- I'm Ed Lengel.
I'm Senior Director of programs
at the National World War
II Museum in New Orleans,
and I'm very excited by the
program that we have today.
I've been look``ing forward to
this one for quite some time
to be joined by two of our colleagues
from the Royal Air Force Museum in Cosford
in the United Kingdom.
Which if you have not been there yet,
and I've had the pleasure of being there,
it's one of the finest military museums
or aircraft museums in the entire world.
So we're joined today by Ian Thirsk,
who is Head of Collections
and Darren Priday who is manager
of the Michael Beetham Conservation Center
at the Royal Air Force Museum
who will be discussing their work,
very exciting work on the
recovery and conservation
of one of the rarest aircraft
to be recovered from World War II,
the German bomber, the Dornier 17.
And I'm also joined by my colleague,
I'm delighted to say Seth Paridon,
Who is Digital Content Manager
in the Media and Education Center
at the World War II Museum
and also a staff historian in our museum.
So we will be starting
with Ian and Darren,
who will be presenting on
their work on the Dornier 17.
And then Seth will be discussing our own
SBD Dauntless dive bomber
and our collaboration
with the folks in
Pensacola in the recovery,
conservation and restoration
of that aircraft.
So, welcome.
- Thank you.
Good morning, everybody.
My name is Ian Thirsk,
and I'm head of collections and research
at the Royal Air Force Museum.
Together with the manager
of Conservation Center
Darren Priday, we'd like
to give you an overview
of what has to be one of the most exciting
and challenging projects ever undertaken
by the Royal Air Force Museum,
the recovery and conservation
of the Goodwin Sands Dornier 17.
Just
Whoops.
Okay.
So exactly seven years ago today
on June 10, 2013, the project
received worldwide coverage
and featured live on BBC News
as millions of viewers tuned in
to witness the aircraft being
raised from a Dover straits.
The size, scope and technical
ambition of the project
captured the imagination
and pushed the envelope
in terms of methodology.
our presentation, we've broken
down into two main parts.
The first section will focus
on the Dornier's discovery
as preparations for its recovery.
During the second
section Darren will focus
on the recovery operation itself,
plus the challenges involved
in conserving the aircraft.
So how did this all begin?
Well, in 2005 a Ramsgate
fisherman snagged his net,
on one of the many wrecks
located on the Goodwin sands.
about a mile off the coast of Kent Deal.
The fisherman reported this find
to a local diver called Bob Peacock.
Bob's made a detailed
study of the various wrecks
along the this section
of the Kent coastline.
The Goodwin Sands are
notoriously dangerous,
and contain the wrecks over 1000 ships
and numerous aircraft.
They're known locally as
the "Ship swallowers".
Bob investigated further
and discovered that the nets were caught
around the remains of a largely
intact twin engine aircraft,
long at a depth of about 50 feet
and partially buried in the seabed.
Another local dive group,
led by Mr. John Franklin
also investigated the wreck,
believing it was probably
an ex RAF Bristol Blenheim
However, during examination
of the tail section,
one of the dive team reported
that she'd found both fins,
So clearly this was not a Blenheim.
The twin tail arrangement
suggested to us that the aircraft
could be either a Dornier 17,
or a Handley Page Hampden,
but which one was it?
Well, meanwhile, Peacock
reported this find
to Wessex archeology, and they conducted
Sonar sky scans of the wreck
site during survey work
for English Heritage.
The results were quite spectacular,
and revealed the ghostly
outline of a largely intact
twin engined aircraft emerging
from the shifting sands,
As you can see here,
these were taken in 2008.
the wreck strongly resembled
a German Dornier 17,
a type previously thought to be extinct,
and a mainstay of Luftwaffe bomber fleet
during the Battle of Britain.
Now, Wessex sent these scans to us
and we were very excited because
here was a potential
opportunity to acquire
a example of the missing link
in our collection of battered
Britain, German aircraft types.
The Germans operated
three main bomber types
during the Battle of Britain.
Heinkel 111, Junkers
88 and the Dornier 17.
We retain examples to the Heinkel 111
and the Ju 88 but these
much later versions
are the ones that flew
in the Battle of Britain.
However, no Dornier 17s
were known to exist anywhere in the world.
What was more, this unique survivor
was likely linked to an iconic
event in British history,
the Battle of Britain,
and therefore seemed more than
worth saving for the nation.
So based on the sonar speakers
from Wessex archeology,
we decided to conduct our
own dive survey of the wreck,
and we commissioned
Wessex to do this for us.
The objectives of the
survey were to confirm
the aircraft type, was it a Dornier 17
or was it the later version
called the Dornier 217.
It's slightly larger,
it's slightly faster.
Also check the presence of ordinance.
Were there any bombs on board.
If there were, we couldn't
recover the airplane.
Very importantly, check for
the presence of human remains.
If they were on board,
his would be regarded as a grave site,
we wouldn't have been able
to investigate it at all.
And fourthly to assess
the overall condition.
Now the kind of things
we had briefed the dive team to look at
with the Dornier 17 for example,
that has some Bramo Fafnir
nine cylinder radial engines,
we said check the number of cylinders.
Right.
So, here's an example of the Dornier 217,
that aircraft that we were concerned that
maybe the identity of the Do 17.
Another feature of the Dornier 17
is the internal elevate
externally elevated mass balance.
We told the divers to focus
on this particular part
of the aircraft too,
to see if this could feature
in the wreck and it did.
So the survey prooved that the aircraft
was indeed a Dornier 17 Z
in a remarkably intact condition
(indistinct) down to the time
it had spent on the seabed.
Some general information
into what we were doing here,
two Bramo Fafnir 323,
performance 1000 horsepower each,
a maximum speed of 410 kilometers an hour
at 5000 meters and a payload
of up to 1000 kilograms.
However, in order to recover the aircraft,
we had to obtain a license
from the Ministry of Defense.
In order to do that, we had to contact
the Air Historical Branch of the MOD
to give us some idea of
the aircraft's identity.
The AHP came up with the
three potential opportunities
for the airplanes identity.
Two of these crashed into
the sea and were destroyed.
But one of them is
recorded as having landed
on the Goodwin Sands at low
tide on August 26, 1940,
following combat with RAF fighters,
and this aircraft Werk number 1160
at the top of the screen that
we believe to be the identity
of the actual wreck,
but some...
What happened on August 26, 1940,
How'd this airplane actually end up there.
There is a photograph
of 5K + AR of 7/III/KG3.
We believe it may be this actual aircraft
but we've still got to find
some evidence for that.
So, Monday, August 26,
1940, was yet another day
during the Battle of Britain
when the German Air Force
attempted to destroy
fighter commands airfields.
The previous day, you've seen attacks
and airfields to the west of England.
Today was the turn of aerodromes
to the east of England.
Rather than approach
their targets overland,
the majority of the attackers approached
over the Thames Estuary, turning
north or south as required.
The central aerodrome in Belgium
nine Dornier 17s of 7/III/KG3 took off
to attack the RAF aerodrome
at Manston in Kent
time they took was 20 hours.
The German bombers followed
the North Kent coast
turning inland between
Herne Bay and Westgate
to attack Manston from the north,
it was now, as the formation
approached the Kent coast
and prepared to turn
southwards that RAF fighters,
including Boulton Paul Defiant
of number 264 squadron,
tried to intercept the Dorniers.
It was 264's task to attack the bombers.
Instructed to patrol over Dover
the Defiants were vectored
towards the Herne Bay-Deal area
to intercept the Dorniers,
ever mindful of the escortingBf 109s,
They successfully intercepted
the formation from underneath,
before being engaged by the
Messerschmitt fighter escort.
In ensuring confused combats, 264 squadron
claimed to have destroyed six Dornier 17s
and damaged a further one.
Defiant L7005 flown by Sergeant Thorn,
Sergeant Barker was the gunner
claimed two Dorniers destroyed
and we're attacking the
third when their aircraft
was crippled by a Bf 109.
Thorn and Barker dived away
and were preparing to
make a forced landing
when they're defiant was
attacked by another Bf 109
which Barker swiftly dispatched.
Thorn and Barker eventually
landed at Herne Bay,
and returned to their
home church base by train.
And here's a copy of the
logbook of Sergeant Thorn
with the entry for August 26 underlined.
That's an extract here from
the operator's record book
of 264 Squadron detailing
the day's engagement.
So as mentioned earlier,
Dornier 5K + AR, seen here
was badly crippled during
the combat,
and at 1340hrs hours made a forced landing
on the Goodwin Sands at low tide.
The four crew members,
the pilot, Willi Effmert
and the observer Herman Ritzel,
were the only survivors.
The body of the radio
operator Helmut Reinhardt
was washed ashore in Holland
while the body of the
bomb aimer, Heinz Huhn
came ashore in the UK.
Reinhardt now lies in a
German Cemetery in Holland,
and Huhn is interred
in the German cemetery
at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire,
very close to where the
Dornier is today, at Cosford.
So, following the dive survey,
we took the decision to
try and raise the Dornier.
But there were several hurdles to leap
before we could do that.
A major one, of course,
let's go back a bit,
was funding.
We we estimated a cost
of about 500,000 pounds
to raise the airplane.
Secondly, we would need to obtain licenses
from the MOD Service
Personnel and Veterans agency,
in accordance to the Protection
of Military Remains Act 1986
and also from the Marine
Management Organization.
We also had to come up
with an exceptionally
good recovery methodology
and conservation methodology.
To better inform the recovery operation
we commissioned the
Port of London Authority
to conduct a multibeam echo
survey of the wreck site.
plus the surrounding seabed
up to a radius of about 250 meters.
Okay.
This was invaluable in
learning the precise geography
of the surrounding seabed,
all invaluable information
to inform a salvage attempt.
And these are various
slides of the MBS scans
that were done by the
Port of London Authority.
These were very, very helpful
towards our recovery planning.
We also, (indistinct) to others
who had done this kind of thing before,
the Norwegians, who were
exceptionally helpful.
Visits were made to the
Norwegian Armed Forces collection
at Oslo Gardermoen.
And to the Norwegian
Aviation Museum at Bodo.
They've recovered a JU 88A-4
from a field in Norway,
freshwater mind you,
and Heinkell 111, which you
can see for yourself here.
The Norwegians told us
that the first 48 hours
were the first critical once
you've recovered the airplane,
you must keep the airplane wet after that,
and during that first 48 hours
you will be able to undo nuts and bolts
and major assemblies.
At the time we didn't quite believe them.
These are photographs of
the JU 88A-1 at Gardemoen
which is being restored as I speak.
This is in exceptionally fine condition
and very, very complete.
Meanwhile, our fundraising
efforts were proving successful
and included generous donations
from a number of
organizations and the public.
These came from
the European Aeronautics
Defense and Space company, EADS,
328 Support Services, Wargaming.net,
the RAF Historical Society
and the RAF Museum American Foundation.
However, thanks to a
generous 343,000 pound grant
from the National Heritage Memorial Fund,
we were able to appoint a
contractor for the recovery,
in this case SeaTech Civil
& Marine of Southampton.
SeaTech immediately began
planning for the recovery
and in association with the museum,
obtain copies of Dornier
17 manufacturing drawings
and manuals from EADS,
all invaluable in providing information
for the recovery operation.
We also made links to the
Dornier Museum in Germany
and worked with a marine
management organization
to mitigate any environmental problems
posed by potential leakages
from the engine oil
and fuel spillages from the wreck.
We also worked with SeaTech
to factor a method in
for dealing with the positioning
of the oxygen bottles
remaining in the airplane
and how we would do with them
once we recovered the wreck.
So, following this,
we decided the recovery objectives were,
recover the airplane in one piece,
careful and complete
small artifact removal,
facilitate and accommodate
live broadcasts and media
coverage of the event,
were vitally important,
and lastly to securely dismantle
and deliver the airplane
to a conservation center at Cosford.
I'm now gonna hand out to Darren Priday,
who's going to give you an overview
of the remainder of the project's
recovery and conservation.
- Thank you very much Ian.
The preparation that went
on for the whole project
was amazing as it helped us
with the recovery side of it,
we knew what we were dealing with.
And hopefully, we had most things covered.
But again, as we'll see,
when we talk through
a few other things.
Now, there are a few
surprises along the way.
Ian has mentioned about SeaTech
and this is the SeaTech company,
I just sort of wanted to show
you what the dive looked like.
It's very, very cold as you
can see at the bottom there
six degrees C, 43 degrees F
that time of the year in the North Sea.
Even though we were not
talking great depths,
but then we got tides, the
North Sea is very, very tidal,
can go, I believe, anything
up to two to four meters,
hanging on times a year,
so we're around about 1618 meters down,
so not a huge depth, but again,
very, very strong currents underneath.
Right.
What we're seeing here
that is a picture of the
dive team at the Rec.
As you'll see the sea temperature
six degrees C, 43 degree F
so very, very cold very, very thick.
Five mil seven mil something
like that, their dive seats.
Top photo, top left is
showing you their helmet.
You can see there's two
little screens above it.
One is a light and one is
actually a video camera
so everything is being recorded.
The multicolor cord that
is going through him
is his lifeline.
So this is him chatting.
This is his breathing line.
The oxygen mask on his back is his spare
just in case of emergencies.
Typically, we would...
Two divers would go in and
there would always be a suit
one sat with dive gear on just to go in
just in case there was any
issues going on under the water.
Just to show you what the
dive control was like,
this is Joe on the control.
If you look at the two big round dials
on the right hand screen,
you'll see there is somebody down there.
Two pictures at the top
is actually showing what
the divers are seeing.
So a bit difficult to see from there.
But we know from being in that place,
there was not a lot of visibility.
Some of the early dives,
one of the requests was
to bring up a panel.
And that had a major
impact on what we did later
in the project,
and this panel,
possibly off an engine cowling
or something like that.
But it ended up going
to the Imperial College
in Professor Mary Ryan and her team
and that was for them to look
into research objectives,
which is to investigate
methods of cleaning
and removing fluoride from the Dornier
upon recovery from the sea
and to stabilize and conserve
and prevent through the
corrosion or deterioration.
So yes, we wanna get her out,
we wanna stabilizing and reserve her
but what we don't want to do then
is just watch her disappear
in front of our eyes
and start deteriorating.
So we needed to know what would happen
after we cleaned her up as well.
So working with Mary and her
team, they did a lot of work.
They come up with, it sounds
like a simple solution,
Bbut I know it's not quite as simple
they spent months and
months looking into it.
citric acid.
So, at 5.3, on the pH scale
was what we were spraying onto it.
And again, I'll show you,
there's a little bit
more about that later.
So this is a testing here,
this is Mary at their lab,
and after six months of
treatment, there you go,
you can see a lot of the green
deposit has been removed.
From from this, you can see
there's not very little crash damage,
maybe on the bottom right when you can see
but you can see some
deterioration to corrosion
coming in, and it's the next stage then,
once you've cleaned it off,
to make sure that that doesn't take hold
and the panel start disappearing.
Interesting to look at.
If you look at the two left hand photos,
you can just see some browning,
which is where you've got
some dissimilar metals,
you've got some ferrous
items which will be
the fasteners going through their holes
and how they've discarded
the metal in that area.
So at the same time as Mary was doing that
we were working with SeaTech again
on how we were going to lift it.
And the idea was we were
going to do a single lift
of the frame and then as you can see
there's a blue and a black but
once we got it out of the sea
we would separate the aeroplane
and remove the wing bolts,
separate the two frames
and have two individual pieces
for us to transport it to Cosford.
And this is really,
it's as simple as that.
Connecting this framing
it was a hollow section
about hundred mil or 125 mil
depending on the whereabouts on the frame.
Hollow sections and the idea would be,
you connect up an underwater
Hoover as you're going through
through the sand on the bottom,
you set the sand out and be
able to just slip it through.
And so we were table to do that, so yeah.
British viewers understand my little,
simples friend that I've
got there off the British TV
But yes, that's how it was all planned,
but as you can imagine, things
don't always go to plan.
This is the framework
up at the Cosford site.
They spent about a week
up there assembling it.
And that was done just
doing it open vision
and they worked all the way
through various processes,
and they ended up doing it
with blanked out vision.
So they were just doing it by feel
'cause typically, that's
what would be happening
under the sea.
So what the photo is showing
here is one of the last test.
This is the deflection test.
Their weighted bags of sand or aggregate.
And what we were looking
for is minimum deflection
with the whole weight
of the airplane on this
as we tried to lift her out,
and obviously when you're
doing something like this,
you want to go at least a
double your expected weight
and that's what's happening here
and deflection was very, very little.
So we were positive that the
frame could take the weight
and we could get around with this frame.
But unfortunately, when they was trying
to put these sections in,
so, sucking out the sand
as they were going through
they hit some hard ground,
we've believe it was probably tork.
So really just going from a hoovering
we ended up going to a
drilling site type scenario.
And that was just taking too long.
So very, very quickly,
and with the aid of the technical drawings
and all the information that we gained
in the first part of the
process, from Dornier Museum,
we ended up having to do what
we didn't really want to do.
And that was to physically
lift the airplane itself.
So lucky enough with the airplane,
as she'd gone to the bottom,
she'd gone upside down.
So that hardly exposed quite a bit
of some of the some more solid structure
like the wing spar and
the carriage fittings
and things like that, listed
more there in front of you.
And so we'd advise where
they could do that side.
So really, at the moment, as you can see
that's the sort of lift we
went to, we're hoping to do.
So on the very, very solid
structure parts of the airplane.
Again now, this is obviously,
we don't know what these structure's like.
So it was a real big gamble
when we went for the lift
but in the end, we got this far and,
we thought this is going to be worth it.
And so we were all set there 2nd June
everything was in place,
all the straps, everything,
all the lifting tackle
and on the right hand side
of the barge, you'll see there's the crane
with the crucifix and the
lifting rigs all ready to go.
What I must have never picked up, really,
on the dive point earlier,
I'll just explain now,
we weren't diving 24/7,
you have to only dive in slack water.
That only happens a couple of times a day
when the tide's turning.
Typically that's a window only 45 minutes
so they didn't have a lot
of time going into the sea.
But anyway, we have one of these slack
times when the tide
was changing coming up.
And as you can see from that photo,
weather was actually perfect.
We were watching all the instruments,
watching the tide turning
and it was getting to a point
where the divers were
just about to suit up,
which gave them about 15 - 20 minutes,
something like that to get suited up
before they would start going in.
And unfortunately, we were just
all sat there waiting to go
and the wind just got a little bit of wind
on one of our cheeks
and within the next five
minutes the wind totally changed
and we've gone almost
to have 15 knot wind,
and the two barges you can see
there we're bouncing around
on swells that were four,
six feet in in height,
it was incredible change in weather.
And we got all the main players together.
And it's quite a simple decision,
it was just too dangerous,
not just for us that were out on the boats
to contemplate a lift, but
to put a diver in the water.
And also, if you think about it,
if you were to pick up
the object of the bottom
and the boats are going up and down,
more likely to just bash it to death
on the bottom of the sea.
So it's quite a simple decision.
Not a lot of people, the film crew
that was out there was
obviously very disappointed
because they were gonna put
it live all around the globe,
what was going on, but
in the end, we had to do
the right thing and that
was to call off the lift.
At that time, I think we
were getting very, very close
to thinking, you know,
fundings running out
and we really can't carry on
but we did manage to carry on.
And then we could see
another weather window coming
in for the 11th of June.
I'd come all the way back up to Cosford,
which is, the drives about
five-seven hour drive away
so I was quite a long way away
and had a call on the night.
"Tuesday is looking good."
But then all of a sudden,
the conversation turned.
It may start happening on the Monday now.
So Monday the 10th
and all of a sudden I'm
having to get up very early
on the Monday make this
long drive back down
to the Ramsgate in Kent,
with my team, put my team
into the hotel locally,
I was the only one off the
team it was going out to sea,
got out on the tender got
out there, met up with Ian
and he said "It's gonna happen."
The weather had totally changed.
So what did actually happen though,
at that time, the two barges
we had, had to be pegged
in all four corners
and one of the anchors going
down somehow managed to twist
and buckle itself up somehow
and again, we thought that was at the end
I think me and Ian
we're probably in our
little cabin packing up
we just think we could survive
another dose of bad luck.
But somehow we don't to this
day really know what happened
they managed to sort that out,
and everybody was excited
that all this bad luck proves
we had a lot of bad luck
with weather as well
during the month of May,
but then all of a sudden, this happened.
So there we go
and I must admit the last
couple of photos showing it
hanging just above the
barge, I know me and Ian,
were just standing there shouting away,
please just get it lower,
you know that it had survived the lift,
which obviously we weren't
sure if that was gonna happen.
So yes, I'd like to certainly
change in that 20-40 minutes,
whatever it was to get out of the water.
And this is what we were presented with
I thought it was quite nice
if I had shown you the
side of the airplane
or the part of the propellor,
how much crud is on there,
but also there's a lot of
marine life involved as well.
My first role then,
even though we had dives
where it was confirmed,
there was nothing on board
but that was only by divers
with limited visibility
in a very, very poor environment.
So my role then was to go on
board, keep everybody away
and just do a thorough
look around the object
climbing everywhere.
The first thing that I
noticed was the smell
it was horrendous.
But it's something we come to
love over the week of working
on the airplane.
One thing I did find in
amongst all everything
was this, like a rock,
that I quickly recognized
to be an MG 15 machine gun magazine.
So when we got into port,
we called out army bomb disposal
What's happening up the top right there,
they're taking x rays before
they handed it back to us
saying that it was clear.
And then there we go,
just to show you some of the
publications we managed to get
from that here, and there's a
picture of the MG 15 Magazine,
somewhere stowed in this
position within the Dornier 17.
The other thing we mentioned
about the environmental impact
from the oils, engine oils,
anything like that might
be on board as well
but one other thing that
was worth pointing out.
There were lots of crabs,
marine life lobsters, you
could see on the right,
everything in there live or dead
that was only found on board all went back
to where it should be and
that was back into the sea
nothing was coming off board with anybody.
This is the...
So the LCD I mentioned so it's just proof
that it went on 24/7 while we were looking
at stripping the airplane,
we were completely dosing
it in the salt water,
just to keep it wet
and that was our biggest hurdle,
just making sure the
objects stay wet enough
not to drying out too quickly.
small objects, there are some
extra dives that carried on
and any small objects we found inside
anything they brought up off the bottom.
We had these wheelie
bins full of salt water
so we used the sea water,
we could just drop them
in just to keep them wet
that was the simplest solution for us.
And this is the dumb barge.
This is non powered
this one which we had to
in just about make out
the Dornier on there.
And the one thing I
suppose being out at sea
with all this going on, allour
attention was just focusing
on the job and we hadn't
realized the excitement
and the amount of people
that were following us
back in the UK not very
well shown on there.
but the round the key side,
it was just absolutely full of people
and as we come in,
we suddenly realize how many
people must be out there
watching us it was such
a noise of cheering
and well wishes from everybody there,
it's quite humbling to
be there on the boat.
The framework, as I mentioned
at sea was designed to lift
off the bottom but also did
have that secondary lift
and once we got her into port,
the framework was being built
because we still had to strip
and it would prove as a useful lifting aid
for when we did the separation.
So this is what my team
had to achieve the shell,
the ripped out bits at the end,
the bits of the airplane we didn't have
and we still had to achieve that,
the fuselage-wing separation
just for road transportation.
So this is one of the
rear tailplane fittings
and just as much as Ian said,
"Get in there while it's wet
48 hour time limit, really."
And you can...
So we see there, we chipped
away, removed the fasteners
and got them off, no problem at all.
So we're very very surprised
as well with the wing box,
we managed to find them.
Six in total than were
the other two are missing
from this photo, but we've
certainly got them went in,
found them cleaned them up
on to the split pins out,
got the spanners on,
took them out and just tap the bolts out.
And I must admit that was something
we were very, very surprised at, you know.
Yes, we've been told as
possibility of that happening
but yeah, may be German
technology for you.
Again, I mentioned about
the lifting framing
there you can see it's a very,
very good example of the wing
being separated from the fuselage
so that part has happened
and this is doing the load
for the seven hour road trip
from Ramsgate up to Cosford,
of course, then we've
got the problem, then,
of trying to keep it wet.
So we've given her a good dousing
and we put on an environmental
product that we found,
which happened to be a floor
gel, we looked into it,
we had it tested,
it seemed to be fine so
we covered it in this gel
and also you can see those
blue trailer pointings
on the back of the wagon
part from a lot of stuff
would have been lost on the motorways,
we covered her as well to
stop any sunlight or any wind
from drying her out.
So we've done a lot of
prep in preventing her
from drying out for in
the road journey as well.
That's the group of us, we're
out at sea my team there
who've done all the work, spend a week
trying to strip it out
and get it prepped ready
for the road journey.
A lot of us very, very
tired, very, very smelly,
but I'm very very pleased
at that Sort of first stage
of the recovery had happened.
So we've done the seven
hour drive of course then
we have to unload up at the Cosford site
and this is the loading up at Cosford.
Again this a good look at
what the fuel shells look like
when we got it back.
And this is our ultimate aim,
took us about another six, seven hours
to get her on load, to get her on wheels
and get her into the poly
tunnels that we had designed
for the desalination of the object
just to cover that side of it.
Now, we did a lot of chatting
and looking into how the was the best way
to actually soak her.
The result was, we come
up with three options.
One was to do nothing but we
knew that button an option
to spend all that time and effort.
We didn't want to just let it disappear.
Now, the other option
and what a lot of people
have previously done
was to put it into a pool of water,
say like a swimming
pool, that sort of thing.
That was quite a costly exercise.
We could see a few other issues possibly
that if you wanted to inspect the object,
you had to take the water out
or get the dive suits
on and get in yourself.
So we come up with this other option,
which was these from the
Market Garden industry,
these poly tunnels.
Actually the next slide
will show you inside Yeah,
there we go inside the poly tunnels.
So as you can see down
on the right hand side
we've got the the grid
running down the middle
and up through the filtration system
for all the stuff to filter back through.
And what you can see on that long hose,
those are nozzles, very
similar to the one I've circled
on the other side.
So really, there's a system
hanging from the ceiling,
you can have a system along the floor,
and you can do and put it
really wherever you want.
And this was a super saturate,
you know, recycling system.
So we're filtering out the water
and the little blue
nozzles it's on the end
of the one that's circled
they played a major
part like a little piece
because you've got various colors
and they could do various things
they could be directional,
right the way through to fine
mist so you could change them
on a daily basis if you needed
to either reduce saturation
in some points or increase it,
so yes, they certainly,
for a little piece,
played a huge part in the process.
I Mentioned the citric acid at 5.3
When we were measuring
the water after soaking it
and it was coming back
through the filtration system,
it was almost coming up
and going the other way
nearly up to nine, I think it
was getting up to around 8.8.
So we knew there was major issues
with when we're cleaning it up
we would get a lot of change.
So we'd have to look at keeping
the citric acid back down.
so there was a lot of change
in the water at times,
flushing out the main tank and
things like that initially.
But eventually we did go on to
the automatic dosing system.
Bit of a basic system I put together,
you can see there in the left,
the blue Dornier being
sprayed, pump on the ground.
And it was a filtration system,
which proved to be the biggest
headache in the early days,
we were getting a hell of a lot
blockages, things like that,
but we ended up going to
a very, very good system
and I mentioned about the
automatic dosing system
that would pump us neat
citric acid into the tank
and keep the solution
that we were spraying
at the correct PH. Just a very,
very quick run through this.
This is the filtration system.
This is the pump house.
The two cylinders on the wall they were UV
to help kill any bacteria or
nasties in the water system
that we were spraying on.
We were testing the water
as well for legionella,
things like that at regular intervals.
So Dornier inside.
And the other advantage with this system.
If we wanted to go in and have a look,
it was just a matter of flicking a switch.
we'd leave it for five to 10 minutes
for everthing to settle in there,
and then we could literally
go in start looking.
And as you can see, as
the process is going on,
it's dissolving what's on there,
putting it back down,
recycling it through,
but starting to come off as well.
And also you could see on here,
this is the wing, obviously,
just that board of the
energy, inboard of the engine.
You can see there thare's some color...
The original paint's still on board.
So it wasn't actually removing that.
And that's what we wanted
to be very, very careful of,
not citric acid going
up that one step further
and then actually becoming
a paint stripper as well.
So we're very, very careful
when we're looking at
what we were doing in those areas.
And this method of actually
being able to get into tunnels
allowed it.
And again, marking started to appear.
So we were trying to see if we could have
a positive identification on the aircraft.
Unfortunately, nothing came up.
And this is what we were fighting against,
on the left hand side you can
see this Vaseline type product
on the right hand side,
these crystallization,
and this is rapid oxidation, excuse me,
going on in the tunnel.
And again, all we would do is just
we've increased, we've
wash it off, initially
with neat citric acid and
then increase the spring
in those areas by changing the nozzles
or putting an extra line.
We suffered not badly lucky enough,
once we realizing we'vegot a feel
for how the system was working.
The pipe systems did block up
and we were getting this
inside the pipe work.
These are the filters on the left,
they were getting back washed every day.
But at least once a week,
so in the first six months,
we were taking them out
and jet-washing them
and you could see some more of the stuff
we were getting inside
and the floor itself
was getting washed out quite regular.
But as you're starting to clear up it
there is a good evidence of how clean
you can get the object, the
two items in the circle,
that some erosion from
being on the sea possibly,
it's soil erosion a little, maybe,
a little bit interaction and corrosion.
But the damage you can see in the middle
is something that wasn't really covered
in the battle reports
we spoke about earlier,
and that's shrapnel damage.
So there must have been
at some point ground fire
and this aeroplane has
been hit right at point A
which was between both engines.
Further evidence is we
find out during the wreck
are these bullet holes here,
this is obviously one of the propellers,
three bullet holes shot from behind
another part of the engine canister.
Even the fighter planes had hit it
right down the engine line in the game.
So it possibly had a major impact with
the fuel delivery Pipe or
possible engine delivery pipe
or something like that.
But again, it's gone
right through the middle
as you can see. So it's
had a point 1 Aim hit.
So the major objects are
being done in the tunnels,
but obviously we could
do the smaller objects
in the MBCC itself.
We kept a chart, a big
spreadsheet, of what was going on,
and in the end, it ended up
being these really useful bins.
We'd use them, make up a
localized solution monitor,
it using our digital
monitor or the litmus paper.
If it changed, or when
it significantly changed,
you could refresh and you
could keep doing that.
But again, once you've
got a stabilized system,
what we were doing then,
was using pure water.
We cleaned out a lot of impurities,
we wanted to make sure we
weren't putting anything back in,
dry back out and then
placing it in dehumidifiers
which again would help
the drying out process.
We get the humidifiers as low as we could,
which I think was around
about 45% relative humidity,
we're getting it down to
quite a decent percentage
and they were really just
drying everything out.
Typical tools that we're using at the time
on the ferrous items you could get away
with slightly more
aggressive scotch prikes
and the wire brushes,
but typically it was
wooden plastic tooling,
and very, very soft toothbrushes.
We took the small item
conservation into the hangar
so the members of the public
could see what was going on.
And as you can see there's
an oxygen bottle there
being worked and also this
beautiful piece of gearing
Phil Jones on the right is doing here.
So yes, this is live taken in
let the public visit us to the museum,
but I failed to mention
earlier that to polytunnels
that we hope we're
doing the main treatment
and we'd actually replaced the polythene
on the doors with Perspex so
people could actually look in
and see what was going on.
We'd also had an outdoor
display in that area
so they could get a lot of information
about the recovery on the airplane.
Just Small Item Conservation
This is the bit that's really tedious
to get 90% of the marine deposit off
takes about 10% of the time,
and that last 10% of the time,
that's when you gotta
be very, very careful.
You don't want to be breaking wire,
you want to be breaking
a bit of glass underneath
or anything like that.
So this is a lovely piece
that Phil was working on,
this is about 90% of the
marine deposit removed
and the last 10% which
takes a hell of a long time.
And you get this, so it's
all worth the effort.
Something else to show you obviously,
this is an engine valve,
again cleaning it up,
stripped it down and
then doing the cleaning.
And we got this but again,
we don't wanna go too far
on the actual valve itself.
On the right hand side you can see
there's the carbon deposits
from when she was firing away
when she was in a fly will engine.
Nice piece of gear working
side and the game wick
on the right hand photo you
can see how it's cleaned up
and you can also see witness marks
on where the chain was being
rotated operated during flight.
And again, very good example
what can do with the chain
with a bit of TLC.
Part of the process of
dissolving all this stuff inside,
we started to find things
that we hadn't seen,
flare pistol.
Again as you can see top right hand side
we had our friends on the bomb
disposal come out and X-ray
and make sure it was safe.
Hammer it forward so they may
well have actually fired off
a flare during the flight.
There's no real way of really knowing.
And again something else
we found was in this rock.
we decided to investigate.
We found one of the crew's knives
and you can see on the
top on the left hand photo
we've circled as well.
There was a nine mil full magazine inside.
So again, stuff that
wasn't initially found
was only found during the process
of starting to clean up all the rocks
and again a few surprises,
a medical kit here.
All the little pills all
full of adrenaline morphine,
things like that, all
intact brass syringes
no deterioration at all.
In top center there,
there's a big tool, okay,
that can be used.
But just to give you an idea
of really what was going on
in some of the areas, this
is an engine cylinder,
just so many different materials
and you will get into galvanic action,
and the one that was losing,
that was a cylinder head.
As you can see from that.
Again, this one is the bellhousing
should be around there,
that aluminium alloy type construction,
disk totally dissolved disappeared,
the bolts you can see
to the left hand side,
that's where it should be bolted on.
But again, it shows you
all this beautiful steel
or ferrous item underneath.
Some of this stuff didn't
deteriorate as bad.
And if you want to know what
to do with rubber, that's it,
if you put it in salt water,
it seems to survive quite well.
We found that with the tires,
we found that with some
of the fuel oil tanks
that we found on top as
well, no deterioration at all
on these sorts of things.
So again, just to show you, that's the...
After the treatment, it
was moving out of there
and into the Conservation Center
and going into the
dehumidification tunnels we've made
just to solid dry it out.
And it would spend about another 12 months
inside the tunnels.
There's a quick shot inside.
So just finishing off now
She sat in the Conservation
Center, after all this time,
the museum now is going
through that's the Hendon
sight and the Crosford site
is going through huge, huge lot of change.
And part of the change
at the Crosford site
would be redeveloping an
area, before they doing it
they were going, she's going
to need proper dehumidification
type team prefer to go in
a controlled environment.
So when that side happens, you're going
but other options potentially
they'll be looking at
is whether we, as an engineering team,
mock up some of the recognizable points
of the Dornier 17 like
the beautiful glaze nosing
on the front.
Some of you may consider but again,
that's part of conversation, that museum
will be having over the next time.
So really what was it
worth all the effort.
Public viewing.
Yes, we've visited
numbers to Cosford site.
The score went up the
schools, education levels,
universities right down to the small,
as they were using it as a learning aid,
museum got a lot of
publicity and sponsorship,
a lot of coverage on local TV,
and lectures like we're
doing here tonight.
I've been around a couple of times a year.
Germany, I've been to Norway,
I've been to Sweden, had
a lot of lectures in UK.
And plus on top of that, the museum world
and that's not just us,
we're willing to share
any of this information with anybody
is the new techniques
that we've been learning.
So that's another tick off my bucket list.
Don't ask me to do another
one, is what I say, but joking.
I'm an engineer, I suppose
any challenge to come my way
I'll look at it and see what I think.
So really, that's us.
Stay safe from all of
us here at the museum,
and that's our little part of it.
Finished off and I'm
gonna just, hopefully,
now get this bit right and
stop sharing my screen
and head over, back, hopefully now, to Ed.
- Thank you very much,
Darren and to Ian as well.
It's a great, great presentation.
very exciting.
I know Ian has been answering
a number of questions
we've been getting
online as we move along.
So we will go straight into Seth
and I think you can go a little bit,
go a little bit longer
since the questions are
being answered live.
- Not a problem.
My presentation is not nearly as sexy
as Darren and Ian's presentation is
because we didn't actually
recover the airplane
that I'm here to talk about.
When the museum opened in 2000,
we had exactly two
airplanes in our collection,
one of which was on loan
from the National Museum in Naval Aviation
where now it's called the
National Naval Aviation Museum
in Pensacola, Florida.
One of the airplanes that we...
Well, one of the things that we did
when we started acquiring
airplanes for our collection
is we wanted to have a representation
of the most significant
type of aircraft that fought
in each theater of the
war for the United States.
So we have the C-47.
We have an F4U Corsair, we have a B-17,
we have a TBM Avenger, we have a B-25.
And the one thing that kept coming up was
there's one plane in particular
that we needed to acquire.
As a national World War II
Museum of the American experience
we needed to acquire the, in my opinion,
the most significant aircraft
that ever flew in the Pacific War,
at least for the first
half of the Pacific War.
And that would be the SBD,
Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber.
The SBD I'll just give
you a quick history on it,
it was probably the most
significant airplane
that flew from December 7, 1941
until the introduction in combat
to the SXF Hellcat in 1943.
The Dauntless was was an amazing airplane
and it was something
that had been developed
in the mid 1930s.
So actually, by the time of
the attack on Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941, the Douglas Dauntless
was considered an obsolete
aircraft, believe it or not.
Even though it was a
frontline dive bomber,
there were already efforts underway
to develop and field a
replacement for the aircraft.
Nothing wrong with the dauntless
except for that it was old.
Main thing with the SBD was it was slow.
SBD stands for Scout Bomber Douglas,
but the crewmen used to
call it slow but deadly,
'cause the thing in a
very slow cruising speed,
but other than that it was
incredibly, incredibly reliable.
It was very, very rugged,
much like a lot of
American aircraft, frankly.
And it was incredibly accurate.
The thing with the dauntless
was when it would dive
when your dive bombing
anything, any target at all,
generally, you're diving
in a very steep angle
anywhere between 70 and 80 to 80 degrees,
sometimes a little bit more
if you roll over on your back.
And previous dive bombers
developed by the United States Navy
tended to be unstable in a dive,
when they'd come down, they'd shake
and they'd wobble like this
and they just weren't, they
just weren't very good, frankly.
When the Dauntless was
designed in the mid 30s
off of several different variants
of airplanes grandfather's, if you will,
by a gentleman named Ed Heinemann,
One of the things that was incorporated
were these split dive flaps.
And if you've ever seen a
picture of an SBD Dauntless,
that's the thing that sticks
out more than anything,
they call them Swiss cheese flaps
are the flaps on the trailing
edge of the main wings.
And what they do is when
the airplane goes to a dive,
the pilot opens the flaps of the airplane
and it actually slows the
airplane down in a dive
and makes it significantly more stable.
So with that, when the United States Navy
and the Marine Corps started
testing that airplane,
you realize that they actually
had a really good bird
because the dauntless could
dive at a 70 or 80 degree angle,
or as I said, even steeper,
and it was like dropping a
rock from a high distance.
It just went straight down.
It was incredibly accurate.
In the hands of a good pilot,
one of which you're gonna
hear in a few minutes,
it was an incredibly accurate bird.
It did exactly What it was needed to do,
very rugged and had a pretty
long range for its time.
And it was, as I said,
the most significant
aircraft in the first half
of the Pacific War.
So much so that it was
one of the first aircraft
the United States engaged
in combat with the Japanese,
on the seventh of December.
The USS Enterprise was
off the coast of Oahu
on the seventh of December
and it launched a morning,
not a scout hop, if you will,
but they were sending
airplanes in the Fort Island
from scouting squadron six,
and these guys were attacked
by the incoming Japanese aircraft
that were attacking Oahu.
Most of the Dauntless' were shot down.
Several crewmen were killed.
So it was kind of an inauspicious
beginning for the SBD,
if you will, however, that turned,
her reputation turned
exactly three days later
on December 10, 1941.
United States Navy dauntless dive bomber
flown by a gentleman
named Clarence Dickinson
flying off the US enterprise
again in scouting Squadron six
The first Japanese man
of war was a submarine
called Ice 70 right off the coast of Oahu,
as a matter of fact,
Enterprise was out on
anti-submarine patrol.
Dickinson was flying
that particular mission
armed with a 500 pound bomb
saw the submarine just below the surface
kind of with Dexter wash, made a dive,
one dive dropped the bomb, hit it,
turned around to look for
the sub and it was gone.
Well he sunk it and
that has been confirmed.
It was a confirmed sinking.
First Japanese man of war sunk
by the United States Navy.
In World War II, well, sunk
United States Navy aircraft
in World War II was sunk by an SBD.
And it would not be the last.
The dauntless featured
heavily in all the major raids
in the beginning of Pacific
War from February 1, '42.
All the way through May,
the hit and run raids,
as they're called.
Marshall Islands, Gilbert islands,
all those places like that,
to Lahti, places that you'd
hear later on in the war.
The Dauntless was was at the frontline.
It was the Navy's frontline dive bar.
And it really saw it's major,
it's first major, major fleet action
in May of 1942 at the Battle of Coral Sea.
The aircraft carrier USS Lexington CV-2
and the aircraft carrier
USS Yorktown CV-5.
There were two Yorktowns these
were the end two Lexington
but these are the first.
Saw action against Japanese carrier forces
in the world's first carrier
versus carrier battle
at the Battle of Coral Sea,
VS-2, that scouting two
bombing two, bombing
five and scouting five
all saw action in Coral Sea.
Now they participated
in striking the targets
Japanese light carrier show
and helping sending her and
descending her into the bottom
and severely damaging
the Japanese aircraft,
fleet aircraft carrier Shokaku
and taking her out of the war
for about three months-ish,
which would prove to be very significant
in the dauntless' real calling card
which she's really remembered for
which occurred the
following month in June,
which we just passed here.
June four through the seventh,
which of course was the Battle of Midway.
The Battle of Midway occurred,
I'm not gonna go into too many specifics
because most people know what that was.
But it's considered the turning
point in the Pacific War.
For the United States Of course.
Three aircraft carriers
Enterprise, Yorktown and Hornet
took on four Japanese aircraft carriers
Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu.
Basically in a surprise attack
on the morning of the fourth.
Everything that had been happening before
10:22am on June 4, 1942,
was that the Americans were
losing the Battle of Midway
and the battle itself was
incredibly significant,
but everything that we had
sent against the Japanese fleet
up to that point in the
morning had been shot up.
There hadn't been a single hit
on the Japanese aircraft
carriers of course,
they were our primary targets.
The first strike sent from
the carrier enterprises
under the command of a gentleman
named Lieutenant Commander Wade McCluskey,
McCluskey was leading his flight out to...
They had 32 SBDs, counting his,
to find Japanese aircraft carriers.
You know stories of McCluskey
finding the Japanese aircraft
carrier's Kido Butai at Midway
are legendary and which, you know,
I won't necessarily get into here.
I'd love to but that's not
what I'm here to talk about.
The SBDs approached the Japanese fleet
at about 10:18 in the morning,
approached and got in a
position and by 10:22,
rolled over in their dives.
And in the span of four minutes,
the SBDs from the squadrons scouting six,
bombing six and bombing three
that were coming in from the Yorktown
and we're actually arrived in
almost the exact same time...
set three Japanese
aircraft carriers on fire.
That afternoon they set a fourth on fire
and all four, Kaga, Akagi
Hiryu and Soryu were sunk.
And those sinkings
are attributed to the Douglas
SBD Dauntless dive bombers.
So when we were sitting
there thinking about
what was the most significant aircraft
that we had to acquire for our collection
that represented the Pacific War,
it had to be the Dauntless
and the reasons for which
we wanted the Dauntless
are not the least of which is
what I just explained to you
but also, we happen to have
a lot of oral histories
in our collection, many of
which are from SBD Dauntless
dive bomber pilots or gunners,
people who flew the bird in
combat during 1942 and '43
and even in '44.
I have a little clip I wanna show you
and this is this is what
we're gonna talk about here,
is a gentleman by the
name of Dusty Kleiss.
And I talked about how
accurate an SBD could be
in the hands of the right,
of the proper pilot.
And this was the proper pilot.
I mean, you know, a lot of
people talk about Dick Best
as being probably the
finest dive bomber pilot
in the Navy in 1942.
And he certainly was fantastic.
But its certainly
arguable that Dusty Kleiss
was certainly as equal if not just better.
Dusty never missed I mean, he made attacks
in the hit and run race and never missed.
He made four attacks at
Midway and he hit the Kagi,
he hit the Hiryu and
then he hit the Mikuma
at the end of the event,
so he was superb, a super pilot
and Kate or Chrissy if you could
let's go ahead and listen
to what Dusty has to say
about flying the SBD at
the Battle of Midway.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Norman Dusty kleese
was an SBD Dauntless pilot
in scouting Squadron six when
the Battle of Midway began
on June 4, 1942.
Kleiss was one of the 32 SBD dive bombers
aboard the USS Enterprise
sent down to strike
against the attacking Japanese carriers.
- Here we were somewhere
above 20,000 feet,
and they were heading
directly into the wind.
And they're right ahead of us.
And they were no Zeros
attacking us up there.
And so we had McClusky and his two groups
and then came Earl Gallaher.
And then I was number four.
- [Narrator] Kleiss and
the others headed straight
for the Japanese aircraft
carrier, the Kaga
- And then I watched
Earl Gallaher come down,
there was a plane about
200 feet away from stern
and his 500-pound bomb landed
just squarely on top of it.
Baloom!
And then his two incendiaries
landed on either side of it
and immediately the
whole stern of the ship
was a ball of fire about 50 feet high.
Well then I was ready for by bombs.
And I use the red circle
on the bow as my target
and I came really down low
to make sure that I'd hit
and I saw the bomb land at the
edge of that big red circle.
And then I saw a big explosion.
[Narrator] Within minutes, the
fate of the Kaga was sealed.
Later that same day, Kleiss helped sink
a second Japanese carrier, the Hiryu
by hitting her with a 1000-pound bomb.
He and his squadron mates
of VS-6 helped turn the tide
of the Pacific War with
their victory at Midway.
(dramatic music)
- Yeah, so as you see in the
hands of the proper pilot,
the SBD was a deadly, deadly weapon.
So as I said, when we were
considering what airplanes
we needed to get, we had to get an SBD,
it was an airplane that we
just absolutely had to have.
Well, the problem with the SBD
is that it was a Navy airplane.
And with the Navy airplanes,
once the Navy takes an
airplane into their inventory,
they retain it forever.
They still have rightful ownership
of that United States Navy,
Douglas SBD dive bomber.
So we can't go out and
like Ian and Darren,
go out there and dig one out of the water
because even if we did
and we preserved it,
the Navy would come and take it and say,
"Hey, thanks for doing that for us.
"Yeah, we're taking it back home with us."
Which they have done before,
not to us, but to other people.
But so we knew that we just
couldn't go out and grab one
and we didn't even know
where the hell one is anyway.
But the Navy back in the
late '80s in the '90s,
had instituted a program of
recovering crashed airplanes
off the bottom of Lake Michigan.
There were two training aircraft carriers,
Wolverine and Sable in Lake Michigan
that helped train Navy
and Marine Corps pilots
on aircraft carrier landings.
Most of these guys were
based at NAS Glenview,
which was near Chicago,
which is obviously close to Lake Michigan.
And, you know, being fledgling Navy pilots
who were trying to
learn to put an aircraft
on an aircraft carrier, there
were quite a few mishaps
here and there, so
there are a lot of birds
that were put down in the
bottom of Lake Michigan.
There still are a lot of
birds that are put down
the bottom of Lake Michigan.
Well, that are still
down there, I should say.
So what we did is I
contacted the National Museum
and Naval Aviation, there
in Pensacola, Florida.
And I asked them simply,
I asked a friend of mine
who was a Goodspeed historian over there,
I asked him to say,
"Hey, you know, we're
looking to get a Dauntless.
"Can we have one?"
And while it sounds like
it would work that well
it didn't work that well.
What the Navy wanted to do
is they actually wanted to
re-institute the recovery program
in Lake Michigan and our request,
my request actually helped
them kick that back off.
So essentially the Navy with
the help of a ANT recovery
out of Chicago, a guy named Terraces Senko
they went back to Lake
Michigan, in about 2006,
I believe it was, and
re-instituted the recovery program
with the intention of
giving us a Dauntless
that they knew where there was one down
at the bottom of the
lake, and they they said,
"This is going to be the
one that you guys can have."
We're like,
"Right, awesome, fantastic.
"But we want one now."
Through the help of our
board member, Paul Hilliard,
who's our departing chairman of the board,
who was an SBD gunner in the
Marine Corps in World War II.
He flew a VMSB 241 in 1943-1944.
And Mr. Hilliard, he has a, obviously,
a fond affection for the Dauntless.
He pulled a few strings,
and he made a few phone calls
and we wound up getting offered the SBD
that we currently have in our collection.
Kate, if you could show that picture.
Yeah, there she is.
So unlike Darren and Ian, you know,
when we got our dauntless
that's how she looked, you know,
there wasn't any restoration
or conservation efforts
that we had to do,
because that's the how the
airplane looked when we got it.
Now, that's obviously not how it looked
when it went down there in
the bottom of Lake Michigan,
that SBD is an SBD-3,
it's a dash three model
bureau number 06508.
She was built by Douglas Aircraft Company
at El Segundo, California.
Now, Douglas had a lot of different plants
all over the country.
But El Segundo happened to be the one
that produce more SBDs than
any of the other plants.
So a lot of the SBDs that you
see in today's collections,
and today's museums are from El Segundo,
just because they produce
the vast majority of them.
But this one, unlike
a lot of the airplanes
in Lake Michigan, is unique.
A lot of the airplanes in Lake Michigan,
and you can take the picture off,
but a lot of the airplanes
that are in Lake Michigan,
were sent to that area specifically
to be used as trainers.
So they were new airplanes
or newer airplanes,
or airplanes that never
left the United States.
So the vast majority of the airplanes
that are on the bottom of Lake Michigan
don't have any kind of combat history.
Not so with ours.
Our SBD is a little bit unique.
In that, A, it's a combat veteran
and, B, more often than
not, the United States Navy
would take possession of these airplanes
as soon as they came out of the factory
and they basically run
them into the ground
and then they'd hand them over
to the United States Marine Corps and say,
"Here you go, boys, have a new plane."
Well, it wasn't new.
But this one is a little
bit unique in that
it was acquired by the Marine Corps first
and given to the Navy later.
The bird has a really,
really interesting history.
She flew with two marine
scout bombing squadrons,
VSMB 141 and 132.
And both of those squadrons
served at Guadalcanal
really at the high point of the campaign,
September October, November of 1942.
So this bird, our SBD, was
on Anderson field in 1942.
During the high point, the hotspot
of the battle for Guadalcanal.
She saw a lot of action,
she saw a lot of strikes
against Japanese shipping,
took part in a lot of
airstrikes and, you know,
combat strikes not just
against ground targets,
but as I said, shipping in men of war.
She was targeted during, you know,
short bombardment by Japanese ships
during the infamous night bombardments
by the Japanese, by the
Tokyo Express, if you will,
against marine installations
in Henderson field.
So she saw a lot of Combat Action.
And if you know anything
about Cactus Air Force,
in Henderson field in Guadalcanal in 1942,
any airplanes that happened
to serve on that island
during that period of time
were pretty worn out when they were done,
if they survived at all.
And this thing did, and we
have the spring of 1943,
but I believe it's a little
bit earlier than that.
It's closer to the end
of 1942 beginning of '43.
This particular Dauntless, our 06508
was given to the United States Navy.
So the Marine Corps
ran her into the ground
and they turn around
they gave it to the Navy
and this one's a little special to me
not only because it was in Guadalcanal,
but it was given to the United States Navy
and it was flown by bombing Squadron 10,
of which I knew many many SBD crewman
and actually probably more than one
actually flew in this bird.
I'm not exactly sure but I'm pretty sure
and it flew off of the USS Enterprise,
my you know, the beloved
Biggie if you will.
For several months before the Enterprise
went back home after the
Guadalcanal campaign,
the bird was then sent
back to the United States
and she ended up in NAS
Glenview used as a trainer,
flown by gentleman who
put it down in the water,
the gentlemen and his
crewman did survive the crash
but the bird did not.
It was recovered in 1990 by AMT recovery,
Terraces Senko's people
and the United States Navy.
It was under restoration
for several years.
I'm not exactly sure how many,
I wanna say five,
if I remember correctly
from when I recall.
Pensacola put it on display.
It was on display in their
museum for a long time
until it was given to us.
It was given to us on a temporary loan
until they restored the airplane
that they did recover for us,
and they actually did
recover an SBD for us.
It was one that didn't
see any Combat Action.
It was an SBD-5 that was built
and sent straight to NAS Glenview
to use as a trainer and yet
again, it was put in the drink.
I actually saw that bird
about a year ago, when my son and I
went to go watch the
Blue Angels at Pensacola,
I went toward the respiration facility
and the airplane that
they pulled up for us
is currently sitting in
the restoration facility
at about 95% restored.
It's being restored to
look like the trainer
that it was because it
doesn't have a combat history.
It's looked like the trainer that it was
when it was put into into Lake Michigan.
But because of the recovery,
the re-institution of the
recovery efforts by the Navy
and AMT recovery, a lot of other airplanes
have been pulled out of Lake
Michigan in recent years,
two of which are historically significant.
One is an F6F Hellcat
that was pulled out of Lake Michigan
that actually does have a combat history,
as I said very few do.
Ours is one.
Our dauntless is one.
The F6F that they recovered
about five years ago,
six years ago that's on
display right now in Pensacola
is a combat veteran.
It flew with fighting
squadrons on 20 off of,
wait for it, the USS Enterprise.
Another airplane that they
pulled out of the water
is the only known surviving
airplane of its type.
It's called a BirdCage Corsair,
it's the very first
model of that F4U Corsair
which of course is the
famous goldwing fighter
that was flown by the Royal
Navy, as a matter of fact,
and the United States
Navy and Marine Corps
towards the middle part. (indistinct)
But our dauntless is one of
the prizes of our collection.
It's on loan, it's not ours.
It's still the Navy's but it's on loan.
And it is a beautiful airplane
an absolutely gorgeous
birds in fantastic shape
and it has such a significant
combat history of its own,
and it represents so much more.
It is the airplane,
for the first six months,
seven months of the Pacific War
and we're absolutely ecstatic to have it.
We've had it for several years now
and it's one of the
jewels of our collection.
And with that, I'll
turn it back over to Ed.
- Thank you very much Seth.
This has been a great session
for all of our audience
to kind of get a sense
of the back picture.
You know, you go to a museum and you see
aircraft and other military equipment
that may be hanging and maybe all restored
and it looks like it's
fresh off the airfield.
But there's a lot of work that
goes into the presentation
of these aircraft.
Everywhere, as we've
seen from identification,
to recovery and conservation,
as our colleagues are
doing at the RAF museum
with the Dornier 17 and other aircraft.
And as Seth was sharing
with us, the great story
of our SBD dauntless.
I put our in quotes even
though it's on loan,
but still there, there
are a lot of professionals
on all ends who put
tremendous work and dedication
and professionalism into this process.
So we are out of time.
And I thank all of you, gentlemen
for your presentations
today and we look forward
to more in the future.
- Thank you.
- [Ed] Thank you. Great evening.
