by Justin Taylan

1942 - 1944 Salvages For Wartime Intelligence
World War II impacted PNG from January 1942. The first salvages happened on both the Allied and Japanese sides, to gleam intelligence. For the Allies, PNG yielded examples of enemy fighters. Although several crashed and partial wrecks had been captured around Port Moresby, including A6M2 Zero 1575. This aircraft crashed far to the east of the town, but Australian forces cut off the wings so it would fit inside a truck - rendering it largely useless for restoration purposes.

Three Val dive bombers were discovered force landed on a beach, and salvaged by the USAAF and RAAF in mid-September 1942. Their crews had burned the cockpit areas and fled inland, but the remainder of the aircraft were disassembled, carried down the beach and loaded on to a boat to Port Moresby and then Brisbane for further evaluation. These included: D3A2 3110, D3A2 3114 and D3A2 3287.

It was not until the conclusion of the Battle of Buna in December 1942, that the first examples of the the A6M3 'Hamp' were captured largely intact. Buna Airfield yielded several intact fighters: A6M3 3028, A6M3 3030 and A6M3 3032. These aircraft plus engines and other parts were moved to the shore and barged back to Brisbane, and then to Eagle Farm Airfield where one was restored to flying condition and tested against Allied aircraft.

After the capture of Cape Gloucester Ki-61 Tony 263 was found hidden at the airstrip on December 30, 1943. It was rushed to Eagle Farm Airfield for repair and testing against Allied aircraft. These restoration were conducted without many aids, and required crews and pilots to reverse engineer the aircraft to rebuild them, and look for weaknesses to be exploited.

The Japanese had already captured examples of most Allied aircraft in the Philippines and Java, but did recover wreckage from Allied crash sites on a smaller scale. They recovered machine guns, electronics and other intelligence material, particularly from wrecks near their main base at Rabaul. Even the wreckage of a a top secret unmanned TDR Drone, America's first guided missile.

On the Allied side, aircraft were also salvaged. In the early years of the war, crashed aircraft were salvaged whenever possibly, to provide spare parts in short supply. Allied pilots were instructed to crash land as close to their home airfield as possible, so the planes could be stripped. Or, teams were dispatched to distant wrecks to recover guns, engines and instruments.

As the war turned in favor of the Allies in mid-1943, more replacement aircraft were available and supplies plentiful. More wrecks were abandoned, or left at growing bone yards. The pace of daily combat operations and accidents meant that more aircraft were written off due to operational causes instead of enemy action. Since there were plenty of brand new aircraft available, fewer of these aircraft were salvaged if beyond the borders of air airbase.

1945: 'War Prize' Salvages For Victors
The air war in PNG continued until September 1945, until isolated Japanese forces gave up when Japan unconditionally surrendered. The next phase of aircraft salvaged from PNG were aircraft surrendered by the Japanese in flyable condition to Allied forces. To their surprise at the RNZAF forward airfield at Jacquinot Bay, several enemy aircraft flew in to surrender in August 18, 1945, including a Ki-46 Dinah and B5N2 Kate. [These aircraft remained until 2003].

As the occupation of former Japanese bases commenced in later 1945, the Allies found that the Japanese had kept serviceable aircraft carefully hidden at some of their airfields, and salvaged them as war prizes, including A6M3 Zero  3844 that went to New Zealand, and Ki-43 Oscar 750 to Australians. Both of these aircraft survive to this day in museum collections.

1945-1949: Post War Era
Post war, the Territory of New Guinea and Papua returned to Australian administration. The country had been subjected to years of war, and many areas including Port Moresby, Milne Bay, Dobodura, Lae-Nadzab and Manus were heavily developed by the Allied forces. The Japanese had extensively developed Wewak and Rabaul, but both were heavily damaged from the war, as well as other towns along the coast.

There was no shortage of aircraft wrecks. The majority were in dumps at former bases.  The US military had decided not to transport any aircraft (other than seaplanes, transports and B-29) back to the United States.  Even if brand new, the rest were to be broken, buried, dumped at sea or otherwise abandoned. Japanese bases also contained plenty of wrecks, mostly ones disabled by aerial attack on the ground.

For those that had survived the war years, or expatriates working in New Guinea, the aircraft wrecks were a painful reminder of the long war that had lasted four years.  The universal feeling about the wartime era was to move on.  Rapidly, enterprising individuals or outside companies acquired the rights to 'scrap' the largest airfields, using huge smelters to melting down the easily accessible abandoned aircraft for their scrap metal value. 

Post war scrapper, John Van Duis recalled:
"You should look at this through my eyes... everyone around me was trying to forget about the war. There were hundreds of airframes at Nadzab, less at Dobodura. I never thought about it then, it was a job. I was paid well, in Australian Pounds most of which I saved."

Large Scale scrapping became a way for businessmen to recuperate some of the costs and losses incurred from the disruption of the war. In other cases, like plantations, cleanup of aircraft wreckage was necessary to resume normal operations.

Next Decade: 1950s: Scrap Metal Market

Return to History of Aircraft Salvage in Papua New Guinea

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