The Akutan Zero-- Part 6: Recovery and Reconstruction

The crash site remained undiscovered for over a month.  On July 10, 1942, an American PBY piloted by  Lt. William Thies spotted the wreckage accidentally.  They returned the next day and recovered Ensign Koga's body from the plane and buried him in a shallow grave.

It took several attempts to get the Zero uprighted and to get it off the muddy land before they were able to get it to a barge and transported to Dutch Harbor where it was loaded onto the USS  St. Mihiel and transported to Seattle.

From there it went to the Naval Air Station near San Diego where repairs were carefully carried out.  The Zero's red Hinomaru roundel was was repainted with American insignia.  The Zero was fit to fly again on September 20. (Imagine had they left the red ball on the plane and a civilian saw it being flown over the U.S. mainland.)

The whole time the plane was under heavy guard.

The United States now had a flyable Zero to test.

--GreGen