Warbird Information Exchange

were where the newspaper editors then.

but they dont at present have anywhere to display the aircraft

Well Folks,

I first heard about it two weeks ago I gave three different source a call including the person behind the recovery. His Mech. is already there preparing the aircraft for dismantle and shipment.

Has far as I know he plan on rebuilding to a flyer. What Iw as told was there should be some sort of press release coming soon.

as to ownership well lets just say this its taken along time to determine the legal ownership. Remember folks when Charles Darby and david tallechite got permission to recover all the stuff that they did in the 70s they were given permission to recover 125 Airframes including Swamp Ghost and the B-17 that is in Black Cat pass. I've read the paperwork that David has its kind of wow what if stuff like the three 24s that they were given permssion to recover along with alot of Japanese stuff.

Anyway like you guys I'm not holding my breath till I actually see it sitting in the US and even then I'm not going to really believe it till I see all the paperwork.

Cheers
RER

Union: Swamp Ghost better off in America

PNG should allow the Swamp Ghost to be shipped to the US because it does not have the financial capacity to maintain the war relic, the PNG Trade Union Congress said yesterday.
The country has an appalling record of maintaining war relics and historical sites, general secretary John Paska said in a statement.
“We have assessed the tourism, legal and sovereignty issues surrounding the Swamp Ghost and consider that much of the reaction had been swayed by sentimental and political considerations rather than practical realities,” he said.
He said the aircraft had little economic and tourism value in efforts to attract more tourists to the country.
“Keeping the aircraft in America will add more value to the tourist industry here than if the Swamp Ghost remained in PNG.”
Mr Paska said the plane had been lying in the swamp since World War II and “we have never had the political will or the capacity to uplift it for repair and installation as a war relic for public display”.
“Hundreds, if not thousands, of war relics have been allowed to corrode and lose their value throughout the country.
“The gun stations on top of Paga Hill have no apparent value. The Old House of Assembly was contemptuously allowed to crumble and rot away.
“The museum itself does not receive the necessary budgetary support and is badly in need of renovation and a facelift,” he said, and warned that if the situation continued, many artifacts in the museum would deteriorate beyond recognition.
“Our record with respect to the upkeep and maintenance of war relics, artifacts, museum specimens, heritage buildings and monuments is atrocious to the point of disbelief.
“With such a shameful record, how can we muster the audacity to cry foul about the shipment of the Swamp Ghost to America when our record shows that we simply cannot and will not look after it?”

US bomber saved from rotting in PNG swamp, say salvagers

SALVAGERS blocked from shipping a World War II American B-17E Flying Fortress bomber, the Swamp Ghost, to the US said they are saving it from rotting in the remote swamp where it crash landed in 1942.
A US-Australian recovery team of wartime aircraft enthusiasts this month retrieved the bomber from the Agaiembo Lake in Northern province.
The Swamp Ghost is now on the docks in Lae, its wings dismantled in preparation for shipment.
But the PNG Government had ordered officials to prevent the plane’s export by Alfred Hagen, of Philadelphia.
He led and financed the K1.024 million expedition to lift the plane out of the swamp by helicopter and onto a barge for the journey to Lae.
In February 1942, the plane crash landed in the swamp after being damaged by Zero fighters during its bombing run over the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul after a long flight from Australia.
Acting Prime Minister Sir Moi Avei said last week the aircraft was an important relic from PNG’s war history and the government would review the shipment approval by the National Museum board of trustees.
Robert Greinert, who led the six-man contingent from Australia’s Historic Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS), told AAP an export permit had been granted following full approval from the museum.
Around K300,000 had been set aside to be shared equally by the museum and local landowners and it was hoped the government would approve the shipment of the aircraft this week, he said.
After 64 years in the swamp, some parts of the largely aluminium plane were in fair condition but others were starting to corrode badly, Greinert said.
“It’s like cancer and this one is in bad need of chemotherapy. Another five years and it would be beyond redemption.”
PNG had its hands full as a developing nation and could not properly preserve or restore old aircraft, Greinert said.
There are more than 3,000 wartime aircraft wrecks across PNG. – AAP