Bent Machine Guns and Melted Engines: A Study of the Applicability of Aircraft Accident Investigation to the Archaeological Examination of Historic Submerged WWII Aircraft

Abstract

This thesis explores the applicability of aircraft accident investigation to understanding archaeological site formation processes of submerged World War II aircraft. Aircraft accident investigators are professionals who are called to accident scenes, military or civilian, to analyze the causes. Accident investigators attempt to recreate the circumstances of the aircraft accident by studying wreckage distribution, damage patterns on the wreckage, and the physics involved so that they may provide guidance for safer future air travel.

Many of the field and laboratory techniques used by aircraft accident investigators, such as site mapping and wreckage identification, align closely with already established archaeological methodologies. This thesis considers a Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat shot down during the Battle for Saipan in June 1944 as a case study to test how aircraft accident investigation methods can be applied to archaeological research. The site was excavated over the course of three field seasons from 2019 to 2023 as part of a joint East Carolina University/Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency effort to locate and repatriate the remains of the pilot. This thesis conducts a parallel analysis of the site using both aircraft accident investigation and site formation process techniques. These analyses utilize a combination of historical research, geographic information system analysis, computer aided design software, and photogrammetric modeling to examine the aircraft wreck site and recreate the aircraft accident. Ultimately this research aims to reaffirm the value of interdisciplinary approaches to archaeology and proposes a number of field and analytical approaches for archaeologists studying aircraft to adopt in the future.