"In the summer of 2007, a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, presumed to be USAAF serial number 41-7677, emerged from the sand of a beach in Wales where it crash landed in 1942. The aircraft, largely intact and remarkably free of corrosion, is one of the most significant WWII-related archaeological discoveries in recent history."
Edit: so some people are asking some questions in the thread so I'd thought I'd add some info from the website.
Can you visit it? No its been coved back up by the sand and its in an undisclosed location to avoid looting.
Why did it crash? Pilot error on a training mission and ran out of fuel.
Why was it not salvaged?. To damaged by seawater but guns were removed after crash in 1942 and proberbly other important parts that were easy to remove.
Who owns it? That's very complicated but it is protected by UK law.
What will happen to it? Waiting to get funding to preserve and place in a museum hopefully in the UK as there are no p38s here in a museum. If you wish to donate there are links on website.
Was anyone hurt? All survived.
If your ever in London I'd highly recommend the royal air force museum its by far my favorite museum in London with hundreds of planes.
My grandfather flew one of these during the war. He went down early in the US involvement however and spent most of the war in a POW camp (which is much nicer than a concentration camp). Either way he didn’t talk about it much.
Mernerner on December 13rd, 2017 at 14:26 UTC »
wow
coffepotty on December 13rd, 2017 at 14:26 UTC »
Interesting find heres a little more info. https://tighar.org/Projects/P38/welshlightning.htm
"In the summer of 2007, a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, presumed to be USAAF serial number 41-7677, emerged from the sand of a beach in Wales where it crash landed in 1942. The aircraft, largely intact and remarkably free of corrosion, is one of the most significant WWII-related archaeological discoveries in recent history."
Edit: so some people are asking some questions in the thread so I'd thought I'd add some info from the website.
Can you visit it? No its been coved back up by the sand and its in an undisclosed location to avoid looting.
Why did it crash? Pilot error on a training mission and ran out of fuel.
Why was it not salvaged?. To damaged by seawater but guns were removed after crash in 1942 and proberbly other important parts that were easy to remove.
Who owns it? That's very complicated but it is protected by UK law.
What will happen to it? Waiting to get funding to preserve and place in a museum hopefully in the UK as there are no p38s here in a museum. If you wish to donate there are links on website.
Was anyone hurt? All survived.
If your ever in London I'd highly recommend the royal air force museum its by far my favorite museum in London with hundreds of planes.
Wingnut814 on December 13rd, 2017 at 15:03 UTC »
My grandfather flew one of these during the war. He went down early in the US involvement however and spent most of the war in a POW camp (which is much nicer than a concentration camp). Either way he didn’t talk about it much.