Hey, it wasn't us!!! For once. Though P 40ies were good target practice for a Me 109 F.
Carlo raises a good point. There is probably more valid reason for this plane to be kept by the country it crashed in (was it Egypt?) than there are reasons for all the ancient egyptian stuff to remain in Western museums. I know the arguments: Valid contracts of the time (but often negotiated from a position of strength and not disclosing the full findings or concluded in corrupt circumstances), we take better care of the artefacts or that they have enough own stuff still. But I find the situation inherently colonial and I'm not sure whether the US (named here as a graphic example only and surely not the worst offender as regards abducting Egytian artefacts, that is the Old World, especially London, Paris and Berlin) would take too kindly to those type of arguments if the original documents of the Constitution were on display in Cairo after a corrupt American administration had sold them to Egyptian archeologists/historians. Think about it. I believe most of that stuff should be returned/permanently loaned to the countries of its origin (well, perhaps not Afghanistan after what they did to those Buddha statues!).
