National Naval Aviation Museum leaders hope obsolete Navy aircraft and parts can help them save rapidly vanishing pieces of World War II history.

In a recent meeting at the museum, retired Rear Adm. Sam Cox, director of the Navy's History and Heritage Command, said he wants to revive the Navy's Trade and Exchange Program, which hasn't been used in almost 20 years.

Cox and other experts said time is running out to retrieve dozens of World War II aircraft that crashed in Lake Michigan in training accidents. Even though the planes have been in cold, freshwater for the last 75 years, they are beginning to deteriorate, they said.

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"If we wait another five to 10 years, there will not be any aircraft down there. It is very important the Navy gets this program rolling again," said Mark Clark of Rockford, Illinois-based, Courtesy Aircraft.

Retired Navy Capt. Sterling Gilliam, the museum's director, said the museum acquired many important aircraft, including a rare SB2U Vindicator, through the trade and exchange program in the 1990s.

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"Since 1991, we have executed over 40 trade and exchange agreements worth well over $10 million in goods and services," he said.

But the program fell out of use in the early 2000s.

David Paul Horan, a Key West attorney best known for representing famed undersea Spanish treasurer hunter Mel Fisher, urged museum officials to be careful if they restart the program.

In the early 1990s, Horan represented airplane collector Doug Champlin in his quest to salvage a rare TBD-1 Devastator and place it in the museum's collection.

The TBD-1 is considered the rarest of World War II of torpedo bombers.

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Champlin acquired the location of the plane off Florida's Atlantic coast but needed permission from the Navy to bring up the aircraft. Horan filed an admiralty action on behalf of Champlin seeking permission to salvage the aircraft international waters. The action was unsuccessful and the plane was never recovered.

Depositions taken during the action raised questions about misuse of the trade and exchange program. No criminal charges were filed after an investigation into the accusations.

"The Navy took the position that the most historic aircraft known to exist could just turn to dust because they couldn't afford to bring it up," Horan said.

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But Gilliam said the trade and exchange program was not the reason Devastator went unrecovered. He said there many complicated issues were involved in retrieving plane, including questions about its exact location.

"That case was fully adjudicated and closed 19 years ago," Gilliam said. "There were a lot of consecutive miracles that had to happen for that plane to be recovered and the trade and exchange program didn't have anything to do with it."

Cox, the retired rear admiral in charge of the Navy's History and Heritage Command, referenced past problems with trade and exchange program during the recent meeting.

"There have been issues with the execution of the program in the past, I won't get into the details," he said. "We have learned lessons and the intent is to move forward."

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Cox said the program could be a tremendous benefit to the National Naval Aviation Museum, which he called "the crown jewel in the Navy's museum system."

The Navy has a wide variety of obsolete aircraft parts that are of no use to the Department of Defense that would be of interest to collectors, said Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Duane D. Thiessen, president of the museum foundation.

"We are mainly talking about airframes but also pieces — components that can be used to our advantage," he said.

A large warehouse near the museum on Pensacola Naval Air Station contains thousands of old airplanes, airplane parts and other artifacts that are part of the museum's collection.

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Among the items is a World War II Japanese NIK Kyofu seaplane. The plane, which is in pieces, is one of just three still in existence. Hill Goodspeed, historian for the National Naval Aviation Museum, said two of the planes are part of the museum's collection.

Goodspeed said the rare seaplane could become part of a trade or exchange if the program is revived. The plane could be restored using trade and exchange revenues or be exchanged for another rare item.

"If there was a project that would result in substantial benefit to the museum, that airframe could be a candidate for the program," he said.

It is hard to underestimate how important the trade and exchange program could be in preserving the Navy's history said Taras Lyssenko, an expert in the recovery of World War II aircraft from Lake Michigan.

Most of the World War II generation is gone and many people with a deep interest in preserving the history of that generation are dying, he said.

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"A lot of the big donors have died and we are running out of people who have an appreciation for this history. If the Navy wants to present its history and keep its history alive, it has to have a funding mechanism to make that happen," he said.

Lyssenko said there is incredible demand among collectors for aviation-related items that are no longer of use to the Navy.

"I believe the Navy could exchange 100 million of aviation assets to collectors every year," he said.

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Gilliam and other museum officials urged collectors to be patient with the process of restarting the program, which involves cutting through a lot of Navy bureaucracy. Gilliam said the recent informational meeting was important.

"It was a good first step," he said.

Melissa Nelson Gabriel can be reached at mnelsongab@pnj.com or 850-426-1431.