Memorial Honors WWII British Pilots Lost Over Maine’s Sebago Lake

On May 16, 1944, two Royal Navy pilots were on a training mission over Sebago Lake flying Vought D4U Corsairs like the one seen below, when they crashed into the water and sunk 300 feet below the surface.

Now, 80 years later to the date, a memorial for these pilots will be dedicated at the Veteran's Memorial Park in Raymond on the shore of Sebago Lake.

In 2003, the planes were found at the bottom of Sebago by a dive team that captured one of them on camera. They are very well preserved after 80 years in Maine's deepest lake.

Here's the description from the YouTube video posted by Dustin Harper

They were both out of Naval Air Station Brunswick and Sebago Lake was used as a safe place to train young pilots on how to fly over water. The Corsair shown is # JT160, and the second one it collided with sits 1.3 miles away. She is sitting on her nose straight up and down, both wings were torn from the fuselage, and the right wing is 100 feet from the rest of the plane. The landing gear was down (she is equipped with a tailhook) when she crashed (not sure why) and the Canopy is open. Maybe the pilot tried to get out before she sank?

 

A recovery team wanted to raise the plane from the bottom of the lake, but a Maine court denied their request, so it will remain at the bottom of the lake as a remembrance of the pilots who lost their lives all those years ago.

The Windham Eagle shared an artist's rendition of the memorial that will be dedicated at 11:30 a.m. Friday, May 17, at Veteran's Park in Raymond, and the public is welcome to attend.