Gertrude Tompkins Silver was one of the WASPs, or Women’s Airforce Service Pilots, during the Second World War.  WASPs served many stateside roles including instruction of new pilots and transportation of aircraft. Gertrude was one of three pilots taking off from the assembly line at Mines Field (now LAX airport), each flying a brand new P-51D Mustang, bound for New Jersey.  Tompkins took off third, following the other two pilot into the west wind and out over Santa Monica Bay, before turning back to the east to begin their trip to New Jersey.  Shortly after takeoff, Gertrude’s plane climbed into the low hanging fog bank and was never seen again.  She never made it to their first planned stop in Palm Springs. 

Our mission for the trip was to visually inspect a long list of targets in the Santa Monica Bay.  These targets had been identified with side scan sonar, and were deemed worthy of further investigation.  So our team of eight divers began the task of dropping in on every one in an attempt to identify them.  We used a collection of vessels as dive platforms, all graciously donated by their owners for the search effort.  Heather and I were fortunate enough to spend three days on board the Disappearance, a yacht owned and captained by Bob Miestrell, the founder of Body Glove wetsuits. Other boats were donated by OTS and local yacht clubs.  Our search effort were overseen by the Missing Aircraft Search Team (MAST) and the diving operations, by Mike Pizzio.  The team spent a week diving each target on the list, and we discovered all sorts of things.  We found the wreckage of small boats, washing machines, toilets, giant anchors, balls of fishing net, and an intact wine glass.  In some cases we found nothing but rocks.  But we also found a few interesting items.

At one point, one of our dive teams dropped in on what was obviously mechanical equipment of some type and some aluminum sheeting.  Photos were taken for further evaluation on the surface by aircraft experts.  They quickly determined that it was definitely an aircraft, but due to the configuration of the engine they knew it was not a P-51.  So the search continued.  In the middle of the week, Heather and I dove target number 66, which appeared to be a barrel sized chunk of aluminum.  We examined it for a few minutes and, due to the size, we thought it might be an aircraft part, but it certainly wasn’t an entire aircraft.  Since we didn’t have a camera with us, we broke off a small piece of the aluminum and brought it back to the surface to show the aircraft guys.  After looking the pice of aluminum over, they were almost certain that it was from an aircraft of some type.  In fact they were so convinced that it was decided to send additional teams back to target 66.  The other teams shot photos and brought back additional pieces of wreckage.  As it turns out the one of the pieces of wreckage was determined to be a fuel tank sump drain, a part that was used exclusively on military aircraft.  However, while the sump drain might have been from a P-51, it might also have been from a BT-13 training aircraft or a UH-1 helicopter, all of which have been lost have been lost in Santa Monica Bay.