John Dupre wrote:
As we know during WW2 there were thousands of aircraft shipped or flown to Eastern Africa that were then flown over central Africa to Western Africa and Egypt and on to India. There must have been dozens if not hundreds of aircraft lost along this route. I have never heard of any being discovered since the war. Some of the route is still pretty primeval and of course political instability is endemic but have there been any WW2 era aircraft discovered along this route and does anyone search for them there? Even with local salvage of wrecks for domestic uses there must be some remains somewhere. Seems like it might be an as yet underexplored area for recovery.
Hi John,
An excellent question!
Back in 2001, a brother-in-law of mine (who spent six years as a Christian missionary in Malawi) and I were contacted by our church body to conduct three weeks of exploratory mission work in up-country Nigeria.
Being slightly familiar with the wartime ferry operations of which you've mentioned, I was hopeful of the opportunity to survey locals for info concerning any possible surviving Tomahawks or Hurricanes.
To make a short story even shorter, the trip was ultimately canceled due to increasing instability in the interior. The original plan included our being escorted throughout our trip by a pair of armed escorts, but even that was no longer considered sufficient for effective travel at the time. Both of us being husbands and fathers, we considered discretion the better part of valor.
The exploratory work has not been rescheduled since then, and I'm at a point in life where stooging around local shooting matches would create too much anxiety for my dependents.
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