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Doolittle B-25

Posted by Tony on Fri Jan 31, 2003 10:06:28 AM

Ok.....

Spoke to a Russian Bod on this last night

The airfield the aircraft arrived at, was not Petropavlosk as far as he was aware. Been sent a photo of the B-25 the day after it arrived at the airfield he believes it was and a more recent one, taken in the same position, featuring an AN-2 .

He says there was a very definite US interest about 2 years ago, NOT from USAFM, but from another party, with backing by a senator etc. I'm not going into details here, because some people are a bit too quick to reach for their lawyers - lol

A deal of sorts was reached, but there was some confusion, as to whether the aircraft was still in existence, or had been pressed into service by the VVS, and lost on a bombing raid against Berlin! There are war veteran B-25 airframes still extant in the Vladivostok area, but formal identification has not been possible.

The deal, appeared to be one of those rare ones, a straight swop. Just as the US regard the B-25 as a "Holy Grail" aircraft, the Russians have their equivalent, currently sitting in 15m of water, up Alaska way. Now from what I understand, the Americans would recover this aircraft, in return for receiving the B-25, subject to it's confirmed existence.

For whatever reason, once again, which I'm not going into here, the deal fell over. I'm not going into it, because I don't know enough, and I'm not taking one side or the others word on it. Suffice to say, the elusive B-25 is either sitting in the undergrowth at an airport in the region , or is waiting to be discovered somewhere between Berlin and a base in a satellite CIS state.

Sorry I can't be more informative. It's not a witholding of information, it's just that no one is sure, what the eventual fate of this airframe was.

In the interim, I suggest either Ruptured Duck, or the other 2 B-25's in 60-100m of water, or very possibly less, are better candidates.

Tony :)

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