Warbird Information Exchange

If the stories that have persisted for years are true, that trenches were dug and some Forts and Libs were put in and then dozed over with the trench dirt, would anyone know what condition the airframes would be in after 60 years? Alaska and PNG burials had fared relatively well before excavation, but Arkansas soil may be more or less damaging. Just wondering.

Why would a contractor who paid good money, millions of dollars actually, for airplanes to salvage and scrap bury them instead? This never made sense to me. After all the research done by the likes of Bill Larkins and others, including the research done by myself to support the book Military Aircraft Boneyards, not once have I seen any documented evidence that any of the RFC sites had aircraft buried at them, save for castoff slag left after smelting and/or small parts left when aircraft were disassembled. Can anyone else shed light on these recurring rumors? Perhaps at military fields where there was an effort to clear salvaged airplanes, but not at RFC sites like Walnut Ridge.

I doubt it would be a contractor, rather government workers assigned to the field. Would almost certainly occur before aircraft were sold. In the case of Walnut Ridge, as I understand it, the planes were battered by storms, turned sideways and completely neglected for some time before being sold. Workers at Walnut Ridge told me that equipment was hit, including canned engines, when the golf course there was being built. A very reliable source in Altus told me all the landing gear from their planes was buried just outside the current fence on the east side of the field, and unearthed in the 1950s.

Landing gear (and other steel components) survive the smelting process quite well. Some P-39 gear and lots of armor plating were found at Chino.

There are also engines buried at Chino. I have a few loose aluminum components that obviously missed the smelter (rocker box covers, control stick components, etc.).

I heard an eyewitness account of a Lockeed emplyee who claimed to have dumped brandnew P-38's into the drink off coast of So Cal. He said it was his regular job and did it MANY times. Late in the war this man got a call from his draft board back East. He had to travel there and they asked him what he did. He said he told them and he was soon back on the job. He said it was "economics" of the war industry.

Is it true? I have no way of checking. But I have heard the story from other sources. Some urban legend.

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Charles Neely

Along those lines, a friend's dad helped prep brand-new Corsairs for ferry to the smelters near the end of WWII. They were paid for and built, and I suppose it was cheaper to scrap them than pickle them.

I have a Load Adjuster from an 8AF B-17G (43-37800, IIRC) that was pulled before it was melted down. I actually found a picture of the plane in one of my 8AF books a while back.

Wade

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Regarding Walnut Ridge, the following may be of interest:

1. It is isolated, remote and unchanged since the planes were stored there.

2. Digging below 10' requires "special" permission.

3. In Nov. '45, one day alone 247 aircraft arrived. By the next month, average was 125 arrivals per day.

4. The 4,140 acres was completely filled with planes, even the areas across the terminal from the tarmac. The planes kept arriving.

5. A picture taken in '47 from the air verifies the bombers were still there where they had been towed to in '45.

6. The editor of the Walnut Ridge newspaper stated that all pictures, documentation, stories, etc., were destroyed accidentally by a new employee who destroyed the wrong boxes of records.

Someone had posted on the old board about P-61s being dumped off the coast of California after the war as well.

Hi all,

Not to make light of these rumors about aircraft being dumped in the ocean after the war. But isn't this type of rumor akin to the one about crated, new manufacturered aircraft being shoved over the side at war's end down around Australia ?? If my memory serves me, there was quite a stir whipped up about that rumor only to find out it was more hoax than fact ??

Paul

There are many documented cases of new warplanes being destroyed right out of the factory. I know of one fairly reliable story of new B-29s being run over with bulldozers at Wichita before the AAF had accepted them after contracts were cancelled. The Navy dumped new airplanes off their carriers to make room for troops they were going to bring back to the U.S. New complete B-17Gs at Long Beach with 1945 series serial numbers, never accepted by the AAF, were scrapped on site. Planes were flown off the production line to the scrapyard. It was a case, I think, of the war ending a year earlier than expected and the airplanes, though new, were worthless and expendable.

The govenment did a study on disassembling an airplane (a B-24) for the value of the component parts. It cost more in labor to disassemble them than it was worth. It also cost more to store them than they were worth. Most of the airplanes, new or old, quickly became a liability.

Paul, Re: your quote

"Not to make light of these rumors about aircraft being dumped in the ocean after the war. But isn't this type of rumor akin to the one about crated, new manufacturered aircraft being shoved over the side at war's end down around Australia ?? "

The majority of (what I am led to believe was 720) aircraft dumped into the ocean off New South Wales and Queensland were well-worn Avengers, Corsairs, Hellcats and Barracudas. However, newly put together aircraft were also dropped into the drink. As for crated aircraft, I cannot say.

As to the Royal Navy's U.S. built aircraft. I've read several articles in "The Aeroplane" that explain the dumping as being due to the terms of the Lend-Lease program,which required the L-L equipment be returned at the end of the war.

The authors,who were former Royal Navy pilots said that they preferred the Grumman aircraft to the home grown variety for most carrier use,but they had to scrap,combat loss or return them.

It was far more economical to dispose of most Lend Lease equipment locally than to return them to the U.S..Also,the U.S. Navy suddenly had far more brand new aircraft than they needed and had no use for the R.N. airplanes.

I would like to speak to the assumption that rumors shouldn't be looked into. A few years back , we heard about a fellow that claimed to have the sales reciept to the Spirit of St Louis. We heard from several supposedly knowledgable people that it was a scam and that the CAL signature was faked and the fellow was asking too much for what he had. We looked the fellow up and purchased what others has foregone because of the fakery rumor. The CAL singnature wasn't faked but it was worthless. It had been "enchanced" with a ball point pen, BUT it WAS the carbon of the original sales slip. So we , acting as agents for a collector, aquired the entire collection anyway, or what was left of it. It contained 17 other original CAL signatures (+/- $10,000, per each!!!!!) plus signatures from Igor Sikorsky, Roscoe Turner, and MANY other aviation notables. Many photos and one of the original "Milk cans" used to actually service the Spirit in San Diego (item identifiable in new unpublished photos!!!). It turns out this was the personal collection of the Ryan Airlines salesman A.G. Edwards, a notable aviation figure in his own right. So does it pay to run Down rumors?

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Charles Neely

Excellent example. I agree, never say never until proven otherwise. I think there is a chance at least two trenches, each over a mile in length, are beneath the crops at Walnut Ridge. Not only from all the stories about them, but also from some things I was told by workers there.

You're absolutely right about "new" planes being scrapped in various ways, but your statement above is incorrect.

First, there were no 1945 serial number B-17Gs. Secondly, and more to the point, the very last Douglas-built B-17G, a -95DL, 44-83885, rolled out in July 1945 and quickly departed the LB plant. No Douglas-built B-17s were scrapped on site due to "lack of interest" on the part of the AAF that I'm aware of.

Wade,
who grew up in and around museum B-17G 44-83884, the second-to-the-last Douglas-built B-17. She's been a part of Barksdale AFB's museum since 1979. Sister-ship 44-83872 (12 planes away on the line from '884) we know today as Texas Raiders.

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