Waterlogged wood huh? Don't expect to see them flying any time soon then.
Aircraft disposal at the end of the war was generally accompanied by wholesale butchery. I well remember visiting a pile of aircraft debris the size of a house at Malahang beach just outside Lae, PNG back in the '70s. This was all that remained of an unknown number of aircraft that were reputed to have been chopped up and fed into a smelter brought in for the purpose. The pile was made up of the non aluminium stuff the scrappies didn't want such as armour plate, stainless steel heat shielding, ammunition feed ducting etc.
It's probably been cleaned up by a later generation of scrappies but at the time provided good pickings for the aircraft restoration fraternity.
There was another site just outside Finchaven where numerous P40's had been disposed of. There were remains scattered through the jungle and walking down the creek there were wings and fuselages sticking out of the bank from the ones that were buried.
David
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Hell no! I'm not that old!
Last edited by motto; 11-01-13 at 13:19.
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