Warbird Information Exchange

Hi everyone,

I was just looking at an article on the http://lend-lease.airforce.ru website, which by the way, is a very interesting site!!!

On the site I read an article:

http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/a ... /index.htm

It mentions the shipments of war materials from England to Russia during the early part of WWII. Below is an part of the article.

"All the aircraft were delivered by Allied convoys by the northern route during 1942. The convoy normally formed up in Reykyavik or Seydisfjord. From here it proceeded across the northwest Atlantic to the Soviet ports of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, or Molotovsk (present-day Severodvinsk). This was the shortest route (approximately 1500 miles to Murmansk), but also the most dangerous. We recall the writings of Valentin Pikul and his "Requiem of Convoy PQ-17." According to British data, 49 of Airacobra I aircraft were lost during the transport by sea... Losses of the PQ convoys (England-Murmansk) can be approximated thus: if of the number sent from Great Britain (212) we subtract the number that arrived in the USSR (1 in December 1941 and 192 in 1942, according to materials of the Archive of the Main Staff of the VVS Soviet Army, 2 in 1943 according to British sources), and take into consideration that the first P-39D-2, K, and L were delivered to the USSR on 12 November 1942 and 4 December 1942 [4] in single examples, then the magnitude of loss during transport by sea amounts to 20-25 aircraft."

So, apparently there are 20-25 brand-new P-39 Cobras sitting in crates at the bottom of the North Atlantic.

My questions are as follows:

1.) Has there ever been an attempt to locate the ship wrecks that carried these (lost) P-39's?
2.) Would a recovery be feasable?
3.) Would the airframes be worth recovering if located?

Cheers,

David

1.) Has there ever been an attempt to locate the ship wrecks that carried these (lost) P-39's? god knows

2.) Would a recovery be feasable? yes

3.) Would the airframes be worth recovering if located? yes, if you made them flyable

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EVERYTHING that CAN fly should be ALLOWED to FLY!
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P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

S: Took hammer away from midget.

I wonder where I could find the proper documentation to track down the ships that carried the P-39's and roughly where they were lost.

The North Atlantic is very big, and I imagine quite deep too. This could be quite an undertaking.

It's a curiosity of mine and is not a mission I plan on carrying out. I just wonder how possible it would be.

-David

Your answer is "Yes, if they were made of solid gold". Then it would be cost effective, perhaps.

HMS Edinburgh Gives a good introduction of the issues, and the cost-benefit requirement.


Not as far as I know. I very much doubt that there would be good enough records of reasonably precise locations, either at the time, or surviving. HMS Edinburgh was well known.


Highly unlikely, even if you found the ship(s). If the aircraft were crated you'd get something, but the odds are against. If they were uncrated or deck cargo...


Given that viable current P-39 projects are available, and you won't get the cost of restoration of a project back in the current market, on a cost basis - clearly no. Sadly the P-39 is unlikely to climb the value list high enough to make serious numbers of fliers possible.

Currently Precision Aerospace in Wangaratta Victoria are rebuilding multiple P-39s to fly. There are other P-39 projects they could get into the air for you, if that's what you want; but overall, you'll probably spend more than its potential resale value.

Cheers

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

I'd say no, because the wreck sites are likely to be designated War Graves, so permission for a salvage operation is unlikely to be given.

Good point Mike.

HMS Edinburgh was, of course, also a war grave; while not all lost merchantmen would be, although I've not ever examined individual records.

Basically the project also comes under the 'you perhaps could do it, but it's certainly the hard way' heading.

If there was something more historically significant and valuable, which was in one, known, shipwreck, that's justabout maybe...

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

when going through the Air Britain serial books, one can find also lots of P-40s and also a handful of Mustang I's lost on the Murmansk route.....

Martin

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Flying is easy: just learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

Unfortunately, depending on the specific area, the North Atlantic can be very unfriendly to metal i.e. RMS Titanic...

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Yeah, I Figured that the North Atlantic wouldn't be too kind to anything that sits at the bottom. I imagine the recovery would also be thwarted by choppy conditions and bad weather (that's just what I picture up there as I've never been).

James, my first idea when I learned of these 20-25 P-39's, and now several p-40's and P-51's; is I only thought of the historical significance of the artifacts and didn't considered them as a way to make profit from resale. It's really nice to see so many P-39's being restored at Wangaratta. I can't wait to see them all take to the air. By the way, where are all those airplanes going to end up? Do they already have owners, or are they going to be for sale when completed?

If I had the means to recover them I'd not care so much about getting them all flying, but more interested in simply preserving them. I can only imagine how much easier it is to preserve an artifact like an airplane on solid ground, in a building, compared to on the sea floor.

The depth that I figure they'd be at would be anywhere between 150 ft. and 6,000 ft. I'm no expert, but I think that the deeper you go the more acidic the water gets, being very bad for preserving metal artifacts. Correct me if I'm wrong.

With regards to the depth, I used a really rudimentary map I found on Google that mapped the North Atlantic. I have no idea what the routing was for the supply convoys, but if I did have a better idea I could probably figure out a more accurate depth of expected sunken ships.

Maybe I'll call Uncle Bill Gates and see if he'd like to pitch in.

Cheers,

David