Last Flight of Swamp Ghost

• Swamp Ghost took off on the night of Feb. 22, 1942 from Garbutt Airfield in Australia.
• The aircraft was struck by enemy fire while bombing in Rabaul, a township in East New Britain.
• Damaged by enemy gunfire and losing fuel, the pilot crash-landed the plane in a swamp on the north coast of Papua New Guinea.
• The plane’s nine-member crew survived the ordeal and returned to combat after a harrowing six-week trek to safety. However, Swamp Ghost slept beneath water and tall grass for the next 64 years.
• Swamp Ghost was salvaged in May 2006, an effort initiated in the mid-1980s by David Tallichet, and carried on by his family and aircraft recovery enthusiast Alfred Hagen.

Air Crew Members (all deceased)