The Bomber in the Lake

During WWII an island in the middle of our local lake was used for bombing practice. They used practice bombs and some of the planes were aparantly old worn out ones unfit for front line duty. The Dolittle Raiders trained here out of what is now our municipal airport, one of two training bases for B-25 crews. Well, one day 61 years ago one of those worn out bombers lost an engine while low over the water. The pilot had little choice but to ditch the airplane. Fortunately in this case the crew had enough warning to prepare for the rough landing and to escape with their lives. Several other such incidents lead to fatalities and the aircraft went to pieces that were lost for good. But Mitchell B-25 tail no. 112634 made it to the bottom more or less in one piece and has been part of the lore our lake ever since. She has been sitting 150 feet down, too deep for casual sport scuba divers, but several hard-core types have made it down there to take a look in the murk. A local artist painted a scene of her sitting at the bottom as she might have looked in clear Caribbean water.

So that’s the background. Tonight, just before midnight, they pulled her out of the drink. She took quite a beating in the ditching, having an engine torn off and her back broken just in front of the wings. Her nose is bent down and askew. The left wing tip was smashed, assumedly from hitting the bottom first as the remaining left engine pulled everything downward rendering a pretty sorry mess. And she was probably close to worn out on the day of her last flight. But, 61 years later, the B-25 is still with us. The depth of the water saved it from the scrap metal smelter’s fire that turned most of her sisters into cans and cookware. The green painted aluminum skin dried before our eyes after being wet since my father was a little boy. She still bears the stars of the Army Air Force proclaiming her a proud servant of the United States of America. She will never fly again. Of 160 or so remaining B-25’s, she is the second or third oldest, so is too valuable an artifact. She will go to a museum where all can come and see her and appreciate a tangible memorial to a brave time of brave people. It was a wonderful thing to witness this large chunk of our nation’s hertiage resuced from the mud.