Eielson chips away at the mystery of a submerged WB-29 bomber
By Brian Everstine Staff writer
Nov. 9, 2014 - 10:36AM | militarytimes.com
Eielson's Lady of the Lake relinquishes secretsEielson's Lady of the Lake relinquishes secrets
Members of Eielson Air Force Base and Fort Wainwright communities search the wreckage of a B-29 Superfortress on Aug. 1 in Alaska. (Senior Airman Peter Reft / Air Force)
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, ALASKA — — The mystery of the Lady of the Lake, an abandoned B-29 bomber sitting at the bottom of a pond not far from the flight line here, has been partially solved, but officials are looking for more information on how the bomber mysteriously came to be in the water.
The Lady of the Lake has been a legend at Eielson for decades, a massive World War II-era bomber that partially sticks out of the water.
Last summer, a team of divers discovered that the bomber is a WB-29, tail number 44-62214 — an aircraft with a story. The plane was assigned to the 58th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Eielson. In 1949, it flew between Alaska and Japan and detected radioactive fallout from the Soviet Union’s first nuclear weapons test, effectively ramping up the Cold War.
“She’s a very historic aircraft, just sitting right there,” Eielson historian Jack Waid said.
Waid has spearheaded the effort to find out more about the aircraft, which has become an attraction on base.
Last August, a team of divers went into the aircraft, where they found a table with a grease pencil writing, confirming the tail number and the names of the crew that detected the nuclear test.
That solved the first part of the mystery, but Waid wants to figure out how the plane got to the lake.
“This is what we know: There was supposedly a minor accident in 1955 and that’s the end of any recorded official information,” Waid said. “As for how it got into the lake, we don’t know. There are multiple stories to that.”
The B-29 stopped flying in the mid-1950s, as B-50s came online and parts for B-29s became scarce in Alaska. Sometime before 1964, the aircraft ended up in the lake. There are three working theories: It was moved to the gravel pit because it simply was an eyesore, the plane was damaged in a landing and moved out of the way, or it was placed in the lake for water egress training.
Crews performed a cursory inspection of the aircraft during the August dive, but weather and visibility were so poor that they could not confirm any of the theories. For example, they could not tell if the landing gear was intact, Waid said. Crews were able to find “purposeful” damage to the fuselage, which could be consistent with egress training. Most of the original parts had been removed.
“I want to do more research, and I really want to do another dive,” Waid said. “There was miserable weather that day. Visibility was low.”
Crews are planning another dive for next summer, once the weather clears. There is no plan to remove the aircraft from the water; it will be better preserved there. At the scene, the base has posted an information booth, where part of the plane’s cockpit, a wing and its tail are visible from above the water.
“I feel like it’s a time capsule,” Waid said. “I would like to answer the question of how it got out there.”
http://archive.militarytimes.com/article/20141109/NEWS/311090016/
