In the generally upbeat annals of U.S. military aviation, the plump, snub-nosed little fighter called the Brewster Buffalo stands out as a turkey.
The plane had its day of ignominy in the epic Battle of Midway in June 1942, when 19 Marine pilots valiantly engaged Japanese Zeroes in dogfights above Midway atoll, a strategic speck 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu. Only five of the pilots and planes returned.
In his after-action report, one of the survivors complained that “the Japanese Zero fighter can run circles around the F2A-3,” the Brewster Buffalo model that had been handed down to the Marines by the Navy because its wheel struts broke during the hard landings on carriers.
“Any commander that orders pilots out for combat in a F2A-3 should consider the pilot as lost before leaving the ground,” wrote Capt. P.R. White of the Marines.
Intercepting the Japanese fleet farther out to sea, the U.S. carriers with more advanced aircraft fared better. In a victory that historians call the turning point in the Pacific War, U.S. forces sank four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one.
But among the Marines, the Buffalo won a reputation as a flying coffin. It was soon replaced by more agile fighters, and the aircraft, along with the heroism of its hapless pilots, became a largely forgotten footnote.
Now, the discovery of the rare wreckage of a Brewster Buffalo in a Midway lagoon, in only 10 feet of water, has rekindled interest in the aircraft and a record that, with the passage of time, seems as colorful as tragic.
“This is a very rare aircraft, and to find even the wreckage of one is an exciting discovery,” said Hill Goodspeed, the historian at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla. “Midway is the site of one of the most famous battles in naval history.”
The wreckage was spotted in June by federal divers who were cleaning up garbage around Midway atoll, which is part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a vast protected area covering the northwest string of the Hawaiian archipelago.
The exploration of the wreck is part of a broad federal effort to document and preserve the historical artifacts and biological wonders in 14 marine sanctuaries the U.S. has established since the 1970s.
Of hundreds of Brewster Buffalos produced, only one largely intact plane survives, a modified model that was sold to the Finns, who used them in the 1940s against Soviet invaders.
That craft was fished out of a Russian lake in 1998 and acquired by the Pensacola museum but is on loan to Finland.