News on the Midway F2A

[B29Gunner]

All,

This is indeed a very interesting topic, one that I’ve been following closely since Rob’s first post about it. I think it’s a great idea that WIX is trying to form up and save some of our history. There was initially some talk about the possibility of recovering the F2A, but I won’t bother commenting on that, as Taras pretty much summed it up already. So I am now under the impression that the F2A will be used as an example of the “ineffectiveness of the NHC” when it comes to preserving aircraft wrecks, correct?

That’s all fine and good, but there is one minor detail here that I think everyone is over looking. I guess I’ll be the pragmatist here in saying that before everyone goes off the deep end, shouldn’t it first be confirmed that the F2A is actually there???

Here’s the thing....

1) I have looked at every satellite imagine and aerial photograph of the Midway Atoll that I could find, especially of Eastern island. In none, I REPEAT, NONE of these images show an A/C wreck just off Eastern Island, let alone “20 different aircraft in the four different lagoons.” Rob, where is this mysterious satellite image you speak of?

2) I have looked at every website I could find concerning diving, and dive sites on Midway. NONE mention ANYTHING about an A/C wreck in shallow water just East of Eastern Island. In fact, the ONLY A/C wreck mentioned is a Corsair laying in 116ft of water South of Sand Island.

3) I have looked at dive maps of Midway, showing the various ship wrecks, reefs, and other items of interest to the vacationing diver. Again, no aircraft wrecks mentioned off Eastern Island. It is however interesting to note that the entire area located East of Eastern Island where the F2A is supposedly located is indicated as a “snorkeling area,” meaning shallow water. If the F2A was there, everyone would know about it, as you could imagine how popular it would have been with tourists, let alone those interested in the WWII history of Midway.

4) I contacted multiple divers who ran dive operations around Midway back when it was open for tourism. None of them have any knowledge of an A/C wreck located East of Eastern Island.

5) I contacted the manager of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, he is actually stationed on Midway. He has no knowledge of an A/C wreck located East of Eastern Island.

6) I contacted a marine archeologist with NOAA who has worked extensively in the waters around Midway. He has no knowledge of an A/C wreck located East of Eastern Island.

7) The above mentioned NOAA marine archeologist contacted an official with the USFWS on my behalf. This person spent five years on Midway, and during that tenure was part of a team that towboarded the surrounding waters looking for unexploded ordnance. They found no wreck, or wreckage in the area where the F2A crashed. In fact, he went on to say quote “if there was a plane there I would have known about it.”

8 ) See the below imagine of Eastern Island. If the wreck was there, you should be able to see it. Note the dark anomaly at the bottom of the image, just left of center. I specifically asked the people above about it, they assured me it was a coral formation, NOT an aircraft.

So I hate to break the bad news to everyone, but it looks like WIX is chasing a phantom. I’m just a little surprised that with all the enthusiasm generated by all of this, no one took the time to do the research, and to confirm that the F2A was actually there! Just imagine if WIX had gone balls to the wall with this thing, doing all the work, petitions, solicitations and what not mentioned in earlier posts, only to discover later that the F2A wasn’t even there in the first place! Imagine how we would have looked then???

It’s kind of hard to criticize the NHC for not taking the steps to preserve an A/C that doesn’t even exist! My only suggestion is that WIX finds itself another A/C to use as the rallying cry...one that you can actually swim up to and kick with your flipper!

~Trevor McIntyre

[Originalboxcar]

Trevor,

Excellent followup! Your point is well made.

FYI - The image is not being loaded. I'd tried the source (http://www.anzwers.org/free/navyscpo2/E ... y_2001.jpg) and that's not displaying either.

Thanks again for your legwork!

regards,

t~

[Originalboxcar]

A major point here is that an argument needs to be substantiated by proof:

Chris Brame wrote:
Hi again Colonel,
Is there a link to that satellite image you could post? Thanks!


Hi Chris,

Google Midway Island and you should be able to find the the image if you look at it you will see about 20 different aircraft in the four different Lagoons.

Cheers
RER

Trevors investigations yielded no corroboration of Robs claims. Let us use the focus of what is known/documented such as the Great Lakes birds(i.e. Taras) for purposes of lobbying the gov't to change current NHC policies.

No offense meant , but Rob, can you use spelling/grammer check in MS-Word and then copy/paste your posts for clarity?

regards,

t~

[Forgotten Field]

Great followup on the part of Trevor, but we still don't have the definitive answer! Dialing phones is not the only thing the NHC does, and hunting for an elusive aircraft, such as the one which was described here, is a good effort and should be pushed as an agenda. While I agree that no one Trevor has been in contact with has found it to this point ( or is obscuring the fact that they have found it!) local legend and diving practice is not the same as a search grid and side scan of an area, interviews with survivors (crash rescue crews, ground crews, flight crew) to find out what happened to it. I would guess that if it were recoverable at that time, they would have recovered it. A disintegrating aluminum airframe is one thing, but hard to replace hydraulics, landing gear struts, tires (remember the rubber shortage) would lead me to believe that they recovered it during WWII for spare parts. But I wouldn't offer that as an excuse to stop looking for the thing.

Point of fact- there was one Martin 187 returned to Maryland, ostensibly to the USN as a test bed. At some point, it was given to a war memorial, then to Baltimore Polytechnic Institute as part of their A&P program- can you believe a public high school with an A&P program? The latest I can track it is 1957, and I am pretty sure it was scrapped BUT haven't found who actually scrapped it AND, just the other day, found a part off of a 187 in a pile of stuff I bought. Very odd part to find in the middle of a bunch of junk parts, but I really wonder what someone was doing with 187 parts which looked like they came off of an airframe. Is this evidence that it was scrapped, or evidence that it lived somewhere else? Point is I'm still trying to find what the ACTUAL disposition of the Baltimore 187 is, and my hunches won't stop me from looking for concrete information on it. Same thing should apply to a Brewster Buffalo, even though I think it was salvaged and scrapped if it was in such shallow water as described in the report.

[Originalboxcar]

FF,

Couldn't agree more that we need PROOF. Recent/dated SAT pics or a first hand witness (i.e. Taras - been there, seen that) would've helped.

regards,

t~

[airnutz]

The clincher for me was in my understanding of the accident report...
"..runway.When rescue party reached plane it w(as on)
its back resting on bottom of lagoon in about (xx)
feet of water, pilot standing on the plane, w(?)"
The Buff couldn't have been any deeper than 15-20 feet. At westward
approach of the ESE runway of Eastern Island, every chart I've seen
within that part of the Midway lagoon puts the depth at 5-10 feet.

2 MONTHS AFTER PEARL HARBOR
The Buff was probably salvaged...in the those dangerous days of February
1942, when supply was precarious at best and dependable back-up was
non-existent(remember Corrigidor), I doubt if the Marines would have left
one morsel of spare-parts so accessable. If they left the hull behind after
harvesting the big-chunks..60yrs later in 15ft of warm salt-water and
wave-action-areation..there would be nothing left of the aluminium.

29gunner, me thinks you've been getting the "stonewall" treatment from
your stellar..but very protective sources. I have seen since
Thursday..satellite photos but I never really hoped for too much from
them. I paid ALOT of attention to aerial phots of Eastern Island..and I have
seen "bunches" of very excellent low-altitude stuff from the 40's, 50's
and 60's....but no readily accessible images of aircraft in the shallows.

ForgottenField, I like how you and "the gunner" think!!!! I liked alot of
Rob's ideas about ways to deal with the "Navy recoveries tarbaby"..
registered permits...archeologists, etc. But I focused on the 1st-brick in
the Midway F2A-3 Navy proposal and that was the bird itself and Rob's
purported location, it just didn't flesh-out for me.

Rob, could you please re-post a copy of the Somers accident report of
12Feb42, but focus on the complete typewritten comments in the "Analysis
box"?

Thanx guys!!!!

Last edited by airnutz on Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[B29Gunner]

A disintegrating aluminum airframe is one thing, but hard to replace hydraulics, landing gear struts, tires (remember the rubber shortage) would lead me to believe that they recovered it during WWII for spare parts.

John, Airnutz....That would seem to be the general consensus among those I contacted about this wreck, and I have come to the same conclusion as well. Airnutz (can I call you nutz?? ) pretty much summed it up about the shallow water, I left that part out of my first post. The pilot was actually standing on the A/C when the rescue party arrived! As the one source said, "if there was a plane there I would have known about it." I have no reason to doubt him!

As far as getting the "stonewall" treatment by those I contacted, I have no reason to believe they would stonewall or lie to me. Why you ask? Because I didn't give them a reason to! In other words, I simply inquired about an A/C wreck I was doing some research on, and was curious if they had any knowledge of an A/C being in that area. That's it. I didn't tell them I wanted to recover it -- Or that I wanted to bash the NHC for not doing anything about it -- Or that I had a lung removed last month, but still continue to smoke two packs a day!

As for the divers telling you something is there...exactly what are you eluding to? Shoot me an e-mail Nutz, lets chat.

[airnutz]

29gunner, oops....maybe I could have used a better word than stonewall.
Maybe a reluctance to reveal details...or some of the individuals just didn't
know if anything was there. I doubt the manager of the Refug would know
much about any sunken aircraft, other than what he has been told..he's a
"wetlands guy" from Minnesota and assumed his new position Feb 2005.
If his interests include diving and documenting the relics of the Battle of
Midway, then I probably did him no justice..my bad and my apologies.

From what I understand in reading and in contact with others, most of the
folks there on the island are more concerned doing what naturalists do in
managing the Refuge and playing with their new Laysan duck. I got the
impression that they cared little about the old Navy base there. FWS has
has quit treating for termites and are letting the old barracks rot, the old
Eastern Island shuttle-LCM is a rusting hulk, the old SAR-hangar is falling
apart and is full of junk, there is a pile-o-golfcarts that would give a
stateside tree-hugger a cardiac and they ignored repeated warnings from
the prior contractor concerning the condition of the piping of the JP-fuel
storage tanks until it led to a major fuel spill in the Park a few years back.
Alot of this has to do with lack of funding, or idea of what to do, or outside
their job-scope.

Midway Is. is still in a bit of a battle, on one hand I understand there is new legistration for tourist and diving trips to resume, on the other a
Hawaiin Rep wants to further increase the Refuge area to 136,000 sq mile
Marine Sanctuary in the Northwest Islands.

One last thing, I agree with Mark Pilkington that just because the Somers
F2 may have been salvaged it would still be interesting to sweep the area
with a metal detector search to see if anything is still there..maybe nothing
seeable under coral encrustation but fun to do maybe.

Edit; I have removed most of the offending comment and diver reference.
Sorry..no foul meant.

[B29Gunner]

Edit; I have removed most of the offending comment and diver reference. Sorry..no foul meant.

No offense taken! Hope I didn't come across that way??

[tom d. friedman]

the great lakes zebra mussell dilemma poses 2 interesting questions....... does the weight of them structurally comprimise metal aircraft strength after only 60 years???? as to WOOD BUILT 19TH CENTURY SHIP WRECKS INFESTED WITH THEM..... well that should be a no brainer, those ships are caving in like a deck of cards made into a house that your dog farted on!!! the wood has been immersed in h'20 for over 100 years. ww 2 pacific located ship wrecks in salt water must fair much worse & under more weighty coral & and salt corrosive conditions. fresh water is our ace in the hole. yes the crappy critters in the great lakes don't help, but the fresh water sure doesn't hurt!! anything great lakes is worth the effort. best , tom