Kingcobras recovered to the UK

BROTHERS DANIEL AND KEVIN Hunt, based in Surrey, England, took delivery of the first of several new shipments of WW II aircraft they recovered from Russia.

The first package comprises four P-63C Kingcobras from the Kuril Island chain in Eastern Russia. Typically "bruised" by nearly 60 years of exposure to the elements and passing militia and local peasants salvaging parts and fittings, the aircraft, however, are not crash remains; they had been parked on their undercarriage.

Professionally dismantled in Russia, the heavy components are in remarkably good condition, and the structures bode well for future restoration to high-quality static or flight status.

An initial superficial inspection revealed two of the identities as 44-4315 and 44-4368, still clearly stencilled by the entry doors.

More than two-thirds of Kingcobra production, some 2,400 machines, were ferried to Russia over the Alaska-Siberia route. Used in the short Manchurian campaign against the Japanese in August 1945, fighter regiments of the Pacific maintained them in service until the early 1950s. These recovered examples are almost certainly from the units 307 and 308 IAP.

One airframe is earmarked for a proposed local museum, and the others will be placed on the warbird market in due course.

-Peter R. Arnold

Copyright Air Age Publishing Dec 2003
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