Look What Followed Me Home
Local collector wins battle with the Navy:
It's taken six years and a special act of Congress, but an aircraft mechanic from Princeton, Minn., is the undisputed owner of a rare World War II Corsair fighter plane that he salvaged 15 years ago from a North Carolina swamp.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis in Minneapolis approved a settlement that ends a lawsuit filed a year ago by the U.S. Justice Department against Lex Cralley. The lawsuit was the climax of an escalating battle of wills that had been going on since 1999 between the 50-year-old Northwest Airlines mechanic and the U.S. Navy.
And what does he get to keep? Only the second-coolest airplane of World War II - A Chance-Vought F4U Corsair:
"It remains a piece of naval aviation history to be shared," said Cralley, whose dream is to restore the plane to flying condition — something that will take many years and millions of dollars, according to aviation history experts. It's estimated that fewer than 25 Corsairs still are flying......And the Navy was particularly interested in the remnants of the plane in Cralley's shed. Military aviation enthusiasts say it's the only Corsair of its kind known to exist.
Specifically, it's a Corsair that was manufactured by the Brewster Aeronautical Corp. of Long Island, N.Y., after the original manufacturer, the Chance Vought Aircraft Corp. of Stratford, Conn., became overwhelmed by the wartime demand for new planes.
Brewster, which no longer exists, built 735 Corsairs — Cralley's was the 119th — compared to more than 12,000 F4U Corsairs built by Vought, which is now headquartered in Dallas.
It literally took an Act Of Congress to get the Navy to give in on this - with Norm Coleman introducing the Senate bill.
Posted by Mitch at
May 11, 2005 07:11 AM
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"...the second-coolest airplane of World War II...."
So what do you rate as cooler? I don't have such a rigid hierarchy of cool, but the Schwalbe, Jug, Mosquito, Mustang, FW-190, Lightning, and Spit are all right up there in the fighter cool sweepstakes.
"...A Chance-Vought F4U Corsair...."
Wouldn't that be a Brewster F4U Corsair*? Since the reason it's important is that it wasn't built by Chance-Vought and all.
8-)
* And isn't that combination of words a jarring one?
Posted by: Doug Sundseth at May 11, 2005 10:58 AMa) The Hawker Hurricane was cooler. Don't get me wrong - WWII was crowded with really cool planes. But my hierarchy has always been Hurricane/Corsair/Mustang/Spitfire/Mosquito/Wildcat...
b) Nah. Many planes were built by other manufacturers during the war; Ford built a few thousand B-24 Liberators, but it was still the "Consolidated B-24", not the "Ford B-24".
Brewster should have wished it were associated with the F4U; their biggest contribution to aviation history was the Brewster F2A Buffalo.
Posted by: mitch at May 11, 2005 11:27 AMAre we talking about coolness in looks? What's the criteria here? Damn patriotism, I'm calling the ME 262 schwalbe the coolest WW2 plane.
Posted by: Terry at May 11, 2005 12:29 PMa) Fair enough, de gustibus non disputandum. For me, the Hurricane would probably make a longer list, but the F4F wouldn't (F6F, maybe). I'd also consider the Gladiator, the Me-110, the Dewoitine D.520, ....
b) My comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, sorry if that didn't come across. The design was clearly a Chance-Vought design, and any general discussion of the airplane would refer to it as such. OTOH, I'm pretty sure I've seen contemporaneous accounts that referred to planes by their actual manufacturers rather than their designers.
On a somewhat related note, some years ago Military History Magazine contacted the Luftwaffe to resolve the Bf-109/Me-109 designation controversy. According to the Luftwaffe, the correct designation was (IIRC) Bf-109A-D and Me-109E-whatever as the name of the company changed after the D model (and after the B model of the Bf-110).
As to the Buffalo, I mentioned it in comments over at Bill McCabe's a few days ago to say that the Finns, at least, liked it quite a bit better than the Fokker d.XXI. Talk about a damning indictment of the d.XXI.
ps. I've been trying to reply, but it seems that the nickname of the F4F hits one of your content filters. Dang, that was hard to figure out.
Posted by: Doug Sundseth at May 11, 2005 01:37 PM