Wreck Chasing in Africa?

[JDK]

A bunch of W.W.II eara pics and some optimistic hypothesising do not recoveries make, guys.

I think there are a lot of wrecks in Africa. the nations are so poor that the people don't have a means to round up an airplane and sell the scrap metal.

Wrong. An amazing amount has been scrapped and melted down - even from the desert and minefields.

SO like in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they are finding rare British airplanes and some W.W.I tanks and other collectibles, it should be a gold mine.

Very different, actually.

The airplanes found over there should be corrosion free, and most undamaged parts can be expected to be airworthy.

Wow! Apart from guesswork, how do you know this?

Also conditions were rugged so there should be a high number of single engine airplanes that had engine problems due to the conditions and were landed a little more gently than those shot down.

Neato. If they couldn't pick them up with wartime facilities, it'd be a breeze for a foreign civillian group to get 'em out, eh?

Post war, many airplanes were given to those countries like Vampires and Spitfires, etc. They couldn't even afford to put fuel in them, much less pay for maintenance. There should be a lot of very low time airframes at some of those military bases that are closed off to the public.

Bit warmer. Actually most of the N African ones have been blown up, trashed or 'recovered' some illegally, with significant follow up issues. Those that are still there are marked - by warbird searchers who know their business AND the current owners.

Another reason why the ones pushed in the weeds at the airbases won't be picked over too much is in many cases they have been placed in mine fields and are still very dangerous. Same with a lot of South american countries.

Great pitch, where do we sent the money to?

Seriously though, I've talked to the guys that have looked, not sat somewhere guessing. One of them posted above.

They aren't there. Those that are are mostly known, and many of those are just not worth recovering - the SAAB B-17 (some recovered with the Ethiopian Fireflies) and C-47s etc.

There are more potential warbirds on USAF airbases... They'd be easier to get, too.

Regards,

[L. Thompson]

Here are a few North africa and Italy images from a friend's (veteran B-24 mechanic) photo album:

[ZRX61]

About 28 years ago I knew a VERY highclass hooker in London who was married to a Libyan AF pilot. Met the guy one time & he said there was "all sorts of crap" laying about out there.

& before you all start with the questions, I was painting & wallpapering her home in Chelsea. Kinda got clued in when she was home one day & her phone msgs consisted entirely of hotel room numbers & times...

Her hubby was there the first week I was working at the place & then he disappeared that weekend & never came back. Apparently he got a message from someone in Libya that he better get his butt back home or else he wouldn't live to regret it (according to the wife/hooker)

Worked at that place for about 3 months in total, just me a & friend. Every day after work the woman gave us a handful of cash to go get drunk, so we pretty much showed up every day hungover. There were some other benefits as well

You would be surprised what is showing up in those countries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqV9r46TciA&NR=1

I'm willing to guess that this weapon is now state side or shortly will be. Neat find.Shay

Nice video, but it could also be a Bundeswher MG3 which is the current production version of the MG42 in 7.62 x 51mm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG3

American soldiers looking at destroyed German equipment and planes after the battle of El Guettar Tunisia April 1943 Photographer: Eliot Elisofon

[Richard Woods]

I refuse to believe there's nothing out there, but the greatest problem will be finding it.

To take Lady Be Good for example, the aircraft was inan area where there were no big dunes, but was lost until the late 1950's. Despite finding several of the crew and a diary explaining what they were doing and where they were heading, one of them still lies in the desert.

Unlike PNG the Sahara and Africa is a hell of a lot bigger and sand has a habit of shifting around quite a bit.

Again, should you come across a record of a downed aircraft, unless the crew survived it is only someone on the grounds best guess from 60 years ago as to where the aircraft is. Again, with Lady Be Good as an example she was listed as lost at sea, when in reality she was 300 miles away on a reciprocal heading.

But I'm still hopeful... I spoke to one person a few years back who swears he say a shark fin B-17 in RAF colours in the desert.

Ric

[warbird1]

I refuse to believe there's nothing out there, but the greatest problem will be finding it.

To take Lady Be Good for example, the aircraft was inan area where there were no big dunes, but was lost until the late 1950's. Despite finding several of the crew and a diary explaining what they were doing and where they were heading, one of them still lies in the desert.

Unlike PNG the Sahara and Africa is a heck of a lot bigger and sand has a habit of shifting around quite a bit.

Again, should you come across a record of a downed aircraft, unless the crew survived it is only someone on the grounds best guess from 60 years ago as to where the aircraft is. Again, with Lady Be Good as an example she was listed as lost at sea, when in reality she was 300 miles away on a reciprocal heading.

But I'm still hopeful... I spoke to one person a few years back who swears he say a shark fin B-17 in RAF colours in the desert.

Ric

I agree, I think there is probably a bit to be discovered, but I believe it will be next to impossible to find the stuff out in the desert. The shifting sands is the key here. There are probably lots of buried planes out there, but good luck trying to find something that might be underneath many feet of sand. Even if we relied on aircrews' memories from 60+ years ago, the desert has very few landmarks and reference points. I doubt any plane could ever be found that crash-landed in the desert, based off of some pilot's memory, IMO.

This discussion kind of reminds me of the expedition to find Glacier Girl, except, instead of shifting sands, it is shifting snow and glaciers.

Just curious, does anyone know how warbirds would fare against the weight of shifting sand? Would this do more or less damage than the same scenario in Greenland? In other words, which is more damaging - a load of sand or a load of glacier?

BTW, back in the late 70's, one of my friends, a Mustang owner, had a friend who claimed to have seen several 190's in Libya. This was third hand information, and I make no claim as to it's veracity, but it sure was exciting news to me back then. Realistically, I would say they are probably not there any more, if they ever were. I'm really surprised with Libya opening it's borders to inspections and renouncing WMD's and terrorism, that we haven't seen a flurry of warbird exports out of there, like we did in Russia and the Soviet States after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90's. This leads me to believe that there is very little there, if anything, because surely we would have at least seen some pictures of warbirds by now, if anything existed there.

[tom d. friedman]

i'm no geologist or expert, buti feel that a bird covered in sand would survive fairly well, due to the flexibility of sand to fill open voids in aircraft as opposed to jagged hard & weighty ice which moves more with the weather only to crunch up what survives of an air frame.

[Dave Homewood]

From what I have gathered from a pilot I knew who flew the Takoradi route there were specialist RAF maintenance teams who covered the area all along there and when an aircraft force landed they would get it going again. This chap arrived at the docks in Nigeria by ship and had to drive 600 miles up the route to a jungle clearing where the ground crews had repaired a Hurricane previously force landed after an air filter failure. He then flew it onto the next RAF staging base (where it had to be repaired again).

So there may not have been many of these force landed intact aeroplanes left as the ground guys repaired them and got them back into the fight.

I know of two men from my town who were aboard seperate Vickers Wellingtons that were force landed in the Egyptian or Libyan desert due to engine problems, and both crews walked away unscathed but they had to walk home. Maybe both Wimpies are still there.

I also have read parts of the Sahara never get any wind. According to the NZ Army's WWII official artist Peter McIntyre in one of his books he did a stint with the LRDG and they went across a flat featureless area of the Sahara where it never blows. They followed the tracks (this was 1942 or so) of a Rolls Royce car they knew had been driven by an explorer back around WWI. They tracks were still clear and that's how they navigated, simply followed his tracks as they knew where he'd ended up and wanted to go there. An amazing place. So if any aircrfat came down there they wouldn't be buried by dunes.

[ZRX61]

My grandfather spent some time in Egypt during WW1. He told me that you would pitch you tent on top of a sand dune one evening & wake up in the hole between two of them in the morning when it was a bit windy..

[John Dupre]

"I also have read parts of the Sahara never get any wind. According to the NZ Army's WWII official artist Peter McIntyre in one of his books he did a stint with the LRDG and they went across a flat featureless area of the Sahara where it never blows. They followed the tracks (this was 1942 or so) of a Rolls Royce car they knew had been driven by an explorer back around WWI. They tracks were still clear and that's how they navigated, simply followed his tracks as they knew where he'd ended up and wanted to go there. An amazing place."

Something similar happened to the crew of LBG. After landing in the desert the survivors found and followed tank tracks. There were apparently two sets of tracks one Italian from about 1940 and the other British from a year or so later. Even in 1959 as the remains were discovered these tracks looked pretty recent.

I would think that surviving intact WW2 era aircraft either along the ferry routes or in the battle areas would be pretty few compared to the thousands that flew there and the hundreds abandoned or lost. I am sure that many were scrapped locally, many more were probably completely destroyed in crashes. But it is a big area and relatively undeveloped in many areas so I think there has to be something somewhere.

[Shay]

A bunch of W.W.II eara pics and some optimistic hypothesising do not recoveries make, guys.

Awe James, always the nay sayer. No one is saying that the aircraft depicted in this thread are still sitting there, waiting for the ever diligent adventurer to stumble upon them. The original premise of this thread was of the likelyhood of aircraft still remaining in situ over the vast expanse of what was the North African campaign (5 countries) . I think one would be foolish to assume that there is absolutely nothing at all. In this scenario I believe the odds are in favor of the resilient.

But there have been cases where W.W.II era pics and lore have led to recoveries. Examples: Swamp Ghost, My Gal Sal, and Glacier Girl to name a few.

I think there are a lot of wrecks in Africa. the nations are so poor that the people don't have a means to round up an airplane and sell the scrap metal.

Wrong. An amazing amount has been scrapped and melted down - even from the desert and minefields.

Care to expand on how you know this? That's quite a blanket statement, and I'm not saying you're in error, but it should require some supporting evidence while making it. Besides, no one is saying that some scrapping hasn't occured. I think the popular belief is that there alot of open areas inbetween all the dotted pin pricks of civilization. Places where downed aircraft and misplaced equipment, would have gone unoticed in the passing decades. LBG is good example. Not on any travelled routes it layed undisturbed for 15 years until spotted from the air. It was only because of the bomber that people visited that stretch of land until it was finally moved in 1994 and I willing to bet the no one has visited that spot since. Why should they?

SO like in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they are finding rare British airplanes and some W.W.I tanks and other collectibles, it should be a gold mine.

Very different, actually.

How so? Very similar set of circumstances and varibles. Wide open tracks of arid countries with sporatic pockets of existance, where military confrontation left a significant amounts of material in it's wake. With groups indigenous peoples who have neither the interest or the ability to care about non-functioning military gear. Establishing their country's infrstructure seems to be more preoccupying these days. But, if you want to build up your stock pile of T-72 and BMP parts and assemblies, Afghanistan is where you go. Different yes, but not indifferent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03nuZk-vbD8

The airplanes found over there should be corrosion free, and most undamaged parts can be expected to be airworthy.

Wow! Apart from guesswork, how do you know this?

Lets not be condescending shall we? We're all grown ups here.

I've seen pictures of airframes and ground vehicles in the deserts of North Africa that were routinely scoured by Mother Nature's media blaster. Leaving them as bright and clean as the day they were smithed at the factory. Probalbly better. By the USAF's own account during the recovery of LBG's crew, it was found that after 15 years of exposure LBG's Radios and Brownings were still in servicable (operable) condition. In fact the state of preservation that LBG was in led to several of her assemblies being recovered for the purpose of studying the enviromental affects on various components of airframes. Granted that was only after 15 years and not 60 plus in a sandy hot dry enviroment, but no one is asking to hop in a derelict P-40, start her up and fly her out. Although it should mentioned the after 50 years in snow, ice and water Glacier Girl's .50 cal and 20mm cannon were test fired successfully at the recovery site. So being honest with ourselves, we as a whole have to realize that there are too many varibles to negate positive or negative conditions for preservation. I'm sure in North Africa one might find instances of remarkable states of preservation and other less than mentionable.

Also conditions were rugged so there should be a high number of single engine airplanes that had engine problems due to the conditions and were landed a little more gently than those shot down.

Neato. If they couldn't pick them up with wartime facilities, it'd be a breeze for a foreign civillian group to get 'em out, eh?

Aside from your tone. I don't think you make a valid point. No one made the comment that anything regarding Warbirds would be easy. But just as I'm sure you have read here on WIX "foreign civillian groups" here recently have been successful in recovering aircraft from less than hospitable places, whether due to political or enviromental issues. Again Swamp Ghost and the group of Japanese airframes recovered front the Soloman Islands. A breeze? No not a breeze but still worth all the persistance and planning (Logistics) it would take.

Post war, many airplanes were given to those countries like Vampires and Spitfires, etc. They couldn't even afford to put fuel in them, much less pay for maintenance. There should be a lot of very low time airframes at some of those military bases that are closed off to the public.

Bit warmer. Actually most of the N African ones have been blown up, trashed or 'recovered' some illegally, with significant follow up issues. Those that are still there are marked - by warbird searchers who know their business AND the current owners.

No comment really. I have to assume you know what your talking about. And with that being said, I would love to hear some example case and points as I find it interesting. If you please, indulge me.

Another reason why the ones pushed in the weeds at the airbases won't be picked over too much is in many cases they have been placed in mine fields and are still very dangerous. Same with a lot of South american countries.

Great pitch, where do we sent the money to?
Seriously though, I've talked to the guys that have looked, not sat somewhere guessing. One of them posted above.
They aren't there. Those that are are mostly known, and many of those are just not worth recovering - the SAAB B-17 (some recovered with the Ethiopian Fireflies) and C-47s etc.
There are more potential warbirds on USAF airbases... They'd be easier to get, too.

Regards,

So because of the "guys" you've "talked" to, that's be all and end all? I seriously doubt that your friends no matter how qualified they might be have combed the deserts in their entirety in search of what's out there. If anything I have to guess what they went after is what they got tips on or heard of second hand. Which means people had been in proximity of the artifacts. I think what Marine Air was getting at was what's laying out in the obscure areas not ventured by man but once every hundreds of years.

Regardless I don't think it's appropriate to interject into anyone's thoughts or opinions with negative equally opinionated unsubstantiated comments. Nobody here is an 100% authority on anything. I've read your posts and on more than a few occasions you've made statements, like the one above, when someone talks about the "idea" of going to another country to recover an aircraft. Which to me atleast boils down to "Americans stay within your borders and concern yourself with the aircaft you have there". Not attempting to be offensive, but you've struck this cord more than once and that's how I've read it. How many times has History been marked by those that said it couldn't be done only to be proven wrong by those with the will to try? I'm sure one day an outstanding recovery originating from the North African Campaign will be made. So what do you say we just allow anyone and everyone to think creatively and continue to spur on thought and imagination?

V/R

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[lestweforget]

A wee story about what can happen to aircraft in the desolate deserts of Africa. The TV program on this was well worth a watch if you can find it.

http://living.scotsman.com/tvradio/Sun-sand-and-the-saved.2400389.jp

[RyanShort1]

FYI, as per the quote I posted above, I am aware of at least one effort underway, but things are on hold for now until they see how things go with the new administration in Washington D.C.

Ryan

[DaveM2]

I was contacted by a guy who was working for an oil company who had discovered a Ju52 fuselage buried in a sand dune in Tunisia. he wanted advice on how to get it out ( bucket and spade I thought ). There are rumours of several wrecks in Tunisia, along with tanks. There are a few people doing some work in that direction. Rumours also of a German guy who got a couple of Stuka wrecks out of Libya last year, I have an idea who that was, but a wall of silence as far as confirmation goes .........time will tell I guess.

Dave

[warbird1]

Rumours also of a German guy who got a couple of Stuka wrecks out of Libya last year, I have an idea who that was, but a wall of silence as far as confirmation goes .........time will tell I guess.

Dave

Why the silence? Is it because they smuggled the wrecks out, or for some other reason?

Do you know what their intentions are with the Stukas?