Nearly 100 people watched as crews pulled a WWII fighter plane from Waukegan Harbor this morning -- the first leg of a journey that could land it in a Glenview naval museum.
“It’s a pretty inspiring thing,” said Charles Greenhill, a 78-year-old pilot from Mettawa who paid for the recovery. “You think you get used to it, but you don’t.”
The plane will be shipped Greenhill’s hangar in Kenosha, Wis., and from there it will be transported to the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Fla. where a full restoration could take at least five years. A local group hopes to make the plane’s permanent home in a proposed museum on the site of the former Naval Air Station Glenview.
“It’s better than I thought,” Greenhill said as he watched the plane emerge from the water.
The FM-2 Wildcat had been used during World War II to train pilots for landing on aircraft carriers. It rolled off a converted steam ship on Dec. 28, 1944 and sank about 45 miles southeast of Waukegan after the engine failed during its third take-off.
The pilot, William Edward Forbes, was rescued and finished his training. He died in 2008 at 85.
Crews from A & T Recovery of Chicago began towing the wildcat under water on Sunday, getting it to Waukegan Harbor on Tuesday. They decided to wait until today, Pearl Harbor Day, to pull it from the water.
jbullington@tribune.com
Crews recover WWII fighter plane near Waukegan
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Crews recover WWII fighter plane near Waukegan
