F6F-5K Hellcat #72273 (Pt Mugu – 200 fsw)

Intro

Tyler had a list of targets that we had looked at earlier this year which resulted in the Hellcat wreck and then also the Squeezer Dredge barge. We had scanned a few others during those trips and put them on the “further investigate” list.

This past week, a group of us spent two days on the DV Triton with Danny doing some more sonar work and diving a bunch of targets. We had four divers on each day diving in groups of two. The first day was Drew Wilson with me and then DJ Mansfield with Keith Howington. The second day was Steve Millington and me and then DJ & Keith. Photos below from DJ:

Most of what we dove were rocks; however, we did find one new airplane! The first divers on it were DJ & Keith and then Millington and I went back the next day to do some more investigative work. The wreck is definitely a Hellcat Drone (F6F-5K) given the orange paint color and when we removed some of the growth, we were able to positively identify 5 of the 6 numbers in the Bureau Number. The BuNo is clearly 722×3 and given other evidence we have gathered, we are confident it is F6F-5K BuNo 72273.

The wreck is really nice and has a lot of fish life and more wolf eels than I have ever seen on a single airplane wreck. I counted at least 6. Below are the details of the dives, the history of F6F drones, information on the aircraft ID and, of course, photos and a photogrammetry model.

First Dive

In addition to the targets we already had on the list, Tyler had sent me one other that he was relatively sure was worth investigating. Given that it was around some of the others and Tyler’s conviction, we decided to scan it first. The sonar return was promising so we put DJ & Keith on the target.

After about an hour, they got back to the surface. Given the bottom time, we figured that they had found something good. As Keith climbed the ladder to get back on the boat, he exclaimed loudly “It’s a F’ing Airplane!”

DJ had taken some video of the wreck and based on that, we thought it was probably a Hellcat Drone. We saw some indication of orange paint and the engine type appeared to be from a Hellcat. The wreck was upside down with the engine off the front of the fuselage and no sign of a prop but it did have the landing gears extended which was interesting. It also had some kind of cylindrical object on the wingtip (upper right photo).

Below are frames grabbed from the video that DJ shot on his GoPro.

Second Dive

We spent the rest of the first day looking at other targets and Drew & I dove one which turned out to be a dud.

The next day, we looked at and dove a few more without any luck. We decided to go back and have Steve Millington and I dive the airplane again with two goals : (1) get photos for a photogrammetry model and (2) try identify the wreck by looking in the tail area for the bureau number.

We had really nice conditions on the second day. We got down on the wreck and I started to take some pictures for the model while Steve scootered around and shot some video. After I was done shooting pictures, I went over the tail area to see if we could identify the wreck. I had given Steve my trusty scrub brush but he was on his scooter and I got a bit excited (and we were also racking up deco at 200 feet) so I started to scrape the area with my dry glove. That was NOT a good idea. I punctured my glove but had managed to get quite a bit of the area cleaned and saw the Navy white lettering along with the orange paint underneath and some of the bureau number.

Given the leak in my glove, I went back to the downline and started a slow ascent while watching Steve who had seen the cloud of debris from my handiwork and he used the scrub brush to finish the job and take some video. He joined me on the downline and we did our deco. I was pretty cold by the time we got back on the boat (it also didn’t help that earlier in the day I jumped in without completely zipping my drysuit — not my best day of diving) but it was worth it.

Millington took a quick video of our handiwork before he joined me on the line:

The Dawn of Drones

We believe that the other Hellcat we found in the same general area is also a drone since we saw some evidence orange paint. This wreck is definitely a drone since the orange-ish/red-ish paint is obvious in the above photos and the fuselage marking clearly says “F6F-5K” where “K” was the indicator for a drone conversion.

Many people might know, but the US Navy had a surplus of Hellcat fighters after WW II and so they started using them as remote-controlled drones. The Hellcat was probably one of the most successful aircraft ever designed & built. They flew 66,530 sorties, claimed 5,163 kills, and had a recorded loss of 270 Hellcats in aerial combat but they had built over 12,000 of them.

After the war, they used the Hellcats for training and Naval Reserve squadrons but converted some to target drones. In fact, during the Korean War, they used F6F Hellcat drones to attack bridges in Korea. Each drone was radio controlled by a Skyraider escort plane and carried a 2,000 pound bomb. The drones were also used during the atomic bomb testing in Bikini Atoll to take atmospheric samples.

Battle of Palmdale

There are some very funny stories about Hellcat drones. In one case, a drone out of NAS Point Mugu went rogue and changed course from being over the ocean on the missile testing range to flying inland towards Los Angeles. The Navy didn’t have any airplanes equipped to shoot down the drone, so the USAF dispatched two “state of the art” F-89D Scorpions.

The drone circled around and when it was over an unpopulated area, the fighters let loose their “Mighty Mouse” rockets. Each fighter fired their first salvo of 42 rockets each — and none of the 84 hit the drone. They then each fired another round of 32 rockets — once again with no hits. They then fired their last set of 30 rockets each and still couldn’t get a hit. They fired a grand total of 208 rockets without a single hit against a pilotless rouge WW II era drone. The drone continued on towards Palmdale and eventually ran out of fuel and crashed but not before severing three SoCal Edison electric cables.

Aircraft ID

We were able to scrape off the debris to uncover most of the Bureau Number. The “F6F-5K” designation is very clear and the Bureau Number is pretty clearly 722×3. We did some research of all 10 possibilities and we were able to rule out a few of them:

72203	F6F-5N (VF-84) attached to USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) lost off Okinawa Mar 2, 1945
72213	(VBF-17) attached to USS Hornet (CV-12) lost off le ShimaMar 31, 1945
72223	??
72233	Converted to F6F-5K drone.  To NAF R&D China Lake by Feb 1957.  SOC Jun 14, 1957
72243	(VF-30) attached to USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) lost off Japan Apr 2, 1945
72253	F6F-5H (VF(N)-53) attached to USS Saratoga (CV-3) lost off Tokyo Feb 21, 1945
72263	??
72273	??
72283	??
72293	(VBF-12) attached to USS Randolph (CV-15) lost off Tokyo Feb 17, 1945

We can definitely rule out 03, 13, 33, 43, 53, and 93. That leaves only 23, 63, 73, and 83. Based upon the evidence and the fact that we can see blank space in the lower right of the fourth digit, the theory at this point was that it was 72273 but we wanted more evidence…

We contacted our friends at the NHHC to see what history they had on BuNo 72273. We heard back that they had some history of this aircraft. According to them:

…the only record we could find associated with BUNO #72273 was a taxi/runway mishap at NAAS MIRAMAR on 14 Feb 1951 and only the props were damaged. The record has it as F6F-5P #72273, so it could be that this craft was modified in to a drone and re-designated F6F-5K. We have no other records for this BUNO

I then posted a message to the WW II Aircraft forum which has been a help in the past on our projects. Somebody suggested that we email the Emil Buehler Library and request a copy of the aircraft history card. I sent an email and then heard back on a Saturday and they sent the card!

The history card is linked below but it is almost certainly a match for our wreck. The “Strike Code” on the card is 3MF2 which equates to “3 – Strike for Administrative Purposes” and “M – Utility, aviation forces” and “F – Target Drone expenditure” and “2 – Missing, or completely destroyed, or economically inaccessible.” BINGO.

We know that 72273 was converted from a type -5P to -5K as a drone and that it was lost as a drone and missing or destroyed. The last location on the card was “NAMTC R&D” (Naval Air Missile Test Center) in Point Mugu and it was stricken from the record in Feb 1955. The wreck we found was located straight off the runway at NAS Point Mugu.

Given all of the evidence, we are very confident that we found F6F-5K BuNo 72273.

Photos

The wreck is covered in life. There are a ton of fish and wolf eels on the wreck. Below are some photos of key features of the wreck along with some photos of the fish and wolf eels. It is also encrusted in strawberry anemones which are really picturesque.

Wreck

Key features shown below are the engine (upper left), oil cooler in the fuselage (lower left), the landing gear with tire, the wing-tip fuel tank (middle right), along with the massive ling cod living in the belly of the fuselage (upper right).

Wolf Eels

These photos are of a few (but not all) of the wolf eels. This is probably the most dense population of wolf eels I have ever seen.

Photogrammetry

Steve Millington took some videos during our dive and I thought I would post one that shows me taking the photos for the photogrammetry model:

Below are some screenshots of the photogrammetry model along with a link to the online model. There are at least a couple wolf eels that you can see in the model along with the large ling cod in the “belly” of the aircraft. The wolf eels sometime move so there is a bit of blur in them, but you can tell they are wolf eels.

Screen Captures

Model

Below is a link to the on-line model on Sketchfab:

References

Wikipedia F6F Hellcat

Battle of Palmdale

Thanks To…

First of all, I want to thank Tyler Stalter. Once again, the”bathymetry wizard” has come up with another airplane wreck from the data. It is amazing.

Secondly, my dive partners on this mission (and others): Drew Wilson, DJ Mansfield, Keith Howington, and Steve Millington.

I also want to thank Danny Graham at Triton Diving Charters. He has a great setup for technical diving and always gets the downline right where it should be. Thanks, Danny!

The team at NHHC who are always helpful in research and the folks at the Emil Buehler Naval Aviation Library. Their help and information was key in confirming the wreck identification.