about that. I posted about Florida B-17s and this same subject before: http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.o ... 078#p27078
Nick Fallier has since passed on, so I can say he had the .50 cal in his basement he pulled from the Jug in Lake Talquin. After he passed, I have no idea what happened to it.
As for the photos, I used one in a newspaper article I wrote in the 90s, maybe I can find a copy of it among all this mess, he's standing right next to it.
Some on that other thread said it'd been pulled out in the 90s, but I don't recall hearing about it and I lived in the area until 98...

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 4:22 pm

I had heard about the Okeechobee B-17 25 years ago. I cant give you a specific serial # but from what I remember was that a engine caught fire at a low altitude. They could not get it out and fear that it would get to the tanks they made a water landing in the lake.
I was told its down by the Clewiston Fla side and when the lake is very low, the vertical is a hazard to boaters and has been damaged in the past. I dont know if actual attempts have been made to recover it because even though its shallow, the bottom is all silt and mud. Visibility is NIL because of the run off from all the farmlands.

If you ever find that site of Army Aircorps accidents, I am sure its there.

Re: Florida B-17s!

Fri Jan 18, 2013 5:39 pm

cooper9411 wrote:p51 you are correct. A lot of the aircraft are well documented and others are not. Here lately been hearing a rumor about a P-39 in northern Florida, around the Keystone Heights area (Crystal Lake)? I don't know if this is true or not I have not been there to check it out and I would think that someone would have taken pictures of it by now! The rumor also says the lake is surrounded by private property and the only way to get to the lake is with permission from a local.
Then theres the rumor of a B-17 that ditched in the eastern end of Lake Erie. It's possible as that is the deepest part of the lake. But once again, just rumors and until there is some type of proof I will be very skeptical. :roll: :shock: :drink3:





i'm a life time buckeye as you are coop!! :supz: i'm on the lake just east of sandusky & i've never heard that rumor on the 17!! & i know some real authority / pro lake erie wreck divers & they've never mentioned a fort, but they have mentioned some other wrecks that are documented & some that are speculated. how far east are you talking?? the further east you go the deeper the lake gets.
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