 |
Luis
Burnoon, one of the local land owners and former airport
manager, knew of an intact Zero in the jungle, so we dove
off of the runway and into the jungle to find it.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Here
Francis Reg, a Yap HPO employee, and Luis hack their way
through the jungle looking for the Zero. I have often heard
of these types of stories, a relatively intact plane
somewhere. 9 time out of 10 they prove unfounded. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Luis
throws up his hands
in frustration...
"I know I saw it in here a couple years ago!" |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Francis:
"Ah, we are never going to find it!"
Well we
didn't find the Zero Luis remembered, but we did find 3
other Zeros! Two were fairly complete. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Here is
the first of three. See it through the brush?
On the
right I am saying I think there's a Zero in here! |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Compare
the photo on the left to the one directly above it, they are
before and after vegetation removal. The other three photos
are of the cockpit I was poking my head into above. |
 |
| |
 |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Looking
into the planter box, er, I mean cockpit. |
|
| |
|
|
 |
I am more
used to using a trowel for excavating, but a machete worked
quite well for removing the inch plus of dirt that was on
the wings. This was what all of the plant life was
growing in. See below. |
 |
|
The wing
is outlined in red, and this was after trimming (or should I
say mowing) the vegetation down.
This is the left wing looking at it from the front inboard
side. |
 |
The soil,
which was essentially decomposing organic mater, was a haven
for plant life, which in turn was causing rapid
decomposition of the plane's structure. |
| |
|
|
| |
The left
wing again, but looking from the rear outboard side. We had
cleared around the outboard fuel tank, a feature that only
later model Zeros had. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
This is
the right wing, outboard rear view, after clearing off the
vegetation and duff. |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Right
wing, outboard front view. The landing gear is down and the
plane is standing on it. The gear is visible just to the
left of the handheld white board. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Of
particular interest was this bullet hole that had been
patched over during this Zero's combat life. |
|
| |
|
|
 |
The
engine was hidden in the brush about 10 meters away. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Two more views of the engine.
The "extractor" exhaust helps identify the Zero as a late
model. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
The tail was located in a bomb
crater approximately 20 meters from the fuselage. |
 |
