Warbird Information Exchange

Just could not let this one pass, my friends.

Thanks Tulio for the plug for "ALAE SUPRA CANALEM: Wings Over the Canal, the Sixth Air Force and Antilles Air Command." Hope it helps, but......

I spent a number of LONG tours stationed in the Canal Zone once-upon-a-time, and heard these rumors repeatedly. I also know the fellow who wrote the article that was cited in Air & Space Smithsonian. I sent him a note asking for him to elaborate, but to date no response.....

As noted in the book, there were a significant number of aircraft stationed there that just flat went missing and were never found. If they went down in the Darien Province, good luck Amigo! I also heard rumors about aircraft pushed off in the bush near the New France Field location on the Atlantic side of the isthmus. I am a graduate of the former Jungle Survival School, and did the Balboa Crossing as a graduation exercise when I was first stationed there, and trying to find your hand in the jungle is hard enough. Trying to find an aircraft that may have gone down 50+ years ago will be a tad more difficult. As for a so-called Panama Air Depot (PAD) boneyard, yes, there was one - once. But it has long since been scavenged to extinction. No easy pickin's in Panama, I fear.

Dan Hagedorn