Pacific Ghosts: 12 Aviation travel adventure destinations

Flight Journal, Apr 2003 by Taylan, Justin

Seeking out WW II aircraft wrecks

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THEY LIE ON JUNGLE FLOORS, in muddy swamps and on ocean bottoms. Some are in pieces; others are intact. Twisted fragments are often the only evidence of their presence; sometimes the whole aircraft remains. More than half a century after their demise, it is difficult to put a value on them. Because they are so remote, a mere visit is expensive in terms of effort, time and physical discomfort. They are Pacific ghosts.

DESTINATIONS-PACIFIC GHOSTS

I refer to the 1,500 or so WW II aircraft wrecks that dot a geographical area between Australia and the Philippines. They were flown by the air forces of Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United States. They are there because they were shot down, became lost, ran into bad weather, or for some other reason that remains unexplained. The sites now generate political controversy. Recently, the United States Congress enacted new legislation instructing the U.S. military to do its utmost to resolve all outstanding Pacific missing-in-action cases. In Melanesian nations, ownership of sites is often contested among rival clans, provincial governments and national authorities. Some sites are sources of spiritual contention, being both legally and technically war graves.

The precise location of intact wrecks is a guarded secret in a game that could be described by cynics as "the politics of junk." Influential wreck hunters have employed lackeys to traipse Pacific jungles to obtain the precise coordinates of "worthwhile" wrecks. It all seems so unnecessarily elaborate and expensive: the information is readily available, albeit at the cost of time. Commercial satellite photography, postwar surveys, colonial Papua New Guinea (PNG) and RAAF records, loss sheets, museum logs, control-tower logs, historians and world travelers all have the answers.

Why such mystery, and why such zealous attachment to these wrecks? More to the point, what is out there, and how much of it remains worth salvaging? The truth is, there are scores of well-preserved wrecks. The best lie on the sides of mountains or submerged in fresh water. Those that have been submerged in saltwater for more than 55 years are, almost without exception, so corroded that they are worthless. Some of the better wrecks at altitude include three Douglas A-20Gs in New Guinea's Finesterre Mountains. Their airframes are broken, but their castings and fittings--exceedingly rare-are as good as on the day the aircraft emerged from the Douglas factory in Santa Monica in 1943. And there is the ex-13th Air Force B-24J that lies in the Philippines on a high plateau in Mindanao. It has been stripped of parts, but its wings and rear fuselage are virtually new.

There are several complete P-38s in PNG-all F, G, or H models. Most of the airframes are corroded to some degree, but given the scarcity of P-38s, they certainly represent salvageworthy aircraft, especially the two with complete cockpits and those rare Lockheed combat fittings.

How about the complete P-39F that lies near a lake not far from Garaina in the New Guinea highlands? What is the history of the upside-down A6M2 in a swamp west of Sialum on New Guinea's northern coast; it still has its wheels lowered. Did the pilot of the A6M2, who was left in the wreckage until the late '80s, try to land it in the swamp believing it was a smooth surface? Not far away lies a Ki-43-Ib Oscar.

There are substantial pieces of a Buffalo wreck on the side of Mt. Stanley near Beechworth, Victoria. Given that there are almost no Buffalos left, these crumpled pieces are invaluable for anybody who is trying to decode Mr. Brewster's original drawings for this fighter.

There is a well-known F4F-4 Wildcat in Vilu village just outside Honiara, in the Solomon Islands. The wings on it still fold, and despite its time in the tropics, the airframe's corrosion is minimal. To get it flying, all you need is a new Pratt & Whitney engine plus about $1 million U.S.

Stories are constantly being told of the latest attempt to secure permission from the PNG government to lift out the Ambiago Swamp Flying Fortress, now nicknamed Swamp Ghost. To date, all practical attempts have failed owing largely to local landowners' demands for millions of U.S. dollars in "compensation." It is always interesting to wonder whether prospective rescue parties have any idea of the practicalities of disassembling and removing such a large airframe from a swamp-at least without damaging it further.

Many host nations claim the wrecks as "cultural heritage," and, in a sense, they are. Some claims are hollow, especially those of fledgling nations that, as claimants, have taken no measures (other than to spout rhetoric) to prevent the wholesale destruction of their wreck sites. In PNG's case, we saw the removal and scrapping of dozens of Japanese airframes from Alexishafen, Bougainville and New Ireland last year; salvage organizations receive less than $0.15 U.S. per kilo from the Huon Gulf scrap yard in Lae.