more than just the Mars
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Dec/15/ln/ln09p.html
Posted on: Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Aircraft litter seafloor off S. O'ahu
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
An undersea aircraft museum lies on the ocean floor off South O'ahu,
and it includes representatives of virtually the entire era of the
flying boats - from early post-World War I biplanes to World War II
PBY Catalinas and a postwar behemoth that sank in 1950, the Martin
Marshall Mars.
A University of Hawai'i deep-submersible vehicle, right, approaches the
hulk of an old Navy PD-1 flying boat in waters off Pearl Harbor, where
a virtual undersea aircraft museum has been found.
NOAA/HURL photo
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration yesterday announced
a series of discoveries made last week and said agencies are mapping
the sea-floor to document the area's collection of ships, planes and
other maritime archaeological finds.
"Flying boats had a special significance for Hawai'i and the Pacific
islands. They were the only way to get between the islands by air
before the development of airports," said marine archaeologist Hans Van
Tilburg, of the NOAA National Marine Sanctuary program. "The first
interisland air transportation in Hawai'i was in flying boats."
The seafloor region off Pearl Harbor may be better known for its ships,
like the Japanese miniature submarine that was sunk an hour before the
Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. The sub's wreckage was found in
2002.
But there's lots more on a bottom of silt and rock in water 1,000 feet
deep and extending several miles from the entrance to Pearl Harbor. The
deep water has currents but not a lot of turbulence, and many of the
aircraft are in remarkable shape, Van Tilburg said.
Some planes have been wrecked. Some have been taken out and dumped,
including at least six former PD-1 Navy bi-plane flying boats. The
giant Marshall Mars flying boat sank April 5, 1950, after it landed
safely with an engine fire and offloaded its crew before the plane
exploded.
Between them, they represent the earliest years of flying boats, and
what some might term the pinnacle of the genre.
The twin-wing PD-1 designs date to the 1920s. Van Tilburg said a
squadron of them flew as patrol craft out of Ford Island in Pearl
Harbor. He has found no records of their disposal, but the fact that
their fuselages are complete and that wheels are attached suggest they
did not fly to their watery ends and were probably dumped, he said.
PBY Catalinas, which served as Navy patrol, rescue and bombing
workhorses during World War II, have also been spotted on the bottom
off Pearl Harbor.
During the war, the government was looking for ways to get lots of
soldiers and gear long distances to places without airports. Size
mattered, and new designs dwarfed the little patrol planes.
The Marshall Mars was one of a half-dozen huge flying boats built by
the Martin aircraft firm as cargo and personnel carriers after World
War II. It was the same era when Howard Hughes was building his famed
Spruce Goose. The Mars planes had 200-foot wingspans - roughly the
same as that of a 747.
They were named for the Pacific island groups they served: the
Marshalls, Carolines, Marianas, Philippines and Hawai'i. Two Hawai'i
Mars planes were built. The second is still flying, hauling water to
forest fires in the Pacific Northwest.
George Hutton, of Chipley, Fla., who worked on the planes as a radioman
in the mid-1940s, said they were comfortable and roomy.
"It was a big, big, monstrous plane, but it was a good plane. You felt
very safe in it. There were several decks and you could go up and down
circular stairways," Hutton said.
He said he flew one long mission across the Pacific on the Marshall
Mars before its fatal flight, in which it landed in the ocean off
Honolulu with its No. 3 engine afire. The crew got off in rubber boats,
but the fire spread, and the plane exploded, in full view of folks from
Waikiki to Pearl Harbor, Van Tilburg said. The plane sank and was lost
until a few pieces were located in an undersea survey in August this
year. The main wreckage was found in dives on Thursday and Friday.
The history of the region off Pearl Harbor is being prized from the
ocean floor by a collaboration of NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary
Program, the National Park Service and the University of Hawai'i's
Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL), which operates the twin
deep-diving submersibles Pisces IV and V.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at ***@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808)
245-3074.
nice map in original cite