Search for ‘buried Spitfires’ in Burma called off

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Archaeologists have called off a hunt for World War II Spitfires in Burma.

Originally it was thought as many as 124 Spitfires were buried by the RAF at the end of the war but they have now concluded it was a myth.

A dig at the international airport near the city of Rangoon, which used to be RAF Mingaladon, has drawn a blank.

The project was financed by Wargaming Ltd, who have said they believe the story about Spitfires being delivered in crates and then buried was not true.

Tracy Spaight, Wargaming's director of special projects, said: "No-one would have been more delighted than our team had we found Spitfires.

"We knew the risks going in, as our team had spent many weeks in the archives and had not found any evidence to support the claim of buried Spitfires."

**LINK**

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Well, I know of at least two sites in Australia where there are loads of 1942 military Harley-Davidsons buried, all wrapped in Cosmoline, still in their crates. The Yanks used them to fill in the swamps so they could build aircraft runways over the top. Then at the end of the war when the Yank ships headed home, they simply heaved all the leftover crated Harleys over the side into the harbour.

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Yes, Ive heard about the bikes, Australia already had enough tractors so no need for them.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Tales like this are told of many ww2 military sites. Living in east anglia I have heard such tales about man air fields and some army bases. Much of the land was returned to agriculture. An acquaintance of mine worked on such land(RAF Massingham) and told of tools etc often being ploughed out on parts of the farm, giving credence to the stories of crated Merlins, vehicles, even air frames all being pushed into huge holes bulldozed in the ground. A friends father tells a similar tale of the american base at Snettisham beach, and there is circumstantial evidence to back this one.

A bit off topic may be but at this location 617 Squadron(dam Busters) lost F for Freddy in a tragic accident.

I worked on one farm to be told of munitions being dumped after the war, this I know to be true, I was shown the equipment to fire the rounds.

Might make an interesting job for time team or mythbusters ? Noel

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

If you want an amazing but true munitions story google for 'Linley Wood Tunnels'.

Neil

[Shane AlceParticipant @shanealce76482]

When i was an apprentice one of the toolmakers I worked with, who had been at Rolls Royce aero engines during the war, told the story that at the end of the war, rather than lay off the workforce, they continued to manufacture engines, pack them into export crates and store them . Eventually these crates were loaded onto flatbed rail waggons and taken to a disused quarry and buried ,where they are to this day….Now I wonder if he was spinning a yarn?

Shane

[FalcoParticipant @falco]

Off the coast of north Donegal a cargo ship with a load of motorcycles on board was holed by torpedo off Tory Island. during the last war. She managed to steam in to near the sandy coast on the mainland where in order to lighten her the bikes were ditched overboard. She was then beached, repaired and towed off again. I dont know whether she was American or British but I do have a few fuzzy photos of the ship coming in and going away again.

That sort of dumping went on all the time in many organisations other than the Forces. In southern Ireland the state peat-harvesting Body buried lots of Bultaco motorcycles that the worker used in the bog when they deemed they had outlived their usefulness. They also apparently buried some Porche tractors in the same way. I'm told the tractors were three cylinder jobs.

A car main-dealership (German) where a friend of mine worked in the 80's changed their range of special tools for their models. Some of their own mechanics tried to get the old ones but were refused. The company management stood over the workers while they welded these tools together to put them out of use!

Pity they wouldn't just give them to people who might treasure them.

John

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Oh, and I had forgotten about the Japanese submarine that sank off the Australian coast near Fraser Island in WW2. It contains tons and tons of very valuable mercury, used for balasting etc. But still had enough air trapped inside to have just less than neutral buoyancy. So, according to local scuba divers, they keep finding what they reckon is the hulk of the submarine in a tidal trench. But when they go back with salvage gear, it is never in the same place twice, sliding up and down various tidal trenches for miles underwater as the current flows between the island and the mainland. Apparently theyre is a network of criss-crossing underwater trenches out there so it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. But if a person could actually find, blimey that mercury would be worth a fortune…

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

During WW2 the RNZAF opperated on the same airstripsas the Americans on the Pacific Islands, with P-40's Corsairs' Hudsons, and Catalinas. The Yanks would dump an aircraft, often with some minor damage, our blokes would raid the dump site, bringe home the the goodies, rebuild one of ours, other wise it was a long trip back to NZ for a rebuild, the Americans didn't do rebuilds, but the RNZAF managed to keep a higher percentage of aircraft in the air, often only because of junked equipment.

I did hear of a number of DH Gypsy 10 engines being found in South Americain the late 1960s, not long after I left aircraft engineering. Ian S C

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

Just after the war ended during a family visit to Woburn Abbey, I asked my father what the large shiny pyramid shaped heap was that I could see in the distance.

He told me that it was an aircraft/airframe dump; they were brought to the heap in darkness in those long transport trailers [Queen Mary's? if I remember correctly] just because the factories couldn't be switched off without finding something else to occupy the huge army of people employed in them.

It was a big heap too, perhaps one of many

And on a visit to an war surplus place in Leighton Buzzard in the 1950's they were rolling suitcase size radio transmitter/receivers as ballast into the roadway leading to the place. Within the building irself I found a room filled floor to ceiling with aircraft compasses in their boxes, all sold to one buyer as announced on the piece of paper nailed to the door.

Brian

[Author]

Posts