By Pierre Kosmidis

Michael McFadyen from Sydney, Australia has been a keen scuba diver and has visited some of the most iconic WW2 Pacific Treasures, including the I-1 Imperial Japanese Navy submarine wreck in Guadalcanal Island, the SS President Coolidge in Vanuatu, the USS Aaron Ward in the Solomons, and the San Francisco Maru in Chuuk.

One of the WW2 aircraft wrecks he has dived is a P47D (3,962 at Farmingdale and 1,461 Evansville) a so called “razorback”.

This meant that the fuselage behind the cockpit started above the pilot’s head and sloped back to the tail.

The cockpit hood was a sliding affair that slid back over the “razorback” . All later models (except those made later at Buffalo) had bubble hoods over the pilot’s head and the top of the fuselage was basically straight from the nose to the tail.

These models were designated P-47D-1RE to P-47D-22RE where the 1 and 22 indicated the sub-sub-type and RE indicates Farmingdale and P-47D-2RA to P-47D-23RA with RA indicating Evansville.

Michael McFadyen:

“The aircraft is located about 500 to 750 metres from the shore, to the east of Manubada Island (also called Local Island). It is on the south-western side of a reef (5-6 metres deep), lying in water 9 to 13 metres deep. The plane lies facing the reef.

I have been told a couple of different stories about how the plane was found. The first is that in 1992 an Air Niugini pilot spotted the plane when flying over on his way to or from Jackson International Airport.

He and his dive buddy, Bruce McAnally, went searching for it and after a few dives, they found the wreck. Bruce tells me that they were certainly not the first to dive it as the gauges were already long gone.

Bruce says that they were told by the villagers nearby that the pilot was rescued by their ancestors after the crash.

The other story I have been told is that in June 1996, divers in Port Moresby were given some information by residents of the Vabukiri village, located on the south-eastern outskirts of the city.

The information was that there was a wrecked World War II aircraft located a short distance off the shoreline to the south of the village. Divers soon located the wreck, a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt in relatively shallow water.

It is an early model P-47D “razorback”, but to date its serial number has not been identified as far as I know but is likely to be from one of the above fighter groups.

It is probable that the plane was about to make an approach to Wards Drome from the south and was in the process of turning for its run when it crashed. I have made attempts to find out serial numbers of P-47s lost near Port Moresby but have not yet found any relevant information.”