Warbird Information Exchange

The story is that a captured Zero was on a bond tour and died for mechanicals in Atlanta. I ended up outside, behind the TT Wentworth Museum on Peachtree St across from the Crawford W Long Memorial Hospital. A couple years ago it disappeared.

Where did it go?

I visited this Zero many (~25) years ago. I wish I still had my pictures handy. It was in the back yard of a sort of museum/antique shop in downtown Atlanta. It had been pretty badly vandalized (ax-marks, bullet holes) and was devoid of paint or instruments. The aircraft was fnally removed from this site some 15 years ago. While sometimes presented as the Aleution Island Zero, it most likely came from Saipan (if memory serves). The following information comes from the site listed below:

A6M5-52 c/n 1303 Captured by US forces during WWII, flown post-war in the US until damaged, sold as scrap. Via a scrap dealer in Atlanta, GA until sold to Don Whittington. Flying Heritage Collection have aquired this Zeke from World Jet Inc, Fort Lauderdale, ex Atlanta Museum, Georgia. Restored to airworthy(?) as N1303

http://www.mitsubishi_zero.tripod.com

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Kevin McCartney

Yes at FHC, unrestored.

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Preserved Axis Aircraft

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I believe this bird was part of the air intelligence agency(you could still read that on the side of the fuselage in 1985) and was ground looped at PDK (AKA NAS ATLANTA) in 45.It spent years on display on top of the old sears building on pounce de leon ave. for war bonds drive. The ax marks are the result of somebodys idea of a way to raise money by selling ax hits on the bird. The whittingtons bought the plane from the son of the man who owned the museum after the fathers death.

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Hang The Expense

I never saw it at Sears, but saw it several times at the museum location on Peachtree. That was a 15 minute walk from my dorm in college. Neat artifact to show people - I won a free beer once "betting" someone we could see a real WWII Japanese fighter plane by taking a short walk...

I remember seeing it out back of that "museum" on a couple of occasions when I was a kid, back in the early 70's. Not what you'd expect to find in downtown Atlanta!!

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Rod Schneider
Ball Ground, Ga

Thought I saw a website with photos of that zero

http://www.oocities.org/colosseum/dugou ... lanta.html

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Zero Surprise!!...

I visited that aircraft a number of times in the early 1980's. I have some photos somewhere. I'll have to look for them. I took a photo one time of it with a Mitsubishi pick-up truck parked next to it. Sort of a father-son photo. That pic has gone missing, however.

Walt

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If God had intended airplane engines to have horizontally-opposed cylinders, Pratt & Whitney would have built them that way.

She was at the sears building late 40s through the 50 and early sixties.As a kid there was some neat stuff in Atlanta Georgia back then.109 ,190 P-6 hawk in a guys basement the zero.Yall would flip if you knew what was buried at the old NAS Atlanta.

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Hang The Expense

With the loonies in charge down there today, we could probably get them to pay us to dig whatever it is up and haul the "potentially toxic" debris away.

No kidding.The dump had some interesting birds in from what my dad remembered.

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Hang The Expense

Would you be so kind to expound on that thought?

Here's mine, don't remember what year.
They were given to me at one of our local Atlanta CAF air show's.










Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Here is one Bill Ross sent to me.

PeterA

Awesome thread.

This must be the same ZERO.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8rqwazdlep7g0 ... 6.jpg?dl=0

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Moreno Aguiari
mo@vintageaviationnews.com
http://www.vintageaviationnews.com