Rediscovering Grumman TBF Avenger in deep waters of colombo

The re-discovery, identification and documentation of Grumman TBF Avenger’s wreck, lying off the coast of Bambalapitiya, by underwater explorers- Dharshana Jayawardena, Keerthi Karunaratne and Manjula Wijeyaratne, is a significant addition to our rich underwater heritage

BY RANDIMA ATTYGALLE

On a tip off by a fisherman in Dehiwala, tech-diver and underwater explorer Dharshana Jayawardena and two of his fellow divers – Keerthi Karunaratne, and Manjula Wijeyaratne arrived at a ‘mystery air crash site’ off the coast of Bambalapitiya early this year. Although they had doubts about the find, to their amazement, the three divers were greeted by a sunken aircraft in a very bad shape with only the wing box area, the starboard wing, what was left of the tail fin structure, the engine and the propeller. The air crash debris was lying 32 meters deep.

The search begins

The site characteristics matched the air crash site dived and described by pioneer divers such as Darrel Fryer and David Classz in the 1990s and Dharshana and his colleagues were confident that theirs was a rediscovery of the same site. “It was not easy to measure what was left of the craft as some its features were not particularly evident. But we gathered that radial engine had 14 cylinders and the approximate length from the leading edge of wing centerline to the presumed location of the tail to be 31 ft and 10 inches. Height of the aircraft however, was not measurable. Therefore, based on our measurements and observations we had to search for the candidate aircraft,” remarked Dharshana Jayawardena.

In their search for a matching aircraft, the trio also used Michael Tomlinson’s The Most Dangerous Moment as a reference to list out all the British and Japanese aircraft that participated and were lost in Ariel combat on April 5, 1942 or what is known as the ‘Easter Sunday attack of Ceylon’.

After eliminating some of the British and Japanese aircraft which were lost near Colombo during the World War II, the divers’ initial theory was that it was probably a Japanese VAL bomber lost during the attack. “The RAF (Royal Air Force) strategy during this battle was to focus more on the Japanese Aichi D3A VAL air-to-ground bombers rather than the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero air-to-air combat fighters to minimize the damage of strategic land and sea assets,” explains Jayawardena.

Possibility of an Avenger

Following the presentation of the explorers’ preliminary findings to the Sri Lanka Sub-Aqua Club and on suggestion by its founder member Dr. Malik Fernando, they reached out to David Classz who had supposedly dived to a sunken aircraft in the 1990s. The team was surprised the second time when Classz came up with a completely new aircraft to consider – American-made Grumman TBF Avenger. What was even more surprising was the absence of any reference to this type of an aircraft used in the account of the Easter Sunday attack in 1942 in Tomlinson’s book.

The Grumman TBF Avenger is an American World War II-era torpedo bomber developed for the US Navy and the Marine Corp. It entered service in 1942 and first saw action during the famous Battle of Midway. An interesting piece of trivia is that, the former American President George H.W. Bush, was an Avenger pilot and was shot down over the Pacific, an ordeal he survived unscathed before being rescued.

It was learnt that Classz together with Darrel Fryer and American diver Ulrich Earnst had dived the wreck of Grumman TBF Avenger in the 1990s when the aircraft was intact. “They had even got into the cockpit and Earnst had made an underwater video of the crash which was unfortunately lost with the passing of the diver. The dive team found out that some avengers (MKIII variants), had been used by RAF during the World War II and were sent to South India and Australia after the end of the war.

The dive team obtaining the measurements

Some were dumped in the sea when their lifespan was over although the locations of most of such ‘burial sites’ of avengers remain unknown. The naval air squadron 733 of the Royal Fleet arm which was based in Royal Navy Air Section of China Bay in Trincomalee also is reported to have operated Grumman Tarpon and Avenger MKIII aircraft.

The measurements of the aircraft at the crash site in Bambalapitiya matched those of the Grumman TBF Avenger with the Twin Cyclone engine. Specifically, a quite a unique engine characteristic, the width of the piston bore, was almost an exact match to that of the Avenger. Subsequently marine archaeologists from the US Naval History and Heritage Command, after an extensive analysis of the footage and photos provided by the dive team, confirmed that ‘these are likely the remains of a Grumman Avenger’.

It was communicated by the U.S. archaeologists that ‘in reviewing the video footage, the two pieces of evidence our subject matters experts were drawn to were the morphology of the port wing and the characteristics of the engine, both of which match nearly identically with that of an Avenger.’ However, they also note that there is still no sufficient information to suggest that the aircraft, though US-manufactured, was in the service of the U.S. Navy or another naval service at the time of the crash.

Underwater heritage

The wreck of the aircraft is in a very bad state of deterioration, says Jayawardena. It is suspected that the several parts of the aircraft have been illegally salvaged over the years. It is now a small artificial coral reef with several species of marine fish present. The dive team specifically observed a number of small groupers hiding within the wreck.

“The re-discovery, identification and documentation of this wreck is a significant addition to our rich underwater heritage. To date over 110 shipwrecks have been located around the shores of Sri Lanka and out of that, about ten are sunken aircraft,” says Jayawardena. A similar noteworthy underwater aircraft discovery made by Jayawardena was the discovery of a World War II RAF Squadron 321 (Dutch) Catalina Patrol Bomber off the shores of Passikudah in 2014. In addition, there are several other underwater remains of aircraft located in Katuneriya, Kalpitiya and the Trincomalee Harbour. “Unfortunately, most of these aircraft are in a very bad state of deterioration, otherwise they would have been a boon to Sri Lanka’s marine tourism,” concludes the underwater explorer.

(Photo credit: Manjula Wijeyaratne)