WWII P-38 Fighter Discovered in Wales-Emerges on a beach

[RamboLiberal]

Sixty-five years after an American P-38 fighter plane ran out of gas and crash-landed on a beach in Wales, the long-forgotten World War II relic has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried.

Beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers often frolicked within a few yards of the aircraft, unaware of its existence until last summer, when unusual weather caused the sand to shift and erode.

The revelation of the Lockheed "Lightning" fighter, with its distinctive twin-boom design, has stirred interest in British aviation circles and among officials of the country's aircraft museums, ready to reclaim another artifact from history's greatest armed conflict.

Based on its serial number and other records, "the fighter is arguably the oldest P-38 in existence, and the oldest surviving 8th Air Force combat aircraft of any type," said Ric Gillespie, who heads a U.S.-based nonprofit group dedicated to preserving historic aircraft. "In that respect it's a major find, of exceptional interest to British and American aviation historians."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3865512

[ben_meyers]

1. I wonder if Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino were

anywere nearby?

[NYVet]

3. The water is too shallow for them.

Besides Dirk is stuck behind a desk at NUMA now.




Unless you mean his son Dirk JR.

[ben_meyers]

6. I just finished Treasure of Khan

the latest, and Dirk and Al are back on the scene. They just found a Fokker F.V11b Trimotor in the Gobi Desert that had crashed in 1937!

[NYVet]

7. I'm gonna have to grab that book. (NT)

[Liberal In Texas]

29. Went to a book signing with Clive Cussler this past weekend, got to shake his hand.

The latest book is "The Chase" and has no Al or Dirk. It's a WESTERN! Set in 1906.

[frylock]

2. my favorite airframe..

the P-38 was a beautiful piece of machinery. What a cool find!

[supernova]

4. Decked out P-38

I wanted to see what it looked like without the sand and rust:

[JohnyCanuck]

8. Der Gabelschwanz Teufel

Because of its unorthodox design, the aircraft evolved for several years before becoming the fighter destined to see combat in all theaters of World War II. The P-38 Lightning introduced a new dimension to American fighters - a second engine. The multi-engine configuration reduced the Lightning loss-rate to anti-aircraft gunfire during ground attack missions.

Late in 1942, it went into large-scale operations during the North African campaign where the German Luftwaffe named it "Der Gabelschwanz Teufel"--"The Forked-Tail Devil."

Equipped with droppable fuel tanks under its wings, the P-38 was used extensively as a long-range escort fighter. A very versatile aircraft, the Lightning was also used for dive bombing, level bombing, ground strafing and photo reconnaissance missions.

As with any long-term production aircraft, the P-38 underwent many modifications. The fastest of the modifications was the P-38J with a top speed of 420 mph, and the version produced in the greatest quantity was the "L," of which 3,735 were built by Lockheed and 113 by Vultee. The P-38J intakes under the engines were enlarged to house core-type intercoolers. The curved windscreen was replaced by a flat panel, and the boom mounted radiators were enlarged. Some were fitted with bombardier type noses, and were used to lead formations of bomb-laden P-38s to their targets. The P-38M was a two-seat radar-equipped night fighter, a few of which had become operational before the war ended.

By the end of production in 1945, 9,923 P-38s had been built. Only 27 of the aircraft exist today.

http://www.af.mil/history/aircraft.asp?dec=&pid=123006545

[maine_raptor]

10. Martin Cadin's book "The Forked-Tailed Devil"

is a great source on the history of this plane. Below 15,000 ft it was unbeatable. It's an incredibly stable gun platform because each prop rotates in the opposite direction, thus eliminating any torque.

Only a few still exist and last I heard only a couple were in flyable condition.


My favorite story about this plane took place in 1943, when the Allies had taken control of North Africa and were flying mission across the Med into Italy. A squadron of P-38's took off to act as escorts for a bombing mission. During the mission the bombers and the escorts were jumped by a gaggle of ME-109's. In the dogfight that followed, one P-38 got separated from the flight. After the mission was over, all planes but that one P-38 returned to base, and the crews sat around waiting for the missing plane to return. When the expected time of fuel exhaustion arrived, the squadron gave up hope that the plane and pilot were coming back. A couple of hours later, the personal at the airbase heard the sound of an approaching plane. It was the missing P-38. It made a circle over the airbase, turned into the approach. lowered it's gear and flaps and landed. It then taxied to the end of the strip where the engines stopped for lack of gas. The ground crew approached the plane and found that the pilot was dead, killed by a bullet to the head and had been dead for several hours.

[SyntaxError]

16. Interesting story....

but most likely just a story, aye? Or at least changed to make it sound more interesting...

[Captain Hilts]

25. What about the Greeland Glacier Girls? nt

[Captain Hilts]

12. Tarted up for D-Day. Nice! First seen by the US public in "A Guy Named Joe." nt

[SyntaxError]

15. I always thought those were cool looking planes....

I heard they were difficult to control though, aye? I would imagine back then, without all these fancy computers, such an odd plane would handle a bit strange... Of course that is me speaking out of my ass.

[Forkboy]

5. I love stuff like this. Thanks for posting it!

[shadowknows69]

9. Was Steven Spielberg anywhere in the area?

Sorry fist geeky thought that entered my head was the first scenes from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"

[rasputin1952]

11. P-38's made a remarkable contribution to the Pacific War when

a flight of them shot down Yamamoto and his entourage in The South Pacific.

The P-38, because of it's capacity to fly long and hard, was the only plane at the time that could have accomplished such a mission. The Japanese were astounded that they had been attacked by airplanes from such a distance, and the loss of Yamamoto can not be overstated. From that day forward, the strategic aspect of the Pacific War changed and while not assured, Allied victory was certainly enhanced.

[kirby]

13. Just imagine...

'Beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers often frolicked within a few yards of the aircraft, unaware of its existence until last summer...'

Just think if it was a modern plane, who knows what type of substances, such as Depleted Uranium, radiation, stealth coating chemicals, etc. beach goers would be exposed to unknowingly. Kinda creepy.

[DS1]

14. A relic of the USA that did good in the world

a gentle reminder, so to speak

[SyntaxError]

17. yeah, fire bombing Dresden was a such a good thing....

[DS1]

18. Oh fuck off

There's always one asshole like you.

[SyntaxError]

19. hehe

Oh come on, lighten up... Even though I meant my comment in a more light-hearted way, it's still true...

[supernova]

21. Dresden survives and it's beautiful again

It serves quite nicely as a reminder of the need for peace.

[Selatius]

23. That was the Royal Air Force, not the US Army Air Force, FYI.

The Americans cancelled their raid on Dresden after they had seen how complete the RAF had been in torching that city.

[Captain Hilts]

24. Read history, that was England's "Bomber" Harris's decision. nt

[tuckessee]

20. Similar story - Soviet T34/76 tank found in small lake in Estonia

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/TPC/Funny_Pictures/1001-2000/1701-1800/89.shtm

This story was posted on DU a couple months ago but I thought those who missed the first go around would appreciate it.

There's a neat twist to the tank's war record.

[paulk]

27. that's wild!

that looks like a 1942 model - very few of those survived the war - what a find, and so well preserved by the peat!

[backscatter712]

22. They could salvage and restore this fighter!

Being someone raised to have an appreciation for vintage cars, vintage planes, etc., that's what I'm hoping will happen.

I remember watching a show about a group of people who originally set out to recover a B-17 that crash-landed in Greenland during WWII, along with a bunch of P-38s. The planes, over the years, were buried under hundreds of feet of ice.

When they finally were able to tunnel down through the ice and reach the aircraft, all of them were crushed like pop cans. :( The B-17 was completely destroyed - the group was able to recover a bunch of artifacts, but the dream of restoring the aircraft was impossible.

They did recover one of the P-38s. It was also crushed like a pop can, but they recovered it, rebuilt it piece by piece. There's hardly many pieces of the original plane left, since they had to rebuild so much of it, but the end result is an authentic, flying P-38 Lightning.

[yardwork]

26. More info

I emailed this link to a friend who knows a lot about WWII planes, and he responded:

I can't post in the DU forum but there is a lot of wrong information posted there. The Germans never called it the "Fork-Tailed Devil". That was propaganda dreamed up by a post-war aviation writer named Martin Caidin. He was quite fanciful with his prose. To the Germans it was simply a "P-38". It was a big and heavy twin-engine fighter that was plagued with a problem called "carburator icing", which caused the airplane to lose power when flying at high altitudes over Europe. It was later attributed to the low octane found in British aviation gasoline. For that reason (and others), P-38s were mostly deployed to the Mediterranean (Italy, North Africa) and the Pacific. Here, they excelled because of their excellent range, better quality US gasoline, and lower combat altitudes. Charles Lindbergh was retained by Lockheed to show pilots how to obtain the best possible gas mileage, thereby stretching out their combat radius even further. Lindbergh, although a civilian, participated in several combat missions and is rumored to have had at least one kill. These tactics were used when P-38s intercepted a flight of Japanese bombers in 1943 in which Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, was shot down and killed.

The top US Army Air Force aces flew the P-38 in the Pacific. Richard Bong had 40 kills, and Thomas McGuire had 38. In Europe, the top US ace was Francis Gabreski, with 28 kills, but he flew the P-47 Thunderbolt. Of course, this pales in comparison with the top German ace (Erich Hartmann, 352 victories), but being in the Luftwaffe was different: you flew until you were either dead or the war ended. US pilots enjoyed being rotated back to the States when their tour of duty was up.

A campaign to fly P-38s from the US to England in 1942 was undertaken, instead of the usual method of shipping them via container vessel. One flight got lost and had to land on the ice in Greenland. All the pilots were rescued, but the six P-38s and a single B-17 were abandoned. Fifty years later, the airplanes were found, buried under 250 feet of ice. One was recovered and restored to flying status. In honor of its heritage, it has been named "Glacier Girl".

The P-38 found in Wales is most likely an oxidized hulk now. Note that the Army removed the guns and any ammunition right after the crash, but left the airplane as unrecoverable. There is no depleted uranium on board -- that didn't exist in 1942. Salt water is not kind to aluminum, so they be able to pull it up from the sand, but it will have to be essentially rebuilt from the ground up if it is to ever be displayed in a museum or fly again. All it takes is a lot of money, ala Glacier Girl.

[Liberal In Texas]

28. self delete

posted in wrong pew.