p61 recovery
Our story begins on January 10th, 1945. Even though it is not yet noon, the temperature is close to 100 degrees – not unusual for New Guinea. The roar of two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines comes through the open cockpit window of your P-61B “Black Widow” and mixes with the heat. You taxi the almost fifteen tons of aircraft to the end of the main runway at Hollandia airfield. You complete the pre-flight checklist: intercooler doors closed, flaps set to one third, emergency hand pump selector neutral, throttles set to 2700 rpm, engine instruments all O.K. You release the brakes and begin the take-off roll.
On that January morning in 1945, Lt. Logan Southfield, of the 550th Night Fighter Squadron, began that flight in P-61B Bu. 42-39445. Minutes later, and just two short miles away, the roar of the 4,000 horsepower aircraft was drowned out as it crashed…just several hundred feet short of Mt. Cyclops’ 7,000 foot summit. Two days later, rescue teams brought the injured crew down the mountain.
The Mid Atlantic Air Museum was formed in 1980 for the purpose of acquiring the right to recover P-61B # 42-39445 from its mountaintop crash site. The museum’s ultimate goal was to return the plane to its facility in Reading, Pennsylvania and restore it to flying condition. After five long years of negotiation, rights were finally granted by the government of Indonesia. One of the conditions was the trade of a restored and flyable Boeing “Stearman”…
But ahead lay a daunting task. The wreck was surrounded by dense jungle and overgrown with vines and other vegetation, all of which had to be cleared away before disassembly could proceed. The steep slope on which it had come to rest in 1945 exacerbated the already incredibly difficult recovery operation. As if all this was not complicated enough, a tribal leader staked a claim to the plane and mountain, requiring intervention by the local military. There are enough tales of life on top of an Indonesian mountain to fill the book, which no doubt will be forthcoming someday. But over the course of several expeditions and 10 years, museum volunteers and hired local help cleared and disassembled the aircraft…
A helicopter landing pad was constructed and the helicopter lift was a literal cliff-hanger. The P- 61 was removed from the mountain in a harrowing series of lift operations that tested the chopper pilot’s skill and courage to the limits…
Finally back on level ground for the first time in 45 years, the broken-down plane was crated and prepared for shipping. The final leg of the journey home began in February of 1991. The vessel “Darposembalin” sailed from Jayapura on February 11 with the P-61 aboard. The crates containing the P-61 were transferred to the Maersk Lines vessel “Maersk Tauro” in Jakarta and departed that port March 3. It arrived on schedule in the Port of Baltimore April 5th, and the first crates were delivered to Reading on the following Friday. By Saturday afternoon, the final delivery had been made…
With the safe arrival of the P-61 at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s home base in Reading, the recovery project had been successfully completed. A tremendous amount of work and expense had been expended to bring the P-61 home. Much more still lies ahead before this magnificent piece of history comes to life. Recovery was only the prelude.