Target practice: Fuselage from artillery training plane washes up on Wellfleet beach

Eric Williams, Cape Cod Times
·2 min read

Plenty of weird stuff has washed up on Cape Cod beaches over the years, but have you ever found a fuselage?

The weathered aircraft part appeared on Marconi Beach in Wellfleet last week, and it "appeared to have been in the ocean for some time," according to a Cape Cod National Seashore Facebook post. Seashore staff managed to remove the fuselage before the arrival of a storm that might have swept it away.

Seashore historian Bill Burke identified the fuselage as a piece of a Remote Control Aerial Target (RCAT), a drone plane that was used for anti-aircraft artillery training at Camp Wellfleet, a former U.S. Army training camp located near Marconi Beach in the 1940s and 1950s, according to the post.

The fuselage of a Remote Control Aerial Target (RCAT) drone plane washed up on Marconi Beach in Wellfleet last week. The plane was used for anti-aircraft artillery training at Camp Wellfleet, a former U.S. Army training camp.
The fuselage of a Remote Control Aerial Target (RCAT) drone plane washed up on Marconi Beach in Wellfleet last week. The plane was used for anti-aircraft artillery training at Camp Wellfleet, a former U.S. Army training camp.

RCATs would be launched from aircraft that took off from a former runway located south of Marconi Beach. The RCATs would then be controlled remotely from the nearby bluff that overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.

In an email to the Cape Cod Times, Burke wrote that several RCATs have been found in the woods in the area over the years. He added that the U.S. Department of Defense had performed more than a dozen ammunition cleanups in the Camp Wellfleet area since it closed.

This National Park Service archive photo shows military personnel at Camp Wellfleet standing with a Remote Control Aerial Target (RCAT) drone plane.
This National Park Service archive photo shows military personnel at Camp Wellfleet standing with a Remote Control Aerial Target (RCAT) drone plane.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the 1,738-acre Camp Wellfleet property "was leased beginning in 1942 for an anti-aircraft artillery training base, with an artillery firing line located along the beach cliff. The camp was temporarily closed for several months in 1944."

From January 1945 until the end of World War II, "the U.S. Navy used the base as a mobile radar training school supporting Navy night fighter training based in Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and for Dove missile training. From 1945 to 1961 the Camp also was used for training by National Guard troops and Active Army Reserve anti-aircraft artillery training units," according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

This National Park Service archive photo shows a landing strip near the Wellfleet/Eastham town line that was used to launch aircraft carrying drone planes for artillery training at the former Camp Wellfleet.
This National Park Service archive photo shows a landing strip near the Wellfleet/Eastham town line that was used to launch aircraft carrying drone planes for artillery training at the former Camp Wellfleet.

The Camp Wellfleet area is labeled as a formerly used defense site (FUDS), according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers documentation.

"Munitions and explosives of concern (MEC) may remain within the project area," according to a Corps of Engineers site history.

In 2011, a 1,000-pound World War II training bomb, described as "dummy ordnance" was found in the former Camp Wellfleet area and detonated as a precaution, according to a Cape Cod Times story.

Details of a 2022 proposed mitigation plan for the area can be viewed on the U.S, Army Corps of Engineers website.

Eric Williams, when not solving Curious Cape Cod mysteries, writes about a variety of ways to enjoy the Cape, the weather, wildlife and other subjects. Contact him at ewilliams@capecodonline.com. Follow him on X: @capecast.

Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Cape Cod Times subscription.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Drone plane fuselage from old Army camp found on Cape Cod beach