Divers find rare Douglas

Air Classics, Feb 2001

A mysterious aircraft wreck found nearly 200 feet underwater near Pearl Harbor airport's reef runway is a USAAC observation aircraft dumped in the 1930s. During the first week of November 2000, US Navy divers from the Mobile Underwater Diving and Salvage Unit stationed at Bishop Point were training near the edge of the continental shelf, about a mile south of the runway, when they spotted a tangle of wreckage on the bottom.

"It was on its side, but we didn't know what, and the hub for the wheel was sticking up," said Boatswain's Mate Chief Doug Westling. "So we thought it might be the hub for a helicopter rotor."

Investigating closer, the divers realized the tangle of wires and pipes was actually an intact structure. "We needed salvage training and there wasn't much to it, so we pulled it up," said Westling. "The small parts around it were gathered up and put in a basket, so there's nothing left down there. At first we didn't realize it was that old. The rubber on the tail wheel was still intact!"

Placed on shore, the wreckage was clearly an aircraft fuselage, missing the engine, instruments and wings and Ilastered with sea growth. The fuselage, which is broken behind the large cockpit area, features a long-nosed mount for a radial engine, a steel frame braced with wires, and farmers designed to make the aircraft more streamlined under its fabric skin.

The size and shape of the fuselage, mount for the engine, and arrangement of landing gear struts proved that the plane was a Douglas O-38B observation aircraft - a type assigned to the 11th Observation Squadron of the Army Air Corps at Wheeler Field during the 1930s.

The condition of the fuselage indicates that the plane was likely "surveyed" in the late 1930s - the military practice of stripping obsolete vehicles of instruments and engines, and dumpin, them at sea. The waters near the mouth of Pearl Harbor were the primary dumping area for Army and Navy weapons prior to World War Two.

Hawaii historic-preservation law, administered through the State Historic Preservation Division, makes specific mention of aircraft and aviation-related sites as resources that should be saved. In order to keep the airframe from deteriorating further, Mobile Underwater Diving and Salvage Unit is keeping the wreckage in the water until it can be properly taken care of.