Guided by various informations during late 90’s , I visited a beach side in the island of Evia along the Greek main land, searching for the remnants of an aircraft in the sea, since the ww2 years. After some hours of searches in the sea along a steep beach side, I came in front a large steel “ski structure”, with a part of corroded shock absorber and coil springs attached to it’s upper side ,lying along the steep bottom about 3 meters deep under the surface. With great efforts I finally managed to pull this really heavy object out of the water, in order to produce some photos for further study. It was really a confusing finding due of it’s size (almost 1,5 to 2 meters log) and so I was wondering if that belonged to an aircraft or some kind of other naval vessel..
After reviewing several data for aircrafts which operated in Greece during ww2, I finally concluded with the help of a friend, that this ski belonged to the landing gear of a Gotha Go 242 glider ! A number of these gliders were operating, from Greek airfields during 1942 supplying the advance in Egypt of the Afrikakorps . Some months later during an other visit on this spot and diving down to 15-16 meters below the surface , I was able to see the dark shape of the fuselage of this glider, lying upside down on the bottom of the sea, at an estimated depth of approximately 25-28 m deep.
Obviously this landing gear ski was “hooked” by the fishing nets of a large boat , dragged and finally discarded near the beach side were found …
John
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