Another Mystery Wreck off Pt Loma, California

[beldridg]

Hi,

We have another wreck off Pt Loma, California. This one is way more of a debris field than the last one.

We have theories as to what it is but wanted to get some input from this group of experts and I don't want to bias the input based on our opinions so I will hold that back for now and just present some of the photos and ask for thoughts.

Oil Coolers - We believe there are two oil coolers (or is it an oil cooler / carb combo)?



Bomb Holder - We believe that this is a bomb holder / displacement device:


Landing Gear Assembly 1- We found two different landing gear assemblies:


Landing Gear Assembly 2 - I think this would be the tail landing gear?




Prop - We found the prop hub (no engine yet) and can see only a single blade so we don't know how many blades there are. Note the "collar" or "knuckle" near the base of the prop. I've circled it in red.



Large (fuselage?) part - I'm not sure what this is but it was probably the largest section of debris we found. I developed a quick 3D photogrammetry model of this section as well. Screenshot is below in addition to the four photos.





As I mentioned, we have a reasonably good theory on what type of airplane it is, but wanted to pressure test that and get the opinions and thoughts of people here.


Regards,

- brett

 

[buffnut453]

At first glance, it looks like an F4U Corsair to me. Then again, I could be completely wrong.

 

[beldridg]

At first glance, it looks like an F4U Corsair to me. Then again, I could be completely wrong.

Thanks for reviewing.

I think the landing gear is different and I don't think the Corsair had that type of bomb holding device?

- brett

 

[Sabrejet]

Almost looks like a P-40 oil cooler in among those parts.

 

[beldridg]

Almost looks like a P-40 oil cooler in among those parts.

Thanks. I think the P-40 oil coolers had big in/out flow pipes and these didn't have those.



Regards,

- brett

 

[Jim MacDonald]

Possibly a TBD to my eye. The oil cooler & landing gear seem to match to me. The "bomb holder" could be the cockpit rollover structure.

Mac

 

[mjfur]

Damage Code A - Strike (completely destroyed)

 

[beldridg]

We had been thinking Vindicator which would have been very cool. We saw some reports that some later versions had dual oil coolers but couldn't validate that.

We had originally ruled out a Helldiver because we didn't think that it had a bomb deployment device.

However, we have since discovered that it did have one. We have also found an incident report for a SB2C that matches the location.

So, our current hypothesis is that it is a Helldiver.

Brett

 

[GrauGeist]

The Helldiver had two smaller "trapeze" frames in it's bomb bay while the Vindicater has a larger external single frame, much like the Dauntless.

That may be a clue to help in identification.