German WWII bomber to be salvaged
Plane is submerged in English Channel
LONDON — A famous German World War II bomber nicknamed “the flying pencil” has spent decades submerged in the English Channel after being shot down in the Battle of Britain. Now, divers are braving dangerous tides to bring it to the surface.
British officials on Friday announced a complex salvage operation just off the Kent coast in southeastern England to rescue the only known surviving example of the German Dornier Do 17 bomber. The operation is under way and if all the preparations go well, the plane will be lifted from the water in three or four weeks.
But the director of London’s RAF Museum, which has been raising money for the salvage, cautioned that the recovery would be risky — divers will only be able to work for 45 minutes at a time because of perilous tides, and they face other challenges.
“We are not guaranteed success,” Peter Dye said. “There have been previous aircraft recovery projects that didn’t go so well, cases where the structure has disintegrated on retrieval. When it breaks the surface, gravity and the laws of mechanics come into play, so we very much hope the frame we’ve constructed will support that structure.”
Corrosion is another obstacle that could spoil the procedure, he said.
RAF Museum officials also said the challenging salvage will be the biggest recovery of its kind and they hope to one day display the Do 17, an aircraft nicknamed “the flying pencil” because of its narrow fuselage, at the museum. The museum has already raised the estimated $930,000 that will be needed for the lifting phase of the operation, with the help of a substantial donation from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and funds are being raised for the conservation effort.
The wreck is submerged in about 60 feet of water. The plane was shot down during the 1940 Battle of Britain, a monthslong clash over the skies of Britain that saw RAF fighters engaged in a colossal life-or-death struggle with the German Luftwaffe.
Experts said the bomber, discovered by divers five years ago, is remarkably undamaged despite the passage of time.
Museum officials say the Dornier was shot down on Aug. 26, 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain. It was forced to make an emergency landing on the Goodwin Sands at low tide after it came under attack by British fighter planes. It touched down safely but then sank — two of the crewmen were captured alive and taken prisoner; the other two died. Their bodies were found washed ashore later.