marine air wrote:
Two Saturdays ago a friend and I drove down to see the warbirds at the CAF's Dixie Wing. It was incredible to see the Dauntless, P-63A, P-51, Corsair, T-6, etc. receiving their winter maintenance. Some of these have been "working warbirds for 50 years now not including flight time before CAF acquisition. It occurred to me that if The Dauntless or Helldiver were lost it would be simply impossible to replace them. Many of these flying warbirds can no longer be replaced if lost. The military and airshows seem to love having these aircraft in attendance because they help sell tickets and help recruit new folks into the military and inspire patriotism. A P-51D flew over the opening of this year's Super Bowl.
It's really time for the NHC to re-examine their policy on the Lake Michigan wrecks and now the Lexington wrecks. After 70 plus years, the value of the Navy's assets are deteriorating faster than their increase in value. The Lake Michigan aircraft simply haven't found enough sponsors to pay for the retrieval in return for the opportunity to "borrow" the aircraft and put on display.
One thought is to have a Paul Allen or similar person or corporation retrieve at their own cost, and in exchange be allowed to have some of them pass into private ownership. In the case of the Lexington, the Navy keeps the F4F and their choice of the Devastator. The entity paying for this keeps the remaining Devastators and any other aircraft pieces in exchange for the expense of retrieving.
Call it superstitious or whatever but maybe it's lucky that there are "7" TBD's down there. Also maybe it was divine providence that the Wildcat lays positoned as it is. If they hadn't photographed the four kill markings and the Pilot's name, no one would've been talking about retrieving it.
To me, retrieving these priceless and historical artifacts is as important as finding some old MIA remains from WW II. It would be a great remembrance and honor to those that lost their lives early in the war.
As one of the longest-term resident TBD nuts on this forum, believe me, NOTHING is more exciting than the idea that those seven Devastators not only still exist, but are sufficiently intact to entertain the idea of bringing them to the surface. I firmly believe the Navy has an absolute and unquestionable DUTY to do everything in it's power to bring all of these aircraft to the surface, because they perfectly fit with the stated vision and mission of the NHHC:
Vision:
Enhance the warfighting effectiveness of the U.S. Navy,
using the power of History and Heritage to pass on hard-won lessons, foster unit combat cohesion, and
garner the continuing support of the American people.
Mission:
The Naval History and Heritage Command serves as the Navy’s institutional memory by
preserving, acquiring, producing, and disseminating history and heritage products and resources through Navy historical, archival, museum, curatorial, art, and
underwater archaeological programs.
It's right there in their own documentation (found at
https://www.history.navy.mil/content/da ... de-508.pdf) - so they have a mandate to do this. And I think everyone here understands the enormity of the task at hand; we're discussing the retrieval of an aircraft weighing roughly 6,000 lbs from 11,000 feet of water. The Norwegians have extensive experience in retrieving and preserving aircraft from cold salt water, so we know the techniques exist to make this happen successfully, but no one has pulled it off at that depth thus far. It will require vast reserves of two things: money, and institutional will. The money part can be addressed by a public/private partnership- this is an instance where I feel very certain that people will happily line up around the block to contribute to a fund which would bring up these aircraft. The institutional will is a different animal, however... and nothing will happen unless there are highly placed champions for this effort within the Naval and DOD command hierarchy.
So that, I think, needs to be the first priority. We in the aviation history community need to get the Fleet and Defense Dept on board with the benefits of having these aircraft above water rather than below. And though this may ruffle some feathers, I don't think any of these particular aircraft should be sold or otherwise transferred to private ownership... these are incredibly historic aircraft which played a key role in one of the best known battles in US naval history. They belong to We The People. I certainly don't feel that way about other aircraft with lesser pedigrees, to be honest- the Lake Michigan birds are a good example, there are still dozens of Wildcats and Dauntlesses down there which should also be brought up, and made available to the private market... hey, we could even sell salvage rights to those aircraft to fund the Coral Sea retrievals! (I'm kidding- mostly) But Coral Sea, like Midway, is a very special case. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but put another way, EACH of these aircraft is every bit as significant as Flak Bait or Memphis Belle in their own right, and collectively, I would say they're even more so.
Respectfully submitted,
Lynn
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