On a Thursday just before Christmas 1956, residents of Port Deposit witnessed a “once in a life-time” scene, the “Harford Democrat and Aberdeen Observer” reported. Easing slowly down the narrow main street in the town nestled between granite cliffs and the Susquehanna River were four World War II aircraft.
The planes, three fighters and a torpedo bomber, were being towed to the Bainbridge Naval Training Center, which had requisitioned them from the Naval Air Station in Norfolk, VA. A commercial tug had towed them up the Chesapeake and docked at Wiley Manufacturing a short time earlier, the trip having stated 31 hours earlier.
The crowd watched in “awe” as the convoy of aTigercat,Bearcat, Corsair, and aTBM torpedo Bomber, approached the end of the trip, the Bainbridge Recruit Training Center Command Field. The Port Deposit Police Department, the Maryland State Police – Conowingo, and and the State Highway Dept. had cleared the narrow streets to let the convoy pass.
I was stationed at Bainbridge from 1967-1972 and never saw these aircraft. Where were they placed and what ever happened to them ?
Robert the newspaper article said they were placed on “Bainbridge’s four Recruit Training Command drill fields, where they will be used as static displays.”