Hidden Warbirds by
Nicholas A. Veronico is a unique look at aviation. While I have been to
the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force and
flown a few times that is about the limit to my exposure to planes. The
photos in this book will take you right to the location of these downed birds.
In fact, even if you're not a huge reader this book is so full of
wonderful, full-color photos that you can gather an idea of what is happening
just by looking at the photos.
A few
tidbits that I found interesting:
-
The US built more than 300,000 planes
in a four year period leading up to 1945.
-
After WWII, 25,000 of them were
considered surplus. Prices were not as low as after WWI but you
could still buy a variety of warplanes for about $1200.
-
There are an estimated 300 warplanes
in Lake Michigan. Many of which have a chance at being restored
because freshwater is much kinder to metals than salt water.
-
The US Air Force and the US Navy have
very different policies on aircraft retrieval. For the Air
Force, if the plane went down before 1961, if you have the landowner's
permission then you can recover the aircraft. With the Navy you need
a permit to recover. Both branches are very sensitive about human
remains.
As a
lay person I did find the shear number of plane names and ID numbers to
be overwhelming but you kind of ignore that part and focus on the
stories, wow! These people have some serious dedication to their craft.
It took them years to get permission to get the Swamp Ghost out of the
Agaiambo Swamp (Papua New Guinea). I'm not sure if I would have that
dedication to a machine. And then there is the P-38 that they dug out of
260 feet of ice in Greenland. Dang!