Warbird Information Exchange

If I wasn't met with a wall of silence, I could answer your questions. As for the reasons, I can only speculate.

As the financial services say '...previous performance is no guarantee of future results...' But it's a good start for investigations.

How many warbirds have been recovered from North Africa?

How many warbirds have been recovered from the Takoradi route?

There are a few people doing some work in that direction. Dave

* May 26 1952 - Hermes IV G-ALDN (Horus), en route from Tripoli, Libya, to Kano, Nigeria, flew off-course for several hours and ran out of fuel, crashing into the Sahara Desert south of Atar, Mauritania. The passengers and crew all survived the crash. They spent several days in the desert before making their way to an oasis, where First Officer Ted Haslam, who had suffered a head injury in the crash, died.[11]

I remember reading a few years ago that a Martin Marauder was pulled out of a lake in Tunisia. Where did this Widow Maker end up?

Good question. This story seems to have dropped off the radar.

For those interested, the Marauder involved was 41-17759, having crashed into Lake Tunis on Dec. 15, 1942. Plane flew with 319th BG/437th BS. Nose art was "Horse Feathers". Crew remains were recovered and interred at Arlington about 5 years ago.

Date: 5/14/2003 Time: 6:28:13 AM

Aloha-

First, I would like to apologize for taking so long in writing back to you. Our work/travel schedules here at the lab are quite chaotic at times, but that is no excuse for being remiss in thanking those who have helped so much! As you may or may not remember, the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory-Hawaii (USA-CILHI) was contacted by the U.S. Embassy, Tunis, Tunisia in November 2000 with information that a possible American aircraft had been discovered in Lac Sud (South Lake), Tunis during dredging operations associated with a large-scale engineering project in the lake.

Human remains were also recovered from the wreckage. The Tunisian Navy was summoned shortly after the discovery and recovered several aircraft items which led them to believe that the aircraft was most likely American and of WWII vintage. Myself and two military personnel from USA-CILHI were sent to investigate the aircraft in question and determine if her crew were American in origin.

Our research section began researching all Missing Aircrew Reports (MACRs) for this region. Since we do not actively investigate and recover WWII-era crash sites, the needed documentation was not on hand at our laboratory and had to be collected and compiled from various sources.

Upon arrival in country, we commenced investigating the wreckage with the assistance of the U.S. Embassy, Tunisian Navy and the commercial dredging company on Lac Sud. The wreckage was extremely concentrated. Depth ranged from approximately 75 cm to a dredged depth of 2.5m.

It was clear from a review of the recovered wreckage that the plane had been built in America - e.g. pump stamped with "Thompson Product Cleveland, OH", Goodyear tires, etc. The plane could not be identified from the recovered wreckage, so we began work to bring up more of the wreckage in an attempt to identify the plane. The lake sediment consisted of a high concentration of clay which served to hold pockets of oil and fuel from the aircraft even after all these years.

In this environment (anaerobic), decomposition in retarded which provides for excellent reservation. We recovered the emergency instructions manual for a B-26, a Thompson submachine gun manual, a navigation logbook, maps of "Alger" and "Mascara", and other aircraft/crew related evidence.

At this time, I found your website while searching the Internet from my hotel room in Tunis. What a wonderful resource! Your site and personal attention to tracking down possible leads on this case were invaluable in the field. A month after arriving to investigate the aircraft wreckage, we were able to make a solid recommendation that the aircraft was probably American in origin and should be fully excavated in part due to your assistance. A full team returned in January 2001.

Personal effect evidence recovered during the excavation identified the plane as a B-26 lost on 15 December 1942 from the 319th Bomb Group/437th Bomb Squadron (MACR 16380) with a crew of six. The crew was subsequently identified at our laboratory through anthropological, odontological and mtDNA analyses and returned to their families.

Again, thank you so much for helping us be successful in this endeavor! If I can be of any assistance to you in the future, do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards and keep up the great work!
Gwen
Forensic Anthropologist/Evidence Curator
USA-CILHI

Is there any chance someone could find a bunch of P-51's or Spitfires? Well wasn't it just last year someone found a Me-109 in a park in India no one cared about. Wasn't there a squadron of Spitfires found in a hangar in Burma a few years ago?

Um, JDK, Bet you thought I wasn't going to respond.

Most of the scrap operations you talk of were in the industrialized nations and on behalf of countries from those industrialized nations.

I don't think anyone believes there would still be piles of german aircraft left intact after 60 years.

While you talk about downed aircraft being found and later picked over, it must be noted that those photos are all of wrecks on trails and other tourist sites and of course any wreck found, and made public isn't going to stay intact very long.

That's a testament to how uninformed the locals are. There are goiung to be wrecks found in the boonies, much like the wrecks that came out of Alaska in the 1970's and they will be in fairly good shape given the passage of time.

I also predict that just like the Skyraiders and A-37's that came out of Vietnam in the 1990's and all the german armor being found and retreived from the eastern Eurpean countries in the 1980s and 1990's,there will be pits , and salvage areas found in those countries.

A friend of mine was trying to put together a group of guys last year to go retrieve defunct C-130's from some of those countries and return them to Marietta, Georgia to be refurbished. If they have C-130s derelict ,they have other aircraft. You'll notice whenever there's a coup they always show pictures of Mig's laying around in the bushes. If you look you will also see Saia Marchetti SF-260's , King Airs, Cessna C-185's etc.

Compared to what is being brought out of New Guinea, that stuff is in excellent condition. The Fairey Fireflies and Saab B-17's that were brought out of Ethiopa ten years ago were only found because a Canadian C-130 was flying a humanitarian mission into a military base closed to the public. SOmeone on the C-130 knew what he was looking at otherwise they would be still there.

Is there any chance someone could find a bunch of P-51's or Spitfires?

Well wasn't it just last year someone found a Me-109 in a park in India no one cared about.

Wasn't there a squadron of Spitfires found in a hangar in Burma a few years ago?

There will be worthwhile projects brought out of the African continent that will be more than just patterns and data plates.

One of those SF 260's would be a cool project!