Warbird Information Exchange

No, the RLM et alli ran an extremely efficient salvage and recycling effort to recover crashed aircraft including, or especially, US bombers.
Strangers In A Strange Land, Vol II from Squadron gives an insight into the scope of the efforts. The last 109's were built from the metal of the first 109s, and B-17s and B-24 and....

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.

The freshwater lakes across Europe will have the best examples yet to be discovered. But there are a lot of legal and environmental hurdles to overcome before attempting a recovery. This one went back to Germany for static restoration.

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"They done it, they done it, damned if they ain't flew." December 17, 1903

Wow! Where/when is that pic from? What's the current status?

He-111H-2 recovered from Lake Jonsvatnet, Norway in 2004. Now with the Technical Museum Berlin for static restoration. It sank in 1940 while the lake was a makeshift airfield. I didn't know this until just now, but I'm reading that five aircraft sank.


I believe that another of the five was a Ju-88 that was also recovered for static restoration.

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"They done it, they done it, damned if they ain't flew." December 17, 1903