(Diver Level: Advanced)

During the allied campaign to seize the Japanese strongholds north of Lae in 1943, Japanese anti-aircraft guns positioned around the Madang coastline shot down many allied aircraft.

Located near the Henry Leith Wreck off the beautiful Wangat Island, this Mitchell B-25 Bomber aircraft lays with its port wing upslope at 13m and the starboard at 25m. Some of the guns and other artefacts are still intact, and you can see the cockpit controls, especially if you have a torch. The tail area, with its twin fins and machine-gun, is particularly photogenic.

Many visiting divers pose for photographs by sitting in the cockpit of the bomber or by pretending to man one of the 50 calibre machine guns that are protruding from its turrets.

Apart from losing its port engine on impact, the bomber is virtually intact. Several of the crew survived and swam to nearby Wongat Island before being captured by the Japanese and later executed. Friendly villagers hid the pilot from the Japanese for several days before he was eventually captured and transferred to a prisoner-of-war camp in Rabaul.  Surviving the war, he returned to Madang to take a look at his old bird in its final resting place beneath the waters.

Looking down through the cockpit of the aircraft into the bomb bay - the doors of which were opened on impact – you can view the rack of bombs still wired up and ready to offload, just as they were in 1943. The gaps between the bombs are now home to a collection of enormous crayfish.