B-17F “Black Jack”

Black Jack was an early Flying Fortress that fought the hard first year of the Southwest Pacific air war with the 43rd Bomb Group, her serial ending in 521 giving her a gambler's name. In the early hours of 11 July 1943, bound for Rabaul, she lost power in two engines amid storm cloud and turned back across the Solomon Sea. Out of altitude and options at dawn, her pilot put her down on the water just off the village of Boga Boga on Cape Vogel, in what is now Milne Bay Province. The ditching was textbook: all ten crew got out, and villagers paddled them ashore. The bomber sank in one piece onto a flat sand bottom at the base of the fringing reef, where divers led by Rod Pearce identified her in 1986. She sits upright and startlingly whole — guns in their mounts, cockpit glazing framing blue water — widely considered the finest divable aircraft wreck in the world, and guarded by both her depth and her remoteness.

How she sank: Ditched at sea on 11 July 1943 after engine failures on a night mission toward Rabaul.

Condition: Exceptionally intact for a ditched aircraft — the airframe survived both the landing and eight decades of seawater with its lines unbroken.

Penetration: None. The fuselage is far too confined and fragile to enter; everything worth seeing is visible from outside the airframe.

Recommended certification: Technical or deep certification — the aircraft lies below sport-diving depth limits

Current: Mild · Visibility: 15–30 m

Marine life: Batfish circle the tail fin, sweetlips shelter beneath the wings, and the adjacent reef wall carries fans and barrel sponges.

Hazards: Depth is the whole problem: short no-stop windows, narcosis, and a remote location far from recompression facilities.

War relics in Papua New Guinea are protected by law, and the village of Boga Boga regards the aircraft as part of its story — access runs through local goodwill and fees.

Nothing has been taken from her since discovery, which is precisely why she matters; keep it that way.