Heroes on Deck: WWII on Lake Michigan

„More than one hundred World War II aircraft rest on the bottom of America’s Lake Michigan. This is the story of how they got there.“

John Davies’, Harvey Moshman’s and Brian Kallies’ new and fascinating documentary ‘Heroes on Deck: World War II On Lake Michigan’ tells the incredible story of how more than one hundred WW II aircraft found its way to the bottom of North America’s Great Lake; the Lake Michigan.

In short, the one hour documentary is about a training operation conducted by the U.S. Navy on Lake Michigan in the early 1940s. To be precise, the Navy trained almost 15,000 pilots to land and take off from two makeshift aircraft carriers between 1942 and 1945. While having a fear of enemy attacks from both Japanese and German submarines, the Navy “converted two, vintage, side wheel, coal fired, passenger steamers into aircraft carriers, to train pilots in the safety of land locked Lake Michigan”. Unfortunately, the program had fatal consequences and caused many crashes and a couple of very dangerous accidents.
Today, one can say that the largest collection of WWII aircraft in the United States can be found on the very bottom of Lake Michigan. However, many of them are now slowly being raised and carefully restored afterwards.

‘Heroes on Deck: World War II On Lake Michigan’ makes use of exclusive archival footage including stills as well as computer generated recreations and high-definition underwater photography. By doing this, the spectator gets an in-depth insight into the happenings on Lake Michigan in the early 1940s thanks to this brilliant documentary.