Monday, January 24, 2011

Rare World War II Bomber Finds a Buyer and Is Destined for a Museum

From Dec. 7, 2010 Reuters.

The newly formed South Carolina Historical Aviation Foundation will pay $15,000 for a B-25C Mitchell bomber which was ditched in a South Carolina lake during a 1944 training exercise.

It is believed to be one of only three B-25Cs in existence. About 1600 were built by North American Aviation during the war.

The group is also restoring a historic 1929 Curtis-Wright hangar in Columbia, SC, where the plane will be on display. Among the notables to sign the hangar's logbook were FDR, Doolittle and Amelia Earhart.

In 1942, Doolittle's Raiders trained for awhile at the Columbia airport before their famous attack on Japan.

The plane spent the last twenty years in various warehouses after being pulled out of Lake Greenwood near Columbia. It crashed June 6, 1944, the same day as D-Day took place and it will cost an estimated $1 million to get it flying again.

Glad to Hear It. --Cooter

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