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Buried Spitfires In Burma & Hitler's Gold

After WW2, there were an awful lot of spare, but otherwise good aircraft & parts. The Southern Irish Government flew a few twin seater spitfires for a few years for, (I think), fishery protection, aircraft & spares were almost free.... Likewise a few people who had the money, (& most didn't) flew spitfires as private aircraft!!!!

It's not inconceivable that any number of WW2 aircraft were just dumped in the late 40's.

After all, a great number semed to have ended up gracing the gates of airfields. At least, until the Battle of Britain Flight, wanted them for spare parts.... Now they are replaced with glass fiber replicas!!!!!!

During WW2, crashed planes & their crews, were often only imperfectly recovered, (a leg in a weighted coffin etc.), as there was little time to do a decent job. This was illustrated a few years ago, when a team excavating a crashed WW plane found the pilot inside, even though he was supposedly buried in a war grave, on a different site!!!!!
 
Oh errr... i dont think anyone digging this one up would have to contend with the pilot still being in it...only maybe death from Sarin nerve gas..........................................oops
 
You can still find the remains of aircraft that crashed in Snowdownia and I daresay other mountainous regions. Basically it was too much trouble to get the wreakage of the mountains so you can still find old wings and engines and such like.
 
The "Time Team" Spitfire dig was in France. The plane was shot down in one of the first RAF engagements of WW2 (it was the pilot's first combat mission) and crashed nose first. The pilot's body was pulled out of the plane and buried by the locals in 1939. There's not much recognisable left of the plane - the impact compressed the whole fuselage into a lump of scrap about a quarter of the length it was before. The Dig did find a few personal effects of pilot and these were returned to his family.
 
thanks mr Chopper... perhase ill get me spade out and go digging... ( i was writeing another (!) book and wanted to know about some crashed ww2 planes in this area too so itll be usefull).. And So many Spitfires around the world!.. i understand that some were used in the Korean war to practice jet combat aginst slower planes. So they were areound a long time.. And capable of Mac0.98 in a dive too!....
 
finally the fools at channel 4 got back to me on an email i sent regarding this thread a few months ago. this is from a link they sent to me.

REEDHAM MARSHES, NORFOLK
21 February 1999

In February 1944, two American 'Flying Fortresses' crashed into each other only a few miles from their home base, on their way back from a bombing raid over Germany. One of the aircraft tumbled into in a marsh at Reedham in Norfolk – killing all 10 of the crew – and gradually became buried in the peat. The incident was forgotten until a group of aviation enthusiasts attempted to raise the 30-ton plane in the 1970s. Three decades later, their leader contacted Time Team who, on their arrival, were faced with excavation techniques that were like nothing they had experienced before.



Teaser
Hundreds of these items were found during the excavation of the World War II bomber from Reedham Marshes in Norfolk. They are also frequently casually picked up by passers-by and become knick-knacks on mantelshelves. What are they and is this a good idea? (Photo: Mick Aston)

Answer
These are bullets from the machine guns of the B-17 'Flying Fortress' that crashed in Reedham Marshes. According to the RAF bomb disposal squad – and contrary to popular opinion – most of this ammunition is 'live' and still capable of injuring (or worse) anyone handling it. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said that the police are, unfortunately, quite familiar with horrendous accidents that have occurred when war-time ammunition, having become corroded, exploded without warning. So if you have any 'antique' bullets such as these, or come across them in or on the ground, DO NOT TOUCH THEM AND CONTACT THE POLICE IMMEDIATELY.



What might have happened? Animated reconstruction by Steve Breeze.

Further Reading

The B-17 Flying Fortress Story: Design, production, history by Roger. A Freeman and David R Osbourne (Arms & Armour Press, 1998, hardback £35.00)
Operational histories of the 12,731 B-17s that flew in World War II, including the aircraft that crashed at Reedham. The evolution, testing, and performance of the aeroplane are also covered.

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress by Martin W Bowman (Crowood Press, 1998, hardback £25.00)
A detailed examination of the design, development and operational career of the Flying Fortress, from its earliest beginnings through its seven major variants.

Claims to Fame: The B-17 Flying Fortress by Steve Birdsall and Roger. A Freeman (Arms & Armour Press, 1997, paperback £10.99)
The B-17 Flying Fortress was the most successful bomber in World War II and was held in great affection by its crews. Its claims to fame include the most missions flown, the shortest operational life, famous crew members, and the most damaged aircraft.

Final Flights: Dramatic wartime incidents revealed by aviation archaeology by Ian McLachlan (Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1989, hardback £14.95)
An account of the salvage of various aircraft crash sites in England by aircraft enthusiasts, as well as the stories behind the crashes. Although narrative sometimes triumphs over fact, everything is based on true stories that no fiction can match.

Twentieth-Century Defences in Britain: An introductory guide (Council for British Archaeology Practical Handbook in Archaeology 12)
The CBA's Defence of Britain project aims to record as many as possible of 20th-century military sites and structures. This is an illustrated handbook providing an introduction to the recognition and interpretation of Britain's wartime archaeology.

Those interested in historical aviation may be interested in joining the Airfield Research Group. Contact: John Nichols, 220 Woodland Avenue, Hutton, Brentwood, Essex CM13 1DA.
 
Hmm - the Spitfire story is a little odd. It assumes that as soon as WW2 was over, the Spitfire was no longer used. It did see service post-war, despite being supplanted by jets. The Israelis used them, for one.
 
Major Kraut said:
I find this highly likely as there is a large amount of Russian surplus and some some Russian captured German equipment on the collector's market here in the States now.
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And this of course leads to today's conspiracy theories about the New World Order storing Russian equipment in anticipation of taking over the United States, complete with photos of the scrap yard with a bunch of old trucks and other equipment with the Red Star.
 
The Spitfire thing sounds very similar to the railway story about the Strategic Reserve. Apparently a great many steam engines, when they were withdrawn from service, never arrived at the scrapyards. The theoryis that they've been stashed somewhere in case of emergencies that affect the oil supply.
 
JurekB said:
You can still find the remains of aircraft that crashed in Snowdownia and I daresay other mountainous regions. Basically it was too much trouble to get the wreakage of the mountains so you can still find old wings and engines and such like.
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The hills around Lochnagar are covered with them. I've walked around a Mosquito and a Fulmar up there. Lots of bits of the Fulmar,but most of the Mosquito probably burned up.
 
There was a programme on five last week, "Hitler Of The Andes" claiming Hitler could have escaped Germany in a captured Spitfire, as the Allies would not have realised.

Also a few years ago I read an interview with The Cure explaining what they were going to do with all their surplus cash. One idea was to buy a village in Cornwall, but another sounded a bit UL. They claimed to have a military-produced map of the English Channel showing islands that aren't recorded on ordinary maps in the Channel Islands. Apparently these islands were full of military personnel during WWII and have been abandoned for years.
Living in Jersey, and were fishing is still a large industry, this is the only time I've heard this. Then again, knowing The Cure, they were probably looking at something completely different!
 
Unless they'd misconstrued the events on Alderney, which was evacuated by its civilian population during the war and inhabited by German personnel . . .

Carole
 
Fully armed Nazi bomber planes 'buried below East Berlin air

From Tuesday's Scotsman
AN AIRPORT used by hundreds of thousands of tourists and business travellers each year could be sitting on top of thousands of live bombs.

Papers among thousands of files captured from the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, claim tons of live Second World War munitions were buried in concrete bunkers beneath the runways of Schoenefeld airport in East Berlin. It is now the main destination for discount airlines, such as Ryanair, and numerous charter companies.

Not only did the commissars intern munitions beneath the runways, but also entire Nazi fighter planes, all fuelled and fully bombed-up, according to the Stasi.

The captured files of Interflug, the former East German government airline and the airport authority of the DDR, are now being examined to see if the Stasi claim is true.

Experts believe it entirely feasible that, in the aftermath of the Second World War, with Berlin littered with millions of tons of unexploded ordnance, the Soviets could well have pressured local officials to move to clear the airfield as swiftly as possible.

"They would have stuffed them anywhere they could - there was simply too much stuff to blow up all at once," said Karl-Heinz Eckhardt, a Berlin historian. "There was a warren of massive Nazi bunkers beneath the site of the present airport that would have suited their purposes."
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:eek!!!!:
 
The Spitfire story reminds me of something I read a while ago about American GIs burying loads of supplies in, I think, Savernake Forest near Marlborough, Wiltshire, when they were sent home after the end of WWII. Supposedly this included loads of Jeeps. But a check search on Google didn't throw anything up, so I can't verify the story.

The Steam Engines that Inverurie Jones mentions were supposedly stored in Box Tunnel: if you go through the tunnel on a train and look in the right place you can see tracks leading off the main Swindon-Bristol railway line and disappearing through an iron door.... I have a friend who has been in there and he say he never saw any steam trains. What he did see, and why he was there, he isn't telling - Official Secrets Act!
 
I worked for a while for a railway maintenance company, and had to sign the OSA. Lots of tunnels have sidings and sub-tunnels built into them, apparently.
 
Prospect said:
The Steam Engines that Inverurie Jones mentions were supposedly stored in Box Tunnel: if you go through the tunnel on a train and look in the right place you can see tracks leading off the main Swindon-Bristol railway line and disappearing through an iron door.... I have a friend who has been in there and he say he never saw any steam trains. What he did see, and why he was there, he isn't telling - Official Secrets Act!
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The complex at Box Tunnel is codenamed TURNSTILE and was an evacuation center for the government in the event of nuclear war. I think its been abandoned now. I think I read about it in "The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War" by Peter Hennessy
 
Nazi warships resurface in Serbia
THE wreckage of sunken Nazi warships has resurfaced along a stretch of the Danube River in eastern Serbia after the waterway receded to an unprecedented low amid a heat wave and drought.

The rusty 60-year-old remnants of several warships, believed parts of Germany's Black Sea Fleet, have begun protruding in recent days above the surface of the normally wide and deep river near the eastern Serbian town of Prahovo, 180km east of the capital, Belgrade.
In the stretch where the ships have surfaced, the river has fallen to barely 3 metres from its normal level of 15 metres, as Europe experiences one of its worst heat waves in decades.

"The Danube is at its lowest level since records began here in 1888," Srdja Popovic, an environment official in the Serbian government, said today.

The lower water level has also hampered navigation.

The vessels are believed to have been deliberately blown up by retreating German troops who wanted to hamper the movement of Soviet forces in the final stages of World War II.
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For some reason, FT's Breaking News has given the Scotsman link for buried a/c in Berlin (see Niles' post above) again today - a month late!

Did they think we wouldn't notice? :rolleyes:
 
Nazi Planes and Bombs buried under airport?

I knew I saw something like this recently: here is a story from the New Scotsman about Nazi aircraft and bombs being buried under an East Berlin airport used by 2 million people a year:

Link to Buried Airplane Story

Second Link to New Scotsman article

If this is true, all I can say is "Oy, gevalt!" Buried "treasure" with booby-traps worthy of an Indiana Jones movie. Come to think of it, great ending scene for a sequel: blow up a massive European airport complex after Indiana Jones finds the Nazi Hoard containing Ekekiel's Wheel (a giant alien mothership).

Copyright on this idea asserted by littleblackduck, August 21, 2003. Mr. Beatty can contact me via the Fortean Times webmaster. I'll keep an eye ope' for those buckets of Hollywood gelt.
 
Whilst in the RAF, I did three "tours" (nine years) at RAF Gutersloh in Germany. The Yanks took the airfield during the last push at the end of the war, and much of the German equipment was just buried where it stood.

Once, while working in the Hydraulic Bay, I was idly looking out of the window at a german workman who was digging a trench beneath it, when he pulled out a machine gun complete with tripod and belted ammunition! Occaisionally, an unexploded bomb or a cache of explosive material would be unearthed, which had to be destroyed by a controlled explosion.

Interestingly, the Luftwaffe airfield at Gutersloh could be flooded, giving it the appearance of a lake to allied spotters - sneaky or what?

Also, whilst on the subject of Gutersloh, a room in the Officers Mess has a trick ceiling. at the press of a button, one of the wooden ceiling beams falls down at an alarming angle. Apparantly, this was installed by Hermann Goering, who was an incorrageable practical joker, and would activate it whilst chatting to people in his office.
 
There is an area of Chilbolton Down in Hampshire near where my parents used to live that has actually been known as Spitfire Dump since the war. The area was used by the Allies, and the remains of buildings and concrete runways still exist there. The story goes that when the US troops pulled out, all the leftover equipment ect. was used as backfill for the large empty underground aviation fuel tanks, including Jeeps and Harley's, as it was considered uneconomical to ship them back. If it's true, I expect anything would have been ruined by groundwater years ago. It would seem to be a pretty good example for anyone who wanted to prove the veracity of the UL, though.

Here's an arial photo, where the runways can be clearly seen.
Multimap arial photo- Spitfire Dump, Chilbolton

And here is is on the map.
It's the green area around the parking symbol.
Spitfire Dump on Multimap
 
Hurrah, a chance to add to one of our more intersting threads. Not quite buried, and a hurricine not a spitfire, but interesting nonetheless.


Dig to find crashed WWII plane

A team of diggers are planning to hunt for a World War II fighter plane which crashed after downing a Nazi bomber near Buckingham Palace.
Pilot Ray Holmes ran out of ammunition so flew his Hurricane into the German Dornier on 15 September 1940.

He managed to use his aircraft to slice off the bomber's tail and he bailed out before his plane hit Buckingham Palace Road at the junction with Ebury Bridge.

A team will be filmed live as they try to find the plane's shell on Sunday.

If they succeed, it will go on display as part of Westminster's West End at War weekend on 12 and 13 June.

But the team are not expecting to find it resembles the plane much - it hit the ground at about 350 miles an hour.

Bomber 'heading for palace'

It is thought the German bomber may have been on a mission to destroy Buckingham Palace.

Footage of the crash survives and will be broadcast on a giant screen in Leicester Square during the weekend of events.

Mr Holmes, now 89, has been interviewed for a documentary by Channel 5, which is also broadcasting the dig live on Sunday night.

Tim Owen, from Westminster City Council, said: "Westminster Council has pulled out all the stops to facilitate this historic excavation."

But he added there would be some traffic disruption, with diversions around Ebury Bridge.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3760097.stm
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all the d day hoha reminds me of a story told me but and old guy. He was a kid in Falmouth in the war and saw the Americans loading up trucks , tanks, jeeps etc on to LCT's (landing craft tank).. he said the morning they departed they tried each vehicul on board the boat...and if they didnt start forst time, just pushed them straight in the bay, to reload something more reliable!.... rather funny too that everyone knew the date of D-day here...one day every road and field was coverd in stuff the next it was gon.
 
WWII hero's lost Hurricane found
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3762715.stm

The engine and control panel of a World War II Hurricane that crashed near Buckingham Palace after destroying a Luftwaffe bomber has been found.

A digging team spent Sunday excavating a site in Westminster, where they discovered the plane's firing button.

During the Battle of Britain, pilot Ray Holmes, now 89, ran out of ammunition so he flew his Hurricane into a German Dornier bomber on 15 September 1940.

He used his aircraft to slice off the bomber's tail before bailing out.
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sjwk said:
WWII hero's lost Hurricane found
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I watched the program about this on Channel 5. Pretty good but as so often spoiled by over-excited presenters.
 
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