A team of divers have been trolling the deep, cold waters of Lake Huron off Michigan’s Thumb for several weeks each of the past few years searching for scattered pieces of aviation — and Black military — history.
Their target is the wreckage of a World War II-era fighter plane flown by a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen that crashed during training nearly 80 years ago near Port Huron, about 60 miles northeast of Detroit.
“We’re doing some finalizing of mapping things in terms of what all is there,” said Carrie Sowden, archeological and research director at the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, Ohio. “As we prepare for these major lifts, we’re finding all these small pieces. When we’re done we’re going to have a complete understanding where every single piece came from.”
His body washed ashore a few months later, but the plane’s wreckage lay scattered along the lake bottom, only disturbed by the movement of the waves and water until 2014 when it was discovered.dive and recovery teams began mapping and bringing pieces“The aircraft is largely disarticulated,” according to Wayne Lusardi, Michigan’s state maritime archaeologist with the Department of Natural Resources and organizer of the recovery effort.
“Because the engine is intact, you know it crashed very shallow in the lake … and it was in fresh water so it helped preserve it a lot more,” Gillespie said. “This find is so important for Black history to find out how Tuskegee airmen fought for this country and how they fought a war at home,” Gillespie said Thursday.“It’s sometimes very easy to forget that this was a place where a young man died who gave his life for this country,” Lusardi said.
Tuskegee Airmen and their aircraft have been referred to as “Red Tails” for the red-painted wings of their airplanes. Hollywood producers used the name as the title of a 2012 film showcasing the unit’s struggles and its accomplishments.
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