So having read through Tangmere1940’s thread about the discovery of a wing…that could have been a Spitfire, then maybe a Skua and now a Hudson it got me thinking about missing aircraft from WW2.
So there are obviously mystery’s that would be great to be solved and with that in mind I wonder:
a) Is there a particular story relating to an aircraft incident in WW2 that you would love to see closure on but this could probably only occur if a missing aircraft was found? I know finding the aircraft is rarely the end of the story (Dennis Copping and the Kittyhawk a notable example) but aircraft that vanished on a particular mission never to be heard of/seen again?
b) Is there an aircraft type that is ultra-rare or non existent from WW2 that the discovery of would be a massive step forward in the rediscovery of a long lost variant (am thinking along the lines of the discovery of the Dornier Do-17 now being renovated at Cosford)?
So I’ll start with mine to set the ball rolling. Probably one of the most well known stories but one it would be great to have closure on:
a) Flight 19.
This is one of the most famous mysterious incidents of all time. It technically happened a few months after the war had ended, but it involved the U.S. military and aircraft used during World War II. The basic story is quite simple: Lieutenant Charles Taylor lead a flight of five TBM Avenger planes on a training exercise from a Naval air station in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Over the radio, Taylor complained that his compasses weren’t working and that he didn’t know where he was. After flying around in confusion for several hours, the planes ran out of gas. None of them have been seen since, and all 14 men on board were presumed dead.
The Navy’s inquiry was pretty clear-cut as well. Taylor had a history of getting lost while flying, and several radio operators and even junior members of Flight 19 seemed to know where they were, but following Taylor’s faulty leadership, they flew far into the Atlantic instead of back to Florida. Much of the mystery surrounding the incident stems from the Navy’s efforts to assuage Taylor’s mother, who complained when the inquiry blamed her son without hard evidence. They changed it to, “cause unknown.”
Later writers would wrap supernatural elements around the story, creating the legend of the Bermuda Triangle and inventing details out of whole cloth, such as pilots having premonitions of tragedy that prevented them from joining the doomed flight, and mysterious radio transmissions like, “the sky is all wrong here.”
It’s a creepy enough story on its own – five planes lost over open sea with night falling and bad weather moving in, the encroaching certainty of their own deaths looming over them. The actual final radio transmission was a faint, garbled message. Radio operators could only make out the flight’s call sign, “FT…FT…FT…”
Since the planes have still never been recovered, the true fate of Flight 19 technically remains a mystery.
b) So I know one of these was found and may, just may become flyable but my choice would be a Westland Whirlwind. Just something about it say ‘don’t mess with me and if you, you’ll regret it’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westland_Whirlwind_(fighter)
So, what would your choice, discovery be?
Cheers, MP
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August 30, 2016 at 10:42 am