Don13
Recruit
Just a quick note to introduce myself and also to put in a rather unusal request.
While I have an interest in aircraft in general (I am a former General Aviation pilot), my main areas of interest are WWII RAF Bomber Command and mysteries of the air (I do paranormal investigations on the side). My uncle was navigator on 617 Sqd. Lancaster AJ-B ED864 on the Dams Raid - unfortunately, they were lost on the way in with all 7 crew members killed.
My request has to do with an incident which apparently took place in Nova Scotia during WWII. The story goes as follows:
In March, 1943, a Lockheed Hudson on a U-Boat patrol off Nova Scotia encountered engine trouble on the way home and was forced to make a wheels-down landing on the ice of Gaspereau Lake, about 50 miles NW of Halifax. No one was injured, but after repairs were made to the engine, vibration from the engine test run caused the ice to crack, and the aircraft began to sink. There is no recorded fuselage number, but a radio operator noted in his log book that a Hudson had force-landed on a Nova Scotia lake.
Now, this is where things get a little wierd.
Gaspereau Lake is bog fed, and as such, the waters are brown and murky. The incident apparently vanished from memory until 1998, when an extended dry period lowered the waters sufficiently for a passing search and rescue crew to observe the image of an aircraft in the dark and murky waters. The location was recorded by Sgt. Jean Roy and M/Cpl Darrell Cronin who reported seeing two vertical stabilizers and a gun turret on the upper fuselage. Unfortunately, before they could record their sighting on a map, Sgt. Roy, M/Cpl Cronin and four other crew members were killed in the crash of their Labrador helicopter in Quebec soon after.
Apparently, in 2000, underwater video footage was taken of an aircraft identified as either a Hudson or a Ventura, but since then, any and all follow-up investigations have been plagued with both technical and natural obsticles i.e high water, equipment malfunctions, unstable boulders falling amongst the divers, etc.
The divers that did manage to get down found nothing that resembled a Hudson, although two civilian Cessnas and a tractor were eventually recovered from the lake.
This has led investigators to question as to whether the Hudson rests in a deep hole that side-scan sonar has been unable to penetrate, are large rocks blocking or reflecting signals, or has the aircraft been covered with silt.
I have been attempting to locate the 2000 video footage, but so far have drawn a blank.
If anyone here on the forum has heard about this, or has anything to add to it or any theories, I surely would appreciate hearing from them.
Don
While I have an interest in aircraft in general (I am a former General Aviation pilot), my main areas of interest are WWII RAF Bomber Command and mysteries of the air (I do paranormal investigations on the side). My uncle was navigator on 617 Sqd. Lancaster AJ-B ED864 on the Dams Raid - unfortunately, they were lost on the way in with all 7 crew members killed.
My request has to do with an incident which apparently took place in Nova Scotia during WWII. The story goes as follows:
In March, 1943, a Lockheed Hudson on a U-Boat patrol off Nova Scotia encountered engine trouble on the way home and was forced to make a wheels-down landing on the ice of Gaspereau Lake, about 50 miles NW of Halifax. No one was injured, but after repairs were made to the engine, vibration from the engine test run caused the ice to crack, and the aircraft began to sink. There is no recorded fuselage number, but a radio operator noted in his log book that a Hudson had force-landed on a Nova Scotia lake.
Now, this is where things get a little wierd.
Gaspereau Lake is bog fed, and as such, the waters are brown and murky. The incident apparently vanished from memory until 1998, when an extended dry period lowered the waters sufficiently for a passing search and rescue crew to observe the image of an aircraft in the dark and murky waters. The location was recorded by Sgt. Jean Roy and M/Cpl Darrell Cronin who reported seeing two vertical stabilizers and a gun turret on the upper fuselage. Unfortunately, before they could record their sighting on a map, Sgt. Roy, M/Cpl Cronin and four other crew members were killed in the crash of their Labrador helicopter in Quebec soon after.
Apparently, in 2000, underwater video footage was taken of an aircraft identified as either a Hudson or a Ventura, but since then, any and all follow-up investigations have been plagued with both technical and natural obsticles i.e high water, equipment malfunctions, unstable boulders falling amongst the divers, etc.
The divers that did manage to get down found nothing that resembled a Hudson, although two civilian Cessnas and a tractor were eventually recovered from the lake.
This has led investigators to question as to whether the Hudson rests in a deep hole that side-scan sonar has been unable to penetrate, are large rocks blocking or reflecting signals, or has the aircraft been covered with silt.
I have been attempting to locate the 2000 video footage, but so far have drawn a blank.
If anyone here on the forum has heard about this, or has anything to add to it or any theories, I surely would appreciate hearing from them.
Don
