Corsairs can't swin or how to dipose of unwanted F4U

[airmanual]

Laurent

[Ploesti]

WTF!!!!! Explain please. Where and why did this happen? Painful photo.

[Taigh Ramey]

Wouldn't you love to go diving there!

[Stoney]

The Navy did that to a lot of planes after the war, just shove them off the carrier deck

[Dan K]

The Navy did that to a lot of planes after the war, just shove them off the carrier deck

But "shove off" is such an archaic and insensitive phrase.

The NHHC would like to clarify that this photograph reveals vintage Naval aircraft being carefully submitted to long-term preservation for later generations to appreciate and admire. At no time should the viewer misinterpret this act of preservation as abandonment of US Naval property. Thank you.

Last edited by Dan K on Sun Feb 12, 2012 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Ploesti]

The Navy did that to a lot of planes after the war, just shove them off the carrier deck

Any idea where this happened? Looks South Pacific'ish, and also looks not too deep if that island / land mass in the background indicates anything depth wise.

[Ewan]

Not sure of that location - but there are plenty of reports of hundreds being dumped offshore of Sydney after the war...see diving club newsletter link below
http://www.urgdiveclub.org.au/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=lyobhk067pU%3D&tabid=59&mid=391

or simply type in "Corsairs dumped in sea Australia" and there are a couple of fascinating reports including pics of remains bought up by fishermen One called Plane Sailing is one of the better ones (it's a downloadable document)

[CDF]

In 1946 numerous World War 2 aircraft were dumped into 200 metres of water off the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane. Scores of F4U-1D Corsairs, F6F Hellcats, a Fairy Barracuda, at least 12 Seafires, several TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, AT6 Harvards and Supermarine Otter seaplanes were dumped.

They were dumped on the orders of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm from the decks of HMS Pioneer, HMS Perseus and HMS Slinger. Apparently about 9 shiploads of aircraft were dumped with about 70 to 100 in each shipload. Thus there is potentially about 700 to 800 aircraft on the seabed in that area off the Sunshine Coast.

In 1996, Australian company International Warbird Salvage Pty. Ltd. was planning to recover some more of these aircraft. A computer controlled remote underwater vehicle equipped with a television camera was used to inspect the dumped aircraft. A robot arm on the underwater vehicle attached lines to a Corsair in readiness for recovery. They had recovered 3 aircraft back in 1990.

http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/dumped@sea.htm

[PinecastleAAF]

The NHHC would like to clarify that this photograph reveals vintage Naval aircraft being carefully submitted to long-term preservation for later generations to appreciate and admire. At no time should the viewer misinterpret this act of preservation as abandonment of US Naval property. Thank you.

Ok now that is funny.

[The Inspector]

Ugly as it appears, I'll bet that the Commonwealth was complying with a stipulation in the Leand-Lease agreement that items loaned to the Commonwealth to fight the war either be returned to the posession of the U.S. Government, or be disposed of to cancel the debt on that property and, obviously the U.S. had no interest in, nor funds for transporting that property back to U.S. soil. We did the same thing by burning or bulldozing under wrecks and excess aircraft and other vehicles in both the Pacific and in Europe after all the fun stopped. and, it looks like that is exactly what the Navy was doing, dumping excess equipment, just a part of business.

[Stoney]

Also, there are rumors of the same thing happening at bases in the states, ie burned and buryed.

[lmritger]

Not sure if this will help ID a location, but the "Z" tailcode belonged to the Shangri-La (CV-38) air group in 1945.

What a stomach-turning pic that is to us, 70 years hence... the notion of "unwanted Corsairs" seems so ludicrous as to be laughable. Also, Dan K, the NHC has gotten much better over the past couple of years since a long-needed leadership change, but that was still hilarious. Well played.

Lynn

[Django]

What a shame.

[bgp429]

Very depressing. Have tried to understand the sentiment towards aircraft after the war but can't get it, almost criminal. Could the picture be at Okinawa or Tokyo?


From Wikipedia

Shangri-La entered Tokyo Bay on 16 September, almost two weeks after the surrender ceremony onboard battleship Missouri, and remained there until 1 October. Departing Japan, she arrived at Okinawa on 4 October staying until the 6th, and then headed for the United States in company with Task Unit 38.1.1.

[The Inspector]

Remember that in 1944 the WD told GRUMMAN to lay people off and cut back on production of F6F's because there were so many sitting around stateside with no place to go, GRUMMAN did a force reduction and those still @ Bethpage working busted their humps and produced more aircraft than the number done the month BEFORE the layoffs.
I'm sure that VOUGHT and REPUBLIC had the same issues and why, if there are so many brand new airplanes sitting around gathering moss would the WD expend the time and money to drag a bunch of wracked, worn out, bullet riddled questionable 'junkers' half way around the world just so they could be melted down in the States?
A guy I worked with Moons ago Boeing told me his last assignment in the USAAF was picking up and ferrying brand new P-51's from Dallas to Okahoma where he had just enough time to get his gear out of the cockpit because they were already draining the fluids and the bulldozers and a guy with a torch were rolling up to wrap a chain around the engine so the forklift behind it could scoop up the airframe for the smelters some with 3 or 3.5 total airframe hours.