marty, was just looking through your pics, they are amazing!
It was an amazing experience to be there--"up close and personal," as ABC used to say.
Did they torch the ends of the prop off?
Not at Niagara Falls. The two in contact with the ice and later the lake bed probably broke off on their own. Photographs of the plane coming out of the water show one prop left, badly bent over the nose of the fuselage. By the time the
Ira G. Ross Aerospace Museum purchased the plane, the prop was gone (along with a few other items of interest, I believe; it seems to me that they had to purchase the log book separately).
Did they know if thrown rods were mechanical failure or the result of enemy contact?? In my experience with hi performance automobile racing engines, two sets of rods thrown on the same end of the crank was usually due to oil starvation.
The plane was being flown back to a base in Siberia, I believe, after a tour of duty at the front (in Finland?). The plane fell out of formation and disappeared when the flight was relatively close to home. The pilot was accused in absentia of desertion. After his body was found in the cockpit of the P-39 at the bottom of the lake, he was given a hero's burial.
So it seems that the thrown rods caused the plane to come down. I haven't heard of any efforts to do an autopsy beyond that.
More details at the
museum's own website. I've been a little slow on the uptake. They seem to have christened her "Miss Lend Lease." My bad.