The Full Story
The “Koviki” Corsair
By Ewan M. Stevenson
SEALARK EXPLORATION INC, May 2021
A primary goal of Sealark Exploration is to locate and identify American MIA aircraft sites from WWII in the South Pacific. The experienced Sealarkteam has been documenting and surveying WWII sites in the Solomons for over 30 years. When working an area, the Sealark team visits known sites, records, surveys, and GPS marks them. The purpose behind this is to create a database and track sites. This contributes to an overall knowledge of an area, which Sealark is constantly building. It helps interpret the big-picture of aircraft losses in the area- who’s plane is whose and what is where and what might be MIA. It helps in understanding the historical record. It assists us in differentiating known sites from recent discoveries. Sealark regularly receives local reports of crash sites, but often they are already known. Occasionally, we receive reports of a genuine newly discovered site. This is then analysed using our database and scrutinized for MIA potential.
There is good reason to study existing sites. Team members can gain detailed archaeological knowledge and practise site interpretation. The war was a long time ago and the sites have deteriorated and been transformed by marine growth or jungle. How has the subject been affected by ¾ of century of saltwater immersion? What clues are there on site that indicate what happened to the pilot? There is no better education than actually visiting sites and studying them, learning how to identify aircraft from scant materials on sites, learning about the different aircraft models, how they collapse, what might be natural environmental effects or battle damage? An excellent learning process is studying several sites of the same aircraft type. Then you really begin to understand how the aircraft or site has been transformed by the in-situ environment or how the aircraft crashed is evident in the twisted shattered remains. There are big differences between high velocity aircraft impacts on a shallow reef, a slow forced landing in rainforest or a ditching in a placid tropical lagoon. Some submerged aircraft sit in alluvial silt-laden seafloors near river mouths; other sites are on deep, open, coral reefs subject to oceanic swells. Some sites are in high current or calm bays. Others are on the peaks of 8000-foot-high, moss-forested mountains.
An additional benefit is team members practise their diving skills and keep them sharp. Diving by itself can be demanding. Add in the archaeological component and it can be super demanding particularly on deep dives. It is all too easy to get absorbed in the survey and forget to manage your bottom time!
In May 2019, Dave Moran and Ewan Stevenson of Sealark Exploration studied the submerged site of a known sunken F4U Corsair fighter known locally as “The Koviki Corsair”. It was unidentified, and its history unknown.
The Site
Sealark has been very fortunate to survey 13 Vought Corsair sites in the Solomon Islands so far, on land and submerged, and the Koviki Corsair is the best Corsair site currently known. There is a similar-conditioned submerged F4U-1 off Koli Point, Guadalcanal, but the water clarity at the Koviki Corsair is far superior-- typically, 80 feet or greater. The Koviki Corsair sits in deep water just outside the South coast of the Vona Vona Lagoon near Munda on New Georgia Island. The plane is upright on clean white coral sand about 12 meters out from the bottom edge of the lagoon barrier reef. The small coral boulder reef nearby is a uniform 45° slope up to the breaking surf on the reef edge at the surface. The reef slope is plain. Due to the gull-wing, a small part of the wings is covered in sand which prohibit coralline growth in that area and helps to preserve them. The plane is very complete and whole and not broken up.There is little current on site. As you descend on the site through the clear, warm, tropical Solomon Sea, the fighter dramatically appears to be flying and emerging from a thick cloud base. It is an impressive sight. The site is original from WWII.
TOP IMAGE. A Pair of SBD-4 Dauntless dive bombers fly over Vona Vona Lagoon on 22 August 1943 in this photograph by Staff Sgt. G.G. Greitzer. The aircraft are on a strike against nearby Kolombangara Island. The left SBD-4 is over Vona Vona or Parara Island. The Koviki Corsair is submerged in the sea just off its left-wing tip. The point there is called Bighombigho. The point off the right-wing tip of the second SBD-4 is Koviki Point. On the horizon is Rendova Island.
LOWER IMAGE. Vona Vona Lagoon in November 2014. The lagoon is largely unchanged since WWII. The area was the frontline of combat in 1943 and SEALARK is tracking or surveyed 20 aircraft sites in this area. There are more to be discovered, and some are MIA.
The Corsair is slightly nose down and the depth measured on sand at the tip of the propellor dome is 53.1m (174 feet). The depth is the prime reason the Koviki Corsair is in good condition as it is on the exposed ocean side of the lagoon. The damaging effect of oceanic swells is greatly reduced at this depth. Disturbance would occur with the occasional tropical cyclone. Due to the depth, the ambient light is reduced, and artificial lights work well, revealing beautiful, bright colours of marine growth on the Vought-Sikorsky aircraft. The reduced light also means reduced coral and marine growth, so the aircraft maintains a fairly clean and original appearance. There is little hard coral growth on the plane; rather, every inch of the Corsair is carpeted in tough coralline algae. Unbreakable corkscrews of single-strand black coral Antipathes Cirripathes emanate from the plane in several places looking remarkably like man-made whip radio aerials.
The ailerons, elevators, and surprisingly large amount of wing are doped fabric-covered, on the Corsair. All fabric has long dissolved and disintegrated. Rudders, elevators and ailerons are fragile moving surfaces and are often severely damaged in ditching or by environmental forces. The intricate framing is often disrupted by corrosion. All these flight control surfaces (minus the fabric) are very intact on the Koviki Corsair except the ailerons as they were constructed entirely of wood and have long since rotted and been eaten away.
There is the odd frame missing from the rudder and elevators which could well be combat damage, but could also be corrosion and environmental damage. The rudder is turned about 20° to port. On many sites, these delicate moving control surfaces have long broken free and missing completely.
