Who found the Brewster anyway?

Finland sends reminder to U.S. over fate of downed wartime aircraft

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By Jyri Raivio
     
      In November of last year, the Finnish Foreign Ministry sent a written report to the United States on a somewhat unusual topic of dispute.
      The matter concerned a wartime Finnish Brewster B-239 fighter aircraft that was raised eight years ago from its resting place on the bed of a lake in Russian Karelia, and also what happened to the plane after it was recovered - or more pertinently, it concerned the presentation that has been given of this later phase in the United States.
     
The Brewster - serial number BW-372 - was one of a formation of eight that met and engaged a squadron of Soviet Hurricanes and MIG-3s over Karelia on June 25th, 1942.
      After shooting down two Hurricanes, the pilot, Lt. Lauri Pekuri, realised he had been hit and was losing height fast. He made a controlled crash-landing on a lake some 50 km from the town of Segezha.
      Pekuri, who eventually rose to become an Air Force Colonel, suffered only minor injuries in the incident and even managed to walk 20 km back to his own side of the lines.
      The plane, however, sank in around 15 metres of water to the bottom of the lake.
     
The Brewster fighters used by the Finnish Air Force were originally manufactured in the United States, but their use at the Battle of Midway proved something of a disaster, with heavy losses incurred in battle against Japanese Zeros.
      The US Marine Corps, which had deployed the F-2A or "Buffalo" on the aircraft-carrier Saratoga, decided that the plane was not good enough for them.
      However, the Finns had no such qualms and made very good use of the 44 Brewsters that they were sold - as surplus to US requirements - in early 1940 after the end of the Winter War.
      The "failed" planes were modified and the pilots developed their own tactics for aerial combat, and the Brewsters were in active service in the Continuation War of 1941-44.
      They were credited with nearly 500 Soviet and one German aircraft destroyed, against the loss of 19 Brewsters: a kill ratio of 26:1. Two highly-decorated Finnish fighter aces - Ilmari Juutilainen and Hans Wind (see separate Wikipedia article) - both racked up more than 30 kills with the aircraft.
     
One of the Finnish Brewster pilots was Heimo Lampi (1920-1998), who in later life studied law and rose to become President of the Appeals Court of Eastern Finland.
      Lampi was the first to suggest the search for Lauri Pekuri's BW-372 and an attempt to lift it, if it could be found. There were many in the search team, with one of the most active being Lampi's daughter Marja Lampi.*
      After a long and often colourful travail, the plane was located and raised from the lake in the summer of 1998, and was found to be in remarkably well-preserved condition, despite its long soaking.
      This was really only the beginning, however. Things became markedly more strange and Byzantine thereafter. To cut a long story short, BW-372 eventually wound up "back home" in the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.
      The NMNA's director, Robert Rasmussen, admitted to Helsingin Sanomat in the summer of 2005 that a more rightful location for the aircraft might possibly be in Finland. Nevertheless, nobody has formally protested the museum's right of ownership of the plane, and so there it stays.
     
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Helsinki has no quibble on this score, either.
      According to Marcus Laurent, the Deputy Director-General of the ministry's Legal Department, war materiel that was left behind in the Soviet Union belongs to the Soviet Union, or these days to Russia.
      Russia may do exactly as it pleases with such items found on its soil, and as such the Finnish state has no demands whatsoever on the plane. Furthermore, the evidence suggests it was Heimo Lampi's original intention that the aircraft would go to the Navy Museum in Pensacola.
      On the other hand, the state - via the Foreign Ministry - does think it would be desirable that the right parties should get due credit for the discovery and recovery of the aircraft - which is the only Brewster B-239 known to exist anywhere in the world.
     
In the note sent to the U.S., two of the deserving individuals are mentioned by name: Heimo Lampi and Timo Nyman, a Finnish expert who carried out the search and recovery operation, in association with Russian colleagues.
      On the Pensacola museum's website, however, all the credit goes to one Gary Villiard, an American businessman who is said to have spent 11 years in the pursuit of the Brewster.
      He sold BW-372 to the Navy for around USD 7 million, or EUR 5.3 million in today's coin, in an exchange deal where he received three Lockheed P-3 Orion maritime patrol and anti-submarine planes that had been withdrawn from service as obsolete.
     
Marja Lampi's opinion of Villiard is rather less fit to print.
      She describes him as being an assistant on the original search team, who then cheerfully sold out the others.
      Whilst Villiard claims to have spent much time investigating the Brewster's movements in the Finnish and Russian archives, Marja Lampi notes drily that Villiard spoke neither a word of Finnish nor a word of Russian.
      She asserts in one linked article that it was Timo Nyman who did the leg-work that Villiard attributes to himself.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 7.1.2007
     
*Note: Marja Lampi's married name was Dmietriev. Her version of the convoluted story is also linked below.


Links:
  Virtualpilots.fi on the case of BW-372 (A more detailed history of events can also be found here in Finnish)
  Photos of BW-372
  The Saga of BW-372 (Note: the Marja Dmietriev mentioned is Marja Lampi, formerly married to Russian Alexander Dmitriev. The WarBird Forum Discussion Board on this site also contains a number of pertinent posts on the affair.)
  Another article about the raising of the aircraft
  A simulation of the dogfight over Karelia leading to the forced landing of the Brewster in June 1942.
  National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida
  Annals of the Brewster Buffalo (contains a number of articles about Brewsters in the FAF)
  Brewster F2A "Buffalo" (Wikipedia)
  Finnish World War II Fighter Aces (Wikipedia)

JYRI RAIVIO / Helsingin Sanomat
jyri.raivio@hs.fi