Wasp versus Cyclone....
We have been all over this before...
The Vets were told that the U.S. Army response to the Patrol A1 Report was that the engine A1 had found was a Wasp. A Pratt and Whitney Wasp, not a Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp or a Wright Cyclone. Being a "Wasp" they were not interested. I have said previously that if it had been a Twin-Wasp they wouldn have been interested.... Cyclones were not mentioned. ALL Operational B-17's were fitted with Cyclones.
They, Patrol A1, first bumped into a detached engine from which a metal tag hanging by wire was removed. The Patrol Leader walked on to a vine and tree debris covered mound and saw the main wreckage. Lt. Backhouse's sketch of the wreck he saw is shown in the sketch (on the website) as pointing to the East and is shown to be located at the end of a ridgeline which is the one we do want to search. It points to the East because one detail we omitted from the sketch depiction is that Backhouse made a reference to their first night camp being down below the ridge and as their camp was to the East of the depiction the aircraft nose is therefore pointed to the East. The sketch shows the wreck to have 'wings' and two engine placements. Backhouse said the wreck was of a twin-engined aircraft, the No. 2 engine was there and he looked down into the remains of the cockpit area which was smashed backwards. He could not remembers the tail unit at all. The wreck appeared to be unpainted "all-metal" and bore no military insignia.
A 16th Battalion AIF Patrol found the wreck of the B-17 41-2429 in early 1945 and noted its location, so that wreck was a known wreck to the Intelligence Section of 6 Brigade before the 11th Battalion even arrived at the Fighting Zone in April 1945. There is a signal in the AWM about the find by the 16th Bn patrol.
I have personally been to the wreck of the B-17 41-2429 and it rests near the top of the main hill to the South of the Mumus Ruver and points to the Southwest, one mile away from the locale of where the Backhouse sketch depicts. This B-17 wreck has no cockpit and nose area as it seems to have a clean break at a production joint. I did read that the cockpit section was found (I do not know where) after the war by an Australian recovery team. There are no engines on this wreck and I did not see any engines lying around in the local area. This B-17 blew up at altitude and there are pieces of it scattered all over. The empennage is down in the Mumus River valley and I saw that sticking up out of the river bank in 1994. I have only seen one Cyclone and one outer wing panel down in the Mumus River. There are no intermediate wing panels and no outer wing panels on this wreck. The centre-section carries no engines only the built-up fairing for the inboard nacelles. When 41-2429 was lost in late 1942, it was in full two-colour camouflage paint on the top surfaces, bearing white stars on a blue background. That paint would still be on it in early 1945, two and a half years later. There is s picture of 41-2429 at Brisbane on PW.
MACR16020 is an absolutely amazing coincidence to be carrying that number.
Lightning does strike twice in the same place. There are two aircraft wrecks one mile apart.... one which looked like it had been there for some time (8 years) and one which in 1945 would have been there for three years.