A Brewster 239 fighter of the Finnish Air Force (BW-372 piloted by lt. Lauri Pekuri) has been discovered and lifted from a lake in Russian Karelia. On 25 June 1942, Lt. Pekuri made a successful forced landing after shooting down the Russian fighter that damaged his aircraft, but the Brewster sank into the lake bottom and its accurate position remained unknown until the present.

The aircraft seems to be in very good condition after lying for 56 years in sweet water and low-oxygen bottom mud. Even the original paint job was still there, the insignia and the plane id "BW-372" clearly readable. Wherever this aircraft ends up, it will make a unique museum display!

Of course as a Finn I'm hoping very much that this aircraft would eventually end up in Finland, but I don't know if there's any chance of that. All I hope is that red tape, legal processes and all that do not take so long that this unique aircraft rusts away sitting on the beach, vulnerable to oxygen, weather, rain, approaching winter, vandals and all that. I sure hope the people involved have the good sense to at least sink it back to the lake if it can't be salvaged shortly.

Lifting the aircraft from the lake.


Detail of the engine and propeller hub.


Fresh out of the water. The landing gear is still retracted.


Side view.


The engine has been removed and the landing gear lowered.


Detail of the landing gear retracting mechanism.


Another view of the landing gear. It's complete with original tires!


Looks like it's ready to roll any time.


Yet another view of the landing gear structure.


Right wing.


The plane identification is still clearly readable...


...and you can still read the victory marks on the rudder!


The radio - original tubes still intact in position.


General view of the fuselage and wings. Doesn't seem bent at all!


View along the fuselage towards the nose. Canopy still in place!


Weapons removed. I understand these would be 4x.50 cal.


What's this then? Flame cover?

And for those with all the bandwidth they can use: here are Quicktime movie clips from which the stills were made. They have been compressed to zip format so that each one will fit on a 1.44 MB diskette. Note: the latest Windows Media Player (version 6 or newer) can play these. Another alternative is Quicktime Player 3.0 or newer from Apple's site.

bw-372-1.zip - 630 kB
bw-372-2.zip - 760 kB
bw-372-3.zip - 820 kB
bw-372-4.zip - 690 kB
bw-372-5.zip - 670 kB
bw-372-6.zip - 1030 kB
bw-372-7.zip - 426 kB
bw-372-8.zip - 674 kB

"We were engaged in combat next to the Russian airfield at Sekee (Segeza). There were eight of our Brewsters and more than ten Russian aircraft - in the end seven Russian fighters met their fate.

My wingman was sgt. Anttila, a young fellow in his first fight. When I gave the order to disengage, Anttila couldn't comply. I looked and saw a Russian aircraft - it was a Hurricane - behind him, firing from a somewhat long distance and scoring hits. Anttila's aircraft caught fire, black smoke started to pour out, his engine stopped and he began to glide down. I managed to shoot down the Russian fighter and thus prevented him from completing the damage he had done.

After this I disengaged from the fight. I flew on the deck at full power for some 40-50 km, but then a Russian fighter managed to surprise me. I was awakened by bullets hitting my aircraft - they made quite a racket - and my left wing tank caught fire. The Russian, I believe it was a Hurricane, overtook me at high speed just a few meters higher, and suddenly I found him right in front of me, practically filling my whole gunsight. Instinctively, I pulled the trigger, and the Russian aircraft caught fire and crashed into the woods.

A patrol of Finnish soldiers behind the Russian lines saw this crash from a distance and took the news back to our side. They had no way of knowing whether the crashed aircraft was Finnish or Russian, so their story started people guessing that the crashed plane was either Anttila's or mine."

The interview didn't tell the rest about Pekuri's forced landing, but it seems that his engine was badly damaged and he was at low altitude, so he ditched his Brewster into the lake without more damage and walked back to the Finnish lines.

In the end he accumulated a total of 18.5 confirmed kills. He went on to fly Messerschmitt 109's until he was shot down another time in June 1944 and spent half a year on a POW camp, from which he was released after the hostilities between Finland and Russia ended.