"The Pelican"
This airplane, a C-47,
was equipped as a traveling machine shop, with lathes and other equipment to make parts in the field.
The primary purpose was to travel to wrecked airplanes and repair them.
However it was found that sufficient parts were available from other wrecks to make repairs;
the shop was removed.
To complement the name,
a pelican was painted on the airplane
by Harvey Olander.
The pelican wore aviation glasses and, like a stork, was carrying in his beak a wrecked airplane in a bag.
The pelican held a tool box in one claw and a gun in the other.
In reality this airplane did exactly the same thing.
Notice that under the body of the airplane there is an object.
That object is an airplane wing exactly the same size as the wing on the Pelican.
It was flown from Accra into central Africa to a place called Lake Chad,
where a C-47 became lost and ran out of gas. One wing was severely damaged.
A crew drove up there in a Jeep and chopped down enough trees and brush to allow the Pelican to land.
The wing was replaced and both planes were flown out.
THE MEN WHO SALVAGED WRECKED AIRPLANES
My group arrived by ship at Takaradi on March 14,1943 as replacements
for those who had been overseas two years.
Some members of my group including myself were assigned to Captain Heffner,
an ex-Pan-American pilot, who received permission to salvage as many wrecked airplanes
as possible along the air route across Africa.
MEMBERS OF THE GROUP
1.Captain Heffner,
(organizer and head of operations)
2.Lt. Martin,
(co-pilot)
3.Master Sergeant Harry Hughes,
(Crew Chief of our airplane)
4.Jerry Kozlik
5.Thomas Hodges
6.Paul Rodgers
7.Richard Scott
8.Harvey Olander
9.Harold Coleman
10.Willie Hooks
11.Paul Brisko
12.Vernon Botter
13.When air depot specialists were needed, they were called in.
The first trip out on our airplane, which was called PELICAN,
we all went together to an emergency landing field to become familiar with procedures.
There was a Curtiss P-40 fighter plane that had crashed short of runway and burned.
There was not too much to salvage but we removed the useable parts.
We all spent the night in an abandoned building; the field was not manned.
It was surrounded by jungle and the only lights were flashlights. It was a little spooky,
but I had enjoyed trot-line fishing on the river at home and had spent many a night
sleeping on the ground and cooking by campfire.
But we had one boy from Brooklyn who had never been out of the city.
The open space was frightening to him. He located a stretcher for carrying injured people
and decided to unfold it and sleep on it.
A one foot lizard jumped out when he unfolded it and he would have no part of it.
I slept on it; it was better than on the hard ground. That ended his career on the salvage crew.
He wasted no time in asking for a transfer.
After that we were divided up into groups of two or three to each wrecked airplane.
Six of us started to work at Lagos airport.
Our airplane would fly between crews located in different areas
and bring supplies or personnel to keep the job going.
There was a wrecking yard near the runway that looked like a car junk yard.
I don't remember exactly but I would guess at least 10 wrecked P-40 fighter planes were there.
The P-40 was one durable strong constructed airplane.
Landing on one wheel meant only replacing the propeller and wing tip,
and checking the landing gear for proper operation. I worked there about six months
and our group repaired six, and completely rebuilt one airplane, putting on two wings replacing the landing gear,
replacing propeller and electrical wires. The repair parts were removed from other wrecks and reused.
To test the fighter planes, airline pilots jumped at the chance
to fly a fighter plane
and away they would go up into the air
and do rolls and other stunts
but most became very frightened
when they rolled the plane over.
Dust, rocks, dead animals, loose bolts, nuts,
and other unattached objects rained down on them.
The planes' cockpits were left open in the junk yard and there are so many tight places
and no vacuum available, so we told other pilots to leave the canopy open
when they rolled over to help us clean out the cockpit!
Most of these wrecks were caused by inexperienced pilots.
They had taken off from an aircraft carrier off the coast and this was their first landing.
If they survived, they would fly across Africa and deliver them to Mountbatten in Egypt
to fight the Germans in North Africa.
My next stop was at Maiduguri, Nigeria.
Our airplane picked us up and delivered us to the wrecks. I was there for almost as long as at Lagos.
I was fortunate in being occupied when the worst trips into the bush were being taken care of.
There were a number of wrecks but it appeared from the pile there were enough useable parts to repair three aircraft.
We rebuilt one complete P-40 from the pile, but planes kept falling faster than we could rebuild the one.
We spent a lot of time disassembling other wrecks for parts.
Most of the ones that crashed there were not repairable, because landing in soft sand
with wheels down tears out the landing gear and severely damages the main structure.
Convoys of ten or more fighters kept coming each afternoon.
Everyone would quit work to see the inevitable accident. Usually at least one plane would wind up damaged.
The convoys were guided by one experienced pilot with the rest beginners.
Most of the problems were pilot mistakes.
There was a cemetery on the base at Accra
where there were twenty-five or more graves.
Ninety-five percent were ranked as officers, pilots.
When the P-40 was rebuilt, Colonel Tillman, the base commander from Accra,
came up to fly it back to Accra.
We had preflight tested the engine many times and it checked out beautifully in RPM's and manifold pressure.
It was also checked on one mag and then the other and it checked good.
Colonel Tillman also checked it out before take off but--!!
He took off but never gained altitude, staying just above tree top level until he disappeared into the distance.
We waited and waited and finally thought he must have crash landed in the bush.
It seemed like an hour; we did not time it, but he finally appeared at the opposite end of the runway
at tree top level and his wheels were still down.
He told us as soon as he pulled up,
"After gaining flying speed the engine power dropped
and the airplane did not have power enough to gain altitude".
The landing gear could not be retracted. The circuit breaker for the landing gear had popped off,
leaving no electric power to raise the landing gear.
He also said, "find the trouble and fix it", and then he left.
Fighter planes cannot be run at full power using the brakes and elevator stick in your stomach. It will nose over.
We tied that tail down with concrete blocks and gave it full power and it worked perfectly.
I told them they needed a new carburetor, but we had no way to check it
. A specialist with a new carburetor came and put it on.
The electrical short had been caused by an extra nut lying in the circuit box.
On take off vibration made it jump up and short out the circuit.
Removing the extra nut fixed that.
Later that plane took off and it made it to China to fight the Japanese.
(please use Arrows to view the additional story)
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