THE JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL GROUP FOR HISTORIC AIRCRAFT RECOVERY May 31, 1995 © TIGHAR 1995 Volume 11, Number 2 Contents TIGHAR to TIGHAR 3 Project Report: Operation Sepulchre 5 In Review: Popular Magazines 11 Project Reports Los Padres Wreck Survey 14 … that they might escape the teeth of time and Lady In Waiting 14 the hands of mistaken zeal. Search for Kingsford-Smith 15 – JOHN AUBREY Columbia Project 15 STONEHENGE MANUSCRIPTS The Way It Was: Lockheed NR16020 16 1660 Research In Progress 21 Burning Bright 22 Blue Side Up 23 TIGHAR (pronounced “tiger”) is the acronym for The International Group for Historic Aircraft COVER: Recovery, a non-profit foundation dedicated This photo of Amelia Earhart was taken sometime to promoting responsible aviation archeology after October of 1936. How do we know? See "The Earhart Electra" starting on page 17. Photo couretsy and historic preservation. TIGHAR’s activities Purdue University Library Special Collections. Used by include: permission. • Compiling and verifying reports of rare and historic aircraft surviving in remote areas. • Conducting investigations and recovery The publication of TIGHAR expeditions in co-operation with museums Tracks is made possible by a and collections worldwide. • Serving as a voice for integrity, responsi- generous grant from blity, and professionalism in the field of aviation historic preservation. TIGHAR maintains no collection of its own, nor Honeywell does it engage in the restoration or buying and Space & Aviation Control selling of artifacts. The foundation devotes its resources to the saving of endangered historic Phoenix, Arizona aircraft wherever they may be found, and to the education of the international public in the need to preserve the relics of the history of flight. Our sincerest thanks. TIGHAR Tracks, published four times each year, Board of Directors is the official publication of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. A subscription to Richard Cobb TIGHAR Tracks is included as part of membership in the foundation (minimum donation $45.00 per Richard E. Gillespie year). The editors welcome contributions of writ- Peter Paul Luce ten material and artwork. Materials should be Richard J. Reynolds addressed to: Editors, TIGHAR Tracks, 2812 Fawkes John Sawyer, Chairman Drive, Wilmington, DE 19808 USA; telephone (302) Patricia R. Thrasher 994-4410, fax (302) 994-7945. Photographs and H. Donald Widdoes artwork will be returned on request. TIGHAR Tracks, p. 2 GHA TM TI R SPECIAL T H T E C ANNOUNCEMENT E E J A WE HAVE SET FOR OURSELVES THE GOAL OF ENDING THE R O H P R ART AMELIA EARHART MYSTERY BY JULY 2, 1997, THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF HER DISAPPEARANCE. You’ll notice that we say “end the mystery,” not “solve the mystery.” There’s a difference. We are convinced that TIGHAR has already solved the basic mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. They landed and died on the remote, uninhabited island of Nikumaroro. However, we also recognize that the evidence recovered so far has not been adequate to convince the general public and (perhaps more to the point) the media sufficiently to end the mystery. Indeed, the four years since TIGHAR’s return from the Pacific have seen a rebirth of groundless speculation about Earhart’s fate. We feel that sixty years is long enough for the facts of the Earhart dis- appearance to be clouded with myth and legend. Accordingly, TIGHAR’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors is now fine tuning a compre- hensive two-year program designed and budgeted to: EXP • Return to Nikumaroro in 1996 to find and II ED I IT U I recover additional components of the Electra as O K Once I N well as other artifacts and, if possible, human N remains. T and • Perform the post-expedition analytical work, H T E for C E write the reports, obtain the impartial expert E J A all! R RO endorsements, prepare the press releases, and HA RT P produce the videotapes necessary to truly end the mystery once and for all by July 2, 1997. It will cost an estimated one million dollars, about the same amount TIGHAR has already raised – and spent – on the project. Naturally, we don’t need all of that money immediately and, in fact, the budget has been set up as a series of reasonable quarterly amounts. We’re asking our members to help us meet the first goal. Vol, 11, No. 2, p. 3 As with all campaigns, the first money is not the biggest money, but it is the most important money. It’s the war chest that pays for the produc- tion of the written and visual materials that are the ammunition of fund raising. It’s the seed money that buys the time and the travel needed to bring in the big corporate and individual contributions. It’s the snowball of personal endorsement that starts the avalanche of popular support. And it can only come from within TIGHAR, from those who already know and are a part of TIGHAR’s ability to make things happen. Our first quarterly goal is $76,655.39. This is where it starts and now is when we need your help. What will come later – the ship, the team, the technology, the discoveries – all rely upon our ability to implement the plan that will make it real. And although no one but us will probably ever give you credit for it, your contribution now is what will ultimately replace sixty years of speculation with incontrovertible fact. Please use the enclosed Once And For All card to make your donation to the Niku III Project Fund. You may charge your contribution to VISA or MasterCard if that is more convenient for you – just use the charge slip enclosed. Thanks for your help. H TM EXP IG AR II ED T I IT U I K Once O I N N T H T T and C E T H E E for C E J E A E J O A all! R R R RO HA T P HA RT P R The TIGHAR Cub Fund One of the United States’ best known aviation insurance agencies, Ed Marshall Insurance of Salem, VA has become the sponsor of an important new TIGHAR pro- gram. Recognizing the educational value of TIGHAR membership for young aviation enthusiasts, company president Tom Cook (TIGHAR #0510) has made a special contri- bution which allows TIGHAR to extend complimentary membership to students who could not otherwise afford to join. Like the Chris Hollinger Memorial Scholarship for graduate studies, the TIGHAR Cub Fund is an expression of TIGHAR’s commitment to aviation historic preservation education. Earmarked contributions to either fund are always welcome. TIGHAR to TIGHAR to TIGHAR Tracks, p. 4 chariots in Project Reports a pharoah’s tomb the prospect of World War Two German air- project began with archival craft surviving intact in sealed underground research in Germany which hangars is irresistible. Prefaced by cautionary soon turned up Nazi documents glances, told in hushed tones and received establishing beyond doubt that with knowing nods, the stories tell of children subterranean aircraft shelters who crawl down ventilation shafts to play on were, indeed, built. Unfortunately, however, airplanes underground; of photographs said their specific locations were not always clear. to show fighters in flooded vaults standing A search of U.S. Army records showed that up to their wingroots in water; of mysterious several underground aircraft production facili- sub-basement stairways which lead to sealed ties were found, thoroughly investigated, and metal doors. Seldom is the teller a direct wit- ultimately destroyed by the invading Allies ness but has usually received the information in 1945. The question remains, did others go from some other source considered to be undiscovered or were some perhaps sealed unimpeachable. up rather than destroyed? Luftwaffe veter- In 1986 TIGHAR took on the formidable ans interviewed by TIGHAR unanimously task of running these tales to earth (so to dismissed the notion as ridiculous. It was speak) to determine if any of them might apparent that only a relentless case by case be true. Dubbed Operation Sepulchre, the investigation would reveal the truth. A Messerschmitt Bf 110 waits in the night for its next mission. Do others still wait in the darkness of sealed underground Vol, 11, No. 2, p. 5 To date, Operation Sepulchre has looked mainz-finthen into a number of sites: In 1991 we heard that, in the early 1970s, a kassel crew chief with a U.S. Army helicopter unit, a “Specialist Palishaw,” had taken photographs Sealed doors leading to underground han- of German aircraft in a flooded underground gars were rumored to be found somewhere hangar at a former Luftwaffe airfield. Tom Pal- in or near this ancient city in the district of shaw, as it turned out, had only heard about Hesse. During the war, Kassel was the site the photos of the airplanes long rumored to of several aircraft production plants and be hidden beneath the airfield at Mainz-Fin- suffered terribly under Allied bombing, so then. Since becoming TIGHAR #1290C, Tom it seemed logical that some kind of under- has led the investigation of this site and, ground aircraft facility may have been built with the help of TIGHAR’s premier European there. However, on-site research in 1986 by researcher Lou Schoonbrood (TIGHAR #1198) TIGHAR Executive Director Richard Gillespie has solved some, but not yet all, of the field’s and President Patricia Thrasher failed to turn mysteries. Here is the result of their detailed up any local corroboration of the story nor and fascinating research. any likely location for the alleged doors.