TROLLING FOR TROPHIES

Sometimes you find the most remarkable things where you least expect to see them. For historians looking to preserve irreplaceable artifacts from WWll, the bottom of North America’s Great Lakes has proven to be a veritable treasure trove. That’s where a dedicated team has spent the past 30 years mining the lake beds for historically-significant aircraft, veterans of battles that raged all across the Pacific.

The aircraft – almost perfectly preserved by their icy, freshwater tombs – were lost in the 40s when the US Navy conducted pilot training on the lakes. There, safe from prowling enemy submarines, two former passenger excursion vessels that were hastily converted into makeshift aircraft carriers helped more than 17,000 pilots qualify for carrier duty – including future US President George H. W. Bush.

But accidents were frequent, and at least 150 aircraft wound up on the bottom of the lakes through landing accidents and misjudged takeoffs. As salvage crews today recover these aircraft for museum display, they’re finding some of them to be veterans of major Pacific battles – Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, the Solomons – making these historic aircraft internationally significant.

After being damaged in battle or simply outdated by