The Incredible Saga of Salvaging “Swamp Ghost,” a Pearl Harbor Plane From a Treacherous Jungle

The Stories of the mysterious Swamp Ghost lying hidden in the dangerous grasslands of Papua New Guinea swirled worldwide for decades. It caught the attention of two men who couldn’t resist the allure of chasing that mystery to its very end. 

When Fred Hagen, the aircraft archaeologist, first caught wind of the Swamp Ghost, it piqued his interest to the point where he was compelled to make it his primary mission. This time, he was accompanied by friend and partner, David Tallichet who has been by his side on multiple expeditions. 

Previously, Fred and David enjoyed navigating them to get to the hidden treasure no matter how complex or problematic an expedition was. They particularly cherished searching for the unknown, and this one proved to be right up their alley. 

After putting together a team of hardened professionals who had the expertise of navigating harsh terrains, Fred and David flew over the vast expanse of the swampland. The aerial view of the place was breathtaking; the forest floor was covered with lush green foliage getting deeper and darker to the grounds where their roots lay. 

After hours of an endless search for the unknown, the master explorers spotted a glint of metal amid the greenery. Spotting the white speck changed the way they looked at the jungle.

The object of their expedition lay abandoned for decades, and they were about to come face to face with the mysterious Swamp Ghost. They couldn’t wait to get to it and urged the helicopter pilot to fly lower than what was allowed on that terrain. 

They got all the required equipment from the locals, who warned them about the swamps. With one look at how inaccessible the place was, they realized the gravity of those dire warnings. Even without getting too close, they knew it was the World War II plane they expected to see. 

The villagers are well aware that the vast grasslands of Papua New Guinea were home to hundreds of crashed planes. Stories abound about the place being reminiscent of horrifying history, an unfortunate reminder of the ravages of war. 

None of the cautionary tales of the locals could sway Fred and David from their set path. Their mission was to reach the long-abandoned plane and retrieve what was left of it and nothing, and no one could persuade them to do otherwise. 

While the two have marched through the toughest of expeditions and found invaluable treasures and artifacts at the end of their missions, they have yet to experience this treacherous terrain in the swamps. Once they stepped into the marshy grasslands, their energies quickly depleted at how tricky the navigation proved. 

At one point, Fred and the crew stopped to drink water and he caught a movement in the swamps from the corner of his eye and froze. A quick look around proved it could have been nothing but his imagination, but something about the stories he had heard made him reevaluate their situation. 

Fred’s heart raced for an entirely different reason; he spotted the sun glinting off the plane’s surface that lay a few feet away from where he stood. That brilliant view was enough to get his adrenaline thumping all over again, this time at having the target within his reach. 

After one of the most challenging treks any of them on the team had ever taken, they finally came face to face with the legendary Swamp Ghost. A quick glance told them that it lived up to its name. They finally understood the significance of what they’d achieved. 

Even though the team had no idea about the story behind the plane’s disappearance during the war, they knew enough about Papua New Guinea. Caught in the middle of warring nations, the place turned out to be a hotbed of World War II. 

Now that they had established that the plane belonged to World War II, the team craved to discover its mysterious origins. For decades, the place had drawn the attention of war enthusiasts worldwide to explore what lay buried in the dark, deep, and hidden corners of Papua New Guinea. 

The swamps were inaccessible for decades because of so many reasons. In that part of the murky marshlands, it was impossible for explorers to get there without endangering their lives. Also, the locals claimed it was haunted and they considered it their deity, which kept the swamp ghost out of reach and well hidden in the dense jungles for so long. 

Despite all the improbabilities that had kept anyone from reaching the plane, Fred and David’s team achieved the impossible. Yet, several questions were left to be answered – who flew the aircraft during the war? Most importantly, they wanted to discover what mysteries lay inside the plane. 

David Tallichet was a renowned restaurateur who started the themed-restaurant concept and became super successful in the food business. The more money he made, the more he spent following his passion for collecting aircraft. 

A quick inspection of all the machinery and the parts still untouched inside the plane told David what he wanted to know. From the first glance of the aircraft, he suspected it to be similar to the Flying Fortress he co-piloted during World War II. 

One of their biggest dreams was the plane’s ultimate restoration. Alas, if only it were that easy! Their initial efforts in the ’80s to salvage the aircraft faced numerous delays and setbacks despite the money and energy they poured into the task. 

Before we delve into the salvage mission of Fred and David, let’s take a quick detour into the backstory of the plane and how it crash-landed in the middle of nowhere, stuck for nearly seven decades in the cursed swamps. 

A couple of months later in early 1942, the Swamp Ghost was once again dispatched in the thick of World War II on a new mission to bomb the Japanese ships that were waging war against the forces in Rabaul, New Britain. 

By then, Japanese anti-aircraft batteries zeroed in on the altitude of the flying fortress and bombarded it with a torrent of shells that damaged the plane’s wings. Captain Fred and his team were battling in the skies for their lives. The aerial battle raged on until the aircraft had no option but to take cover. 

Captain Fred thought he had spotted a perfect place for landing his injured aircraft, but he instead crash-landed the plane on February 23rd, 1942, into an isolated stretch of treacherous swamp. Inhabited by ferocious crocodiles, water reptiles, and mosquitoes, it was a terrain of nightmares but everyone on the team made it alive. 

Somehow, the men stumbled into a nearby village after days of navigating the tall elephant grass that soared to over 20 feet above the swamps, blocking their view of the skyline and making it incredibly hard for them to find their way. Yet, as luck would have it, the villagers welcomed them wholeheartedly and slowly nurtured them back to health.

US Forces hardly recalled the Boeing B17, and they made no efforts to search for the aircraft in the wreckage. No one bothered about the missing plane, even after the war ended. The men who fought in the war were redeployed, but the machine that flew them on their missions was left forgotten in the jungle for decades.

The Swamp Ghost was all but forgotten and abandoned until the Australian crew flying over the area accidentally spotted it in 1972 and told the world about it. It made waves internationally among war enthusiasts, and people couldn’t wait to know more about it. This is how Fred and David discovered the mysterious plane that piqued their curiosity. 

According to Hawaii’s Pacific Aviation Museum, the Swamp Ghost is a one-of-a-kind aircraft that’s the world’s only intact, unretired Boeing-17E bomber of the World War II era. Discovered in the unforgivable terrain of the Agaiambo Swamp, it still proudly bears several battle scars. 

The B-17 was first introduced to the world in 1938. It is honored to be the third most mass-produced bomber in the country’s history. Even before it became indispensable weaponry in the country’s victory in World War II, it had established itself as a state-of-the-art aircraft. 

In view of the impending War, President Roosevelt positioned the B-17 bomber as the model aircraft for military modernization in the late ’30s. Unfortunately, its glorious image ended with the end of the war. Once the battles were over, most planes were returned to American soil, where they were sold for scrap or melted down. 

Returning to Fred and David’s efforts to salvage the World War II plane proved quite a tough battle for the two. The salvage operations finally came to an end in 2006. Unfortunately, they had to wait another four years before the aircraft could be returned to the US. 

Among the locals who strongly opposed the idea of returning the relic to American soil was the chief’s son, Augustin Begasi. He tried various means to stop the team from removing the artifact from the swamps. The ambitious man even hired a few locals to disrupt Fred and David’s mission before the plane made it to an offshore barge. 

The salvage mission encountered several hurdles posed mainly by Begasi and his followers. Fred and David believed he wanted to extract money from them since the barge was in their waters. All the efforts of the chief’s son and his group of locals were laid to waste when the police dispersed them and allowed the plane to be taken out of the swamps. 

The crew labored for over four weeks to raise the aircraft with the help of weighted airbags. They severed the wings, removed the tail, and lifted the fuselage; the four engines were also dismounted. The team had to contend with crocodiles and scorpions during the arduous operation, but eventually, they succeeded in their mission. 

Fred Hagen called it the holy grail of military aviation and was thrilled to have it finally in safe storage at the Pacific Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor. Now all that was left to do was restore the plane back to its original glory. 

Years after the plane was returned to the US, the people of Papua New Guinea are still miffed about its removal. They still believe that the plane attracted a lot of tourism, and since they lost it, the village also has lost its value. 

During World War II, Papua New Guinea proved to be a strategic territory for several nations that were neck-deep in the war. Even though they weren’t actively involved, the place became a warzone over those few years thanks to over 600 planes that crashed and burned over their land.

The mysteries of Papua New Guinea remain largely unsolved because of the harsh terrain and its people. While the physical boundaries pose enough challenges for outsiders to find anything in the area, the diverse range of topography of the place gives the land a divided national identity. 

While the world was engrossed in everything related to the World War II B-17 bomber and its salvage and restoration efforts, the only three surviving crew members of the plane remained largely uninterested in the proceedings. One of them, George Munroe, categorically stated that he was sick and tired of hearing about the Swamp Ghost over the years. 

Whatever their sentiments might be, Fred and David intensely disagree. They and the rest of the world are thrilled to finally see it in its final resting place in the Pacific Aviation Museum. Docked at Hangar 79, the aircraft is open for visits from enthusiastic onlookers on a special Swamp Ghost tour.