Martin B-26 cockpit wreck found at Watson Lake, Canada

Lake Watson/Martin B-26 Folks:

Rg! will upload ’em again! Sorry! Nick Blake has another available link. std by.

Alt link copy:

About 22 air miles NNE of Historic Mile 514 on the Alaska Highway (the Smith River Bridge) lies a mountain-ringed valley that has become known as Million Dollar Valley due to a multi-aircraft crash in 1942.

On January 5, 1942, 14 new Martin B-26 Marauder bombers left Gowen Field at Boise, Idaho, headed for the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. They were being flown by members of the 77th Bombardment Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group of Air Force Combat Command, many of whom had minimal training. The flight to Edmonton was uneventful, but they left that city on January 16th with pencil sketches rather than maps, no electronic navigation aids on the ground, and the probability of poor weather along the 1,000-mile route to Whitehorse, Yukon.

By about 6:00 p.m. that night, 3 of the B-26s were lost, low on gas and had been forced to low altitude by snow showers. The decision was made to crash-land if they could find a suitable location. When a fairly broad valley with a flat floor was found, 2 of the aircraft landed without incident by keeping the wheels up (allowing the fuselage to act like a boat). The third plane dropped the landing gear to lose speed, though, and nosed over in what turned out to be 4-5 feet of snow. Luckily, the pilot and co-pilot received minor injuries and the rest of the crew was unhurt. The aircraft were well equipped with survival equipment, and a reasonably comfortable camp was made.

A search was initiated for the missing crews at first light on January 17th, but was unsuccessful. At about noon the following day, they were located by a flight of P-40E fighters also headed for Alaska. Veteran bush pilot Russ Baker arrived the next morning in his ski-equipped Fokker and flew the injured men to Watson Lake – it took almost a week to get all of the men out of the valley, though.

A few months after the crash, crews were sent in to strip the aircraft of tons of useable parts and equipment, and the rest was abandoned. The valley then started to be called Million Dollar Valley – a slightly-exaggerated valuation of the three B-26 bombers.

Following the war, only a few of the 5,266 B-26 Marauders built survived the scrapyard, and aircraft enthusiasts in the 1960s in particular began searching around the world for wreck sites in the hope of finding restorable aircraft. David Tallichet of California was one of those enthusiasts, and he was able to find the Million Dollar Valey wrecks in the late 1960s. In the fall of 1971 he sent a team in, and over the course of 3 months they were able to retrieve virtually everything that remained. The aircraft that crashed were numbers 40-1464, 40-1501 and 40-1459. As you can see in the links below, one has now (2006) been restored to flying condition and another is under restoration – proof that Tallichet’s remarkable rescue mission was a success!

Million Dollar Valley Links

Wings Over the Alaska Highway
A highly-rated illustrated history by Bruce McAllister.

Marauder 40-1459
Current status and photo, from the Warbird Resource Group.

Marauder 40-1459
Current status and photos from the MAPS Air Museum in Ohio.

Marauder 40-1464
Current status and photo, from the Warbird Resource Group.

Note that there is a historical panel about this event posted at the site of the Beatton River Flight Strip – almost every detail, however, is incorrect.

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Arctic & Northern Aviation

Links not working …..

*deleted

Martin B-26 Watson Lake Folks:

Good day!

The other side of the story via Nick “Spartakle/Blake” of Wix!

Post subject: Re: Martin B-26 Cockpit find at Watson Lake, Canada?

PostPosted: Thu Dec 26, 2013 12:58 pm

Offline
Flight Sergeant

Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2008 5:55 am
Posts: 80
Location: Vancouver

The nose section of the B-26 that was recovered from the depths of Watson Lake did not ditch in the lake in 1942 but crashed onto the runway when it snagged its’ gear on the embankment rising up from the lake at the runway threshold. The airframe was damaged beyond repair and served the fire/rescue training squad as a training tool during the war years. At the close of WWII the USAAF cleaned out their belongings, much of this material that was surplus was buried in the dump and some things thrown in the lake, like the nose section of the B-26. Picture of the B-26 taken during WWII:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23057174@N … 9446995276

Re: Lincoln bomber: I have visited Watson Lake a few times and have canoed across the lake to the site of the Lincoln bomber that ditched in the lake in the late 1940s. What it looked like when ditching occurred:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23057174@N … 9446995276
Where it is photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23057174@N … 4789690023
One of the wings:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23057174@N … 4789690023

Blake

Not a Lancaster but a Lincoln.. SX924..

Two charged after raising WWII bomber from lake

‘The Flying Prostitute’ crashed en route to aid Russia in 1942
Jun 05, 2009 04:41 PM
Comments on this story (3)
Bob Weber
THE CANADIAN PRESS

The fate of a derelict Second World War bomber once nicknamed “The Flying Prostitute” is up in the air since two Calgary brothers fished part of it out of a remote Yukon lake.

The brothers want to complete the salvage and see the B-26 Marauder restored and placed in a museum. But the territorial government, suspecting a profit motive, has grounded their plans and is charging the pair with violating the territory’s heritage legislation.

“Our past is not to be peddled,” Jeff Hunston of the Heritage Resources Department said Friday. “We want our heritage in the Yukon.”

The B-26 was a high-speed, medium-weight bomber developed by the United States and saw action in several theatres of the war. Some were used during the D-Day invasion, the 65th anniversary of which is being marked this weekend.

The plane’s nickname was derived from its short wingspan, which appeared to give it no visible means of support.

Many Marauders were part of a lend-lease program that helped arm Russia against the Nazi invasion. In a massive airlift called the Northwest Staging Route, about 7,000 warplanes were flown from Great Falls, Mont., to Fairbanks, Alaska, en route to Siberia. There were stops in Canada to refuel.

On Jan. 16, 1942, six of them left Great Falls. Three got lost in Yukon airspace and crashed after running out of fuel, said Bob Cameron, a Yukon aviation buff in Whitehorse. The fourth crash-landed on the ice of Watson Lake and another crashed on takeoff as it set out again. Only one made it to Fairbanks.

“That was an unlucky group of airplanes,” he said.

Enter history buffs Brian and John Jasman, who found one of the planes last year with a sonar device. They had been combing through declassified military records and accident reports for 20 years. This spring, the brothers floated the nose cone of the derelict up to the surface and hauled it to shore.

“It was kind of amazing,” said Brian Jasman from his campsite beside Watson Lake, just north of the British Columbia-Yukon boundary.

“It should be in a museum where everybody could see it. Sitting in 70 feet of water, it’s just going to rot to nothing.”

The Jasmans were starting their search for the rest of the plane when the territorial government stepped in.

“The government of the Yukon owns that plane,” said Hunston.

The Northwest Staging Route helped establish some of the territory’s modern-day airports, he said. The many warplane wrecks it left behind are important artifacts of Yukon history – and potential tourist attractions.

Hunston suspects the Jasmans’ motives.

“We’re well aware of the antique warbird market out there. There’s a lot of money to be made and even parts can be hot commodities.”

Although thousands of Marauders were built, there are only a handful in museums and even fewer in flying condition.

Hunston fears the Watson Lake Marauder could wind up in an American private collection, much like a P-39 Cobra fighter that was allowed to leave the Yukon and ended up in a private museum in Oregon.

“We, too, want our warbird heritage preserved and exhibited in museums so that everybody benefits.”

Hunston said the brothers have been served notice to appear in court on charges under the territory’s heritage legislation. They could face a fine of up to $50,000.

But the Jasmans claim finders, keepers. Brian says the U.S. air force has relinquished any claim on the wreck. He also points out that the plane’s location underwater places it under federal, not territorial, legislation.

“We’re going to stick it out and let the lawyer deal with it and see what happens. Legally, they can’t take it.”

So, for now, the Marauder sits atop a trailer alongside the Watson Lake airport where it attempted to land 67 years ago.

There are dozens of relics like it along the old flight route. Just this week, a pair of unexploded 227-kilogram bombs were found near the airport.

The Marauder isn’t even the only wreck in Watson Lake. Cameron said an old Lancaster bomber is visible from the surface.

The town’s airport was a maintenance depot during the war and used for testing in the years afterward.

“There have been quite a few accidents in Watson Lake,” Cameron said.

http://www.thestar.com/article/646307

PStrike:

Good day!

Tks for link, details & photos of that Martin B-26. We’ll see what happens in 2014!

See here.

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?91456-Lost-bomber