On Monday, April 27, 2009, National Naval Aviation Museum and Naval Aviation Museum Foundation officials welcomed the arrival of SBD-5 Dauntless (Bureau Number 36291), recovered three days earlier from the waters of Lake Michigan. The aircraft, which crashed during carrier qualification on the training aircraft carrier Wolverine (IX 64) on November 24, 1944, is the latest of more than 30 airplanes that the museum has recovered from the lake since the program started in 1990. Its recovery and restoration are sponsored by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. This Dauntless represents the reactivation of the Navy’s highly successful underwater aircraft recovery program in the Great Lakes, which has yielded a treasure of one-of-a-kind warbirds as well as battle-weary aircraft that flew in hostile skies at the Battle of Midway, the invasion of North Africa, and during the Guadalcanal campaign.
A Good Start and a Wet Landing
The November day nearly 65 years ago on which the aircraft first splashed into Lake Michigan waters was a routine one during the wartime years. The roar of engines pervaded the flight deck of Wolverine, which was one of two civilian paddle-wheel steamers converted to an aircraft carrier specifically for the training of Navy and Marine Corps carrier pilots to meet the demands of the fleet. Ensign Joseph Lokites, in his initial carrier landing training, was the second pilot to climb into SBD-5 Dauntless (Bureau Number 36291), the aircraft having taken off that morning from Naval Air Station (NAS) Glenview, Illinois, in the hands of another aviator, who flew it for 50 minutes. In the clear, chilly skies over the expansive waters of Lake Michigan Lokites circled Wolverine, making approaches to the carrier’s deck. He made two landings and three passes before successfully making a third landing on the deck of the ship, requesting that the gasoline be checked. The Fly One Officer, tasked with launching aircraft from the carrier, reported switching the selector valve on the aircraft to a tank registering 60 gallons of fuel. The young ensign in the cockpit was soon airborne again for his remaining qualifying landings, little knowing they were destined not to occur on this day.
“She Just Conked Out"
Back in the air, Lokites made two more landing passes and had just turned into the groove behind the ship on final approach for another one when the engine abruptly quit, which resulted in the Dauntless splashing into the water. “She just conked out,” Lokites told the Daily Herald, a Chicago-area newspaper, from his home in Des Moines, Iowa. Now 86 years old, he recalled things happening very quickly after that, the wing striking the water first followed by his hasty exit from the cockpit into the frigid waters of the lake. He was rescued within minutes, and returned to the air two days later to complete his carrier qualification, duty eventually taking him to Cuba. The aircraft he watched sink while floating in his life vest joined numerous others that at the time represented the price of progress in the risky business of training fledgling aviators to land on a floating airfield that moved.
Plane to Undergo Restoration
The accident investigation determined that the plane ran out of gas, the evidence as to whether the fuel selector valve was switched to the correct tank at the time lying beneath 300 feet of water. The switch now sits behind an accumulation of mussels that were inadvertently introduced to the Great Lakes two decades ago and have multiplied tremendously. In addition to their negative ecological and economic effect, these mussels have begun to attach themselves to the aircraft wrecks resting at the bottom of Lake Michigan, this aircraft encrusted with them in many locations when it first emerged from the water.
It is not expected that the mussels will significantly impact the restoration of the aircraft at the National Naval Aviation Museum, where 3 aircraft recovered from Lake have been restored for display. It should take approximately 2 years to complete the restoration process, after which it will look more like it did following delivery to the Navy in October 1943. When completed, it will take its place alongside its predecessors as links to one of the most pivotal moments in American history.