Some serious warbird pickin' SBD-1 From Lake Michigan.

[Bob Hudson]

SBD 1 http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sd-me-dauntless-bomber-20170719-story.html

 

[gwb123]

Great story. It is hard to accept how many pilots and crew we lost in non-combat training accidents, and this honors their memory.

 

Odd to say it, but Lake Michigan has kept aircraft such as this as if in a time capsule. It is good they have been kept their until we have the technology to both recover and restore them. One wonders though, what will we do when the technicians and craftsmen who know these planes are gone.

[lewis505]

Great story!

[Mr.Jerry]

I have a wing panel from a Hellcat that was recovered from lake Michigan that is now restored and on display in the Museum at Pearl Harbor.

 

Sadly the invasive Zebra mussels are now attacking anything metal they can find down there.

One estimate I had heard is that in 15 years there will be nothing left.

[Bob Hudson]

Great story. It is hard to accept how many pilots and crew we lost in non-combat training accidents, and this honors their memory.

 

I was shocked to read that 15,000 Naval aviators died during training in WWII. But, I found a 1947 Navy report which lists total WWII Naval aviation deaths at just over 12,000. Deaths in training and ferrying were 3,257 - only slightly less than the 3,632 killed by the enemy. While that's a lot less than 15,000, it seems to show that training could be just as deadly as combat: in fact, notice that more people were killed in training than in "AIR COMBAT."

 

[gwb123]

I wonder if that 15,000 also refer to the Army Air Corps as part of the total?

 

Every time I read about a pilot going through initial training, they always describe three or four pilots lost at each stage of training. It was an insane rate of loss by today's standards.