Any idea what this might be?

Hi, Yes it is.

The wing tips are missing and the “gun bays” are simply holes in the wing.

John

Is this the same aircraft John? See the attached url :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aichi_E13A

The aircraft that would most likely fit given the location and new information would be the Aichi E13A1 Jake in my opinion.

John

Image from Francillon’s Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War (Putnam)

Have a look at the image , cleaned up a little..between us we should crack it..the clues are there,(as Lloyd Grossman might say, and some careful silhouette comparison research should bring a result. At this stage I’m keeping a completely open mind…back later 🙂

On an American biased forum they all think it’s American, on a British biased forum we all think it’s RN, yet it’s most probably Japanese…

Jake. Probably.

Then the wing shape makes me think Aichi D-3-A Val but there again we come up with the problem of the front fuselage being apparently incompatible with a radial engine. Can’t think of any other Japanese torpedo bomber with that wing shape.

According to the thread in the link, the caption for the original of the photo says:

“View from atop the mast of the private yacht Freydis as it passes by a sunken three-seat Japanese float plane from WW2, said to have been sunk by American aircraft while anchored in the Shortland group of the Solomon Islands. This picture was taken on a six-week trip by private sailboat through the seldom-visited islands north of New Guinea, in an area of the South Pacific known as the Solomon Sea. Most of the islets here have no airport or regularly scheduled boat services, and their way of life is traditional by economic necessity.”

Having had a look at a three view diagram I’d say that wreck is definitely a Firefly as the wing shape is more in keeping than for an Avenger. The Avengers’s wings being a parrallel chord centre section and straight taper outboard of the fold line and these being semi eliptical all point to a Firefly rather than anything else I can think of off the top of my head. Possibly a Sea Fury but then we come across the same problem of the forward fuselage not looking wide enough to have had a radial hung on it. Also in evidence are the ammunition tanks (the dark patches on the wings in the photo) which are also in the correct position for the Firefly. The fact that they are so dark by comparison with the rest of the wing surface suggests that the access panels are missing, no doubt removed by souvenir hunters.

I initially thought Avenger but looking at the front end the fuselage looks too slim to have had a radial sat in front of it and the wings are the wrong shape, which is why I went for the Firefly.

I will go with Avenger too.
Is that cleethorpes ?

Good guess. The ripples on the water unfortunately make it difficult to see if it has the leading edge oil cooler/radiator intakes though. Maybe an Avenger?

I instantly thought of a Firefly.