Underwater for 40 years, restoring this WWII plane in SC has taken 40 more

Dozens of doohickeys have been scavenged and reinstalled — indicators, coordinators, gauges for pressure and altitude, a bright red button to release the cargo.

“One thing I’ve learned is anything red on the plane, you only touched in an emergency,” explained Katherine Cuddy, standing on a ladder positioned inside the cockpit.

“That red thing up there, it’s the emergency bomb release. … This was the escape hatch.”

Cuddy and her fellow aviation enthusiasts with the South Carolina Historic Aviation Foundation can tell you almost anything you’d like to know about the B-25C Mitchell Medium Bomber they have been restoring for the better part of a decade.

The aircraft has been a fascination to South Carolinians and beyond for nearly a century. Almost 80 years ago, as soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy, a crew on a training mission crashed the plane into Lake Greenwood. It sat 35 feet below the surface for 40 years.

It’s taken another 40 years to see the plane restored.

Crash and recovery

The right wing hit the water first, pulled down by the propeller. The plane sputtered, bounced across the lake a few times, steadied and then sank.

“Just before it happened, I remember looking out, and there was a guy standing up in a row boat to my left,” Col. Daniel Rossman recalled to reporters several years ago. “I thought, ‘If we’re eye to eye, my God, we’re too low.’”

It was D-Day — June 6, 1944. As their colleagues stormed the beaches of Normandy, practice teams at the Greenville Army Air Base ran piloting drills.

Some reports suggested the airmen wanted a closer look at “sunbathing beauties” and flew the craft, nicknamed “Skunkie,” too low. Rossman, who was on board at the time, has denied that rumor, saying they were told to practice a variety of emergency procedures.

However it happened, the aircraft sank. It stayed underwater for almost two decades.

In 1983, 39 years after it crashed, a crew of Navy divers descended into the lake to retrieve the military artifact. Locals offered their lake houses for a base of operations, Duke Power provided a barge, and a handful of other businesses offered their assistance as well.

The plane was raised to much fanfare — more than 1,500 people came to watch, according to a retelling of the day’s events documents by the Historic Aviation Foundation.

The plane’s historic value was elevated by it being the only known and intact aircraft left from a fleet that trained the men who perpetrated Doolittle’s Raid on Japan. The South Carolina State Museum helped see the plane’s exterior restored in time for a 1992 reunion of the Doolittle Raiders.

But in the years after that, the plane changed hands several times. At one point, it was listed on eBay, said Ron Skipper, chairperson of restoration for the aviation foundation.

It was that listing that led to the founding of the foundation, Skipper said.

“Some local guys here, pilots and aviation enthusiasts, said this airplane has been in South Carolina since 1942, it does not need to go anywhere else. It’s very unique to any state, having an artifact like this,” he said.

So they pulled together their money, bought the plane and founded the South Carolina Historic Aviation Foundation.

Restoration

Hangar Y-1 at Columbia’s Hamilton-Owens Airport is decked out with war memorabilia. Official uniforms, authentic shrapnel, maps and magazines are lined up next to the massive dual-engine B-25C Bomber, which is so large the wing tips needed to be removed to get it inside the hangar.

The aviation foundation holds open house events here, usually once a month, hoping to raise the public knowledge of American history and the people who have served to honor it.

Katherine Cuddy wandered into one of these open houses eight years ago. The theme was women’s history, and Cuddy was looking for something to do.

Having grown up helping her grandpa with planes, she was enamored with the aircraft that loomed over her.

“I have hundreds of people say, ‘I’d like to get involved,’ and then they never show up,” Skipper recalled. “The following Monday night, she walks in, she goes, ‘Well, I don’t know a thing about airplanes,’ … but she wanted to help.”

Cuddy has since helped rebuild the plane’s cockpit, bombardier and navigator’s area.

“We’re kind of starting in the front and working our way back,” she said.

She’s one of about seven regular volunteers who have been working every Monday and Thursday night from 5 to 9 p.m. to rebuild a piece of history.

The plane isn’t finished. The bomb bay is currently being restored, and there are a few other loose ends as well. It won’t fly again. The airframe is too corroded after 40 years underwater.

The work is also slow moving, partly because it can be so difficult to find the necessary pieces, Cuddy said. They rely on eBay and other online forums, as well as a handful of B-25 restoration experts who are known for having a lot of equipment.

The plane’s future

The Historic Aviation Foundation hopes that one day, South Carolina will have an aviation museum of its own. Their B-25 would be the centerpiece, Skipper said.

“South Carolina has a rich aviation history that goes back to the 1920s,” he said, explaining that if they had the funds, the group would like to create a museum dedicated to military and civilian aircraft.

For now, however, they focus remains on restoring the storied B-25. The group receives donations through its open houses, as well as the occasional new volunteer.

This Saturday, the group is hosting an open house to celebrate 40 years since the bomber was raised from Lake Greenwood. Members of the Navy diving team will be in attendance, as will a variety of military vehicles and military impressionists.

The event is Aug. 12 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Jim Hamilton-L.B. Owens Airport, at Hangar Y-1 right next to the terminal.