I recently discovered a source online for WWII pilots has vanished:
Some of the information there I found valuable in research. I wanted to try and corroborate it with other sources and use the site as a launching pad for that research.
Where might be the best place to go to get a cached version of the site?
For some time, you should be able to retrieve the pages from Google's cache. Here are the steps:
Run the query site:planesandpilotsofww2.totalh.com + whatever terms you think will help you find the page in question.
Hover over the arrows to the right of the result to get the preview to load
In the preview, click on the "cached" link
Save the page offline!
The Internet Archive runs a service that keeps records of websites over time and can record snapshots of the Web that goes back pretty far. I've seen sites go back as far as 7 or 8 years, but they may go farther.
The Wayback Machine may not really be helpful if the website was connected to a database, since it's highly unlikely that a specific URI was both mapped to the query exactly and also cached and recorded by the Wayback Machine. This resource works best for static resources.
I see this as a last resort. Luckily, Kylie located the site on another domain, either that or you typed .com when the domain is really suffixed with .net.
At any rate, the Wayback Machine could possibly come in handy, but not likely, as even in this case, the Wayback Machine has no information about that site, until now, since I visited it and caused it to take a snapshot. :)
It looks like the url you listed is broken but the rest of the site is still up. http://www.planesandpilotsofww2.totalh.net/panama/index.htm
Hopefully what you need is still there. There is also a contact form so you may be able to make contact and find out about their primary sources and report the link which isn't working. http://planesandpilotsofww2.webs.com/contact.htm
It seems that the information you were seeking VI BOMBER COMMAND IN DEFENSE OF THE PANAMA CANAL 1941 - 45 is now available again with a switch from .com to .net
