I know where some P-51's and B-17's are buried. My Dad told me the story when I was 8 yrs old, now I'm 62,

[MIflyer]

I know of 100 B-25's buried in Germany.

 

[Wurger]

And if any-one is interested, I have a bunch of '51 parts buried in my back yard from OMT

Don't you need to get the garden digged up for planting of your wife's vegetables? With Geo's bulldozer it should be easy. The power cable doesn't have to be be long.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Don't you need to get the garden digged up for planting of your wife's vegetables? With Geo's bulldozer it should be easy. The power cable doesn't have to be be long.

I've got a 100' 3-phase extention cord. Will that do?

 

[Wurger]

I believe it will. If not, we can wire up to a battery.

 

[Greg Boeser]

Solar panels.

 

[special ed]

Reminds me of a claimed true incident. Prison phone calls are monitored, so when a convict called his mother in response to her letter wishing her son was there to dig and plant her garden, he said, "Ma, don't do any digging! That's where the money is buried!" The next day, the state police dug up the entire yard. Momma sent a letter thanking her son.

 

[GrauGeist]

Carswell was a SAC base in the late 40's, thru 1992. Only B-36's, B-52's, B-58's and KC-135's were assigned there, besides various jet fighters. Consolidated and it's succeeding companies have been at the production facility on the west side of the field since it was built. B-24's, B-32's and B-36's were all produced there. Mustangs were built in the NAA facility in Grand Prairie, about 30 miles away. NAA left that location right after the war and Chance Vought moved in.

At the time of the 1952 tornado, any B-17's or P-51's would have been transient aircraft. SAC bases were highly unfriendly to transient aircraft, so the probability of there being more than one or two being there at the time is very low.

Carswell and Tinker were the two that came to mind, where a tornado seriously damaged aircraft.

Tinker was acrually hit twice by the same storm.

The result was aircraft scattered all over the place and *if* they dumped wreckage into a scrap pit, you can be sure it wasn't complete aircraft.

(img src: USAF)

 

[Wurger]

Solar panels.

That's the backup plan.

 

[fubar57]

Roadking01.....is that you?

 

[Bucksnort101]

Roadking01.....is that you?

Funny, I was just going to ask if he had a color pictures of said aircraft.

 

[Peter Gunn]

pffft! P-51s, feh!
The man said B-17s!!!

BLASPHEMER!!! Get Thee Behind Me Satan!!!

 

[MIflyer]

Tinker AFB was hit by a tornado in the era that predated tornado warnings. A number of B-29's were destroyed. Tinker AFB was the Air Depot for the B-29, so there were always some around, and it was a popular spot for refueling stops.. As a result, the head of Material Command stated that tornados should be studied. A week later, the WX forecaster at Tinker noted that the patterns were forming up the same way and issued the first ever tornado warning. Later that day a tornado touched down very close to the same spot as had the one from the previous week and followed much the same path, but since aircraft had been secured and cleared from that path, damage was minimal. The very first tornado warning ever issued proved to be the most accurate one ever conceived. They have been trying to do as well ever since.

 

[GrauGeist]

The first tornado at Tinker damaged fifty aircraft and destroyed 54, which included seventeen C-54s, two B-29s and fifteen P-47s.

The second tornado damaged or destroyed eighty four aircraft, which included three C-47s, eighteen B-29s, eight P-47s and 20 B-17s.

 

[SaparotRob]

Yike$!

 

[pbehn]

Rebuilding a B-17 or B-29 that has been wrecked by a tornado then buried for decades could keep a wealthy family busy for generations..

 

[fubar57]

So on top of the P-51s and B-17s we have a graveyard full of P-47s, B-29s, C-47s, and C-54s.....its a freakin' gold mine

 

[pbehn]

So on top of the P-51s and B-17s we have a graveyard full of P-47s, B-29s, C-47s, and C-54s.....its a freakin' gold mine

Get a cable and get diggin'.

 

[CATCH 22]

Tinker AFB was hit by a tornado in the era that predated tornado warnings. A number of B-29's were destroyed. Tinker AFB was the Air Depot for the B-29, so there were always some around...

If the information of the original poster is not wrong and we are looking for B-17 and not B-29, in the mid-1950s AFAIK only SB-17 (air-sea rescue) were still used in bigger numbers (bigger than 1-2). Is there a base in Northern Texas where SB-17 were stationed?
Another possibility is a drone or a drone director: QB-17 resp. DB-17P. Same question: were there any stationed in the above mentioned area?
Of course there are some more "exotic" exemplars (like the ETB-17) from the same period but whatever was hit by a hurricane in mid-1950s was not a standard B-17 bomber any more.
Cheers!

 

[GrauGeist]

This was also a story told to a youngster over half a century ago.

Types, dates and locations might be off.

Also, until more recently, the military was well known to just dig a pit and shove stuff in (or in the case of the Navy, shove it overboard or off a jetty).

Considering the condition of the destroyed aircraft in the photos, I seriously doubt the air force would have taken the time to round up the aircraft (and destroyed vehicles) and shipped them to a site for reclamation.

 

[MIflyer]

The Air Force Base at Wichita Falls is a training base and they typically have some older aircraft for students to assemble and disassemble. If those were trashed by a tornado they would iikely just dispose of them locally rather than go through the expense of hauling the remains to an Air Depot or the Davis Montana boneyard. P-51's were used as examples of airframe construction for USAF training manuals of the 50's and were phased out of USAF and ANG service about 1955. The earlier version of the manual "Aircraft Engineering for Pilots" used a P-51 for illustrations and the later version used a T-28. Oddly enough, the USAF quit using the B-17 and the B-29 in the same year, which must have been about 1960. Of course the B-50 remained in service a bit longer than the B-29.