Scholar confirms US bomber wreckage near Yangtze
- By Zhang Rui
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 21, 2013
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Wreckage of an American fighter plane was discovered in Anhui. [anhuinews.com] |
A U.S. scholar confirmed that the wreckage of an American fighter plane discovered in the Yangtze River last week was a Flying Tiger bomber, a local news paper reported Monday.
"I can confirm it is the Flying Tiger B-25 bomber," Dr. Patrick Lucas told Anhui Business News publication.
Lucas, the son of a WWII veteran, traveled to Zhanghu Town of Wangjiang County six years ago with a mission -- entrusted to him by the martyred crew member's relatives -- to visit the witnesses and places where the plane had crashed on December 30, 1943.
However, Lucas was a little disappointed during his visit that the witnesses didn't actually know where the wreckage was located. However, the story took a dramatic turn on October 16, 2013, when four fishermen discovered the wreckage when fishing for crabs on the Yangtze River.
After a two-day salvage mission, the undercarriage, engine and plane body were all brought up to the surface. The wreckage still featured an English print reading, "North American Aviation," as well as a plate engraved with the craft's manufacturing date of February 15, 1943. This was exactly during the period when the Sino-American volunteer group nicknamed the "Flying Tigers" fought the Japanese on Chinese territory.
Ma Jinbin, one of the fishermen who discovered the wreckage seven decades after it had been swallowed by the river, said the men had always been suspicious that something was stuck at the bottom of the river when their nets would get hitched on something whilst fishing at Huimin Bay. Their curiosity spurred them on to further investigate the area and that is how they eventually came across the plane wreckage.
After viewing recent photos, Lucas told the newspaper he could tell the undercarriage belonged to a B-25 bomber and both the English print and date on the plane again proved the plane's manufacturer and time. According to declassified American military files, the crash location is basically accurate and there were no other planes down that day.
Lucas also noted that according to U.S. National Archives and Records Administration files, there might be five unexploded bombs hiding under the water's surface and therefore asked the villagers to be cautious.
According to historical material, five American fighter planes took off from Suichuan County, Jiangxi Province, on December 30, 1943, and flew to the Yangtze River to attack several Japanese battleships situated on the river. When they flew to the place 10 miles away from Anqing City, they located one ship and a furious battle ensued.
Feng Shenfu, a villager of Liuhe Village and a witness to the air battle, once told Lucas (on November 9, 2007) that on the morning of December 30, 1943, he saw a plane crash into the river near his home. There was a lot of smoke coming out of the airplane and he saw a broken leg sticking out from the grass and brushwood on the river bank. The leg was hairy and looked nothing like a Chinese leg. He later heard that several American planes fought a Japanese battleship there that day and their plane had probably been shot down.
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An early photo of pilots and the crashed B-25 bomber. [File photo] |
Actually, according to declassified files, the B-25 bomber's wing hit the Japanese ship's mast after it had already dropped one bomb. After the tragic accident, the plane crashed and exploded; the four crew members on board all died.
Lucas, also director of the Beijing Center of the Council for International Educational Exchange (CIEE), is fascinated by the legend of the Flying Tigers. He went to many places within the United States to visit and interview 200 American veterans who once fought in China. He would also go and visit the places where the Americans had fought, according to clues given to him by those veterans or their relatives in a bid to retrace the memories of the past.
The newly discovered wreckage has been stored and protected in Huimin Village, awaiting more research and verification by experts and government departments.
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