History Buried Treasure? WWII Spitfires o/t

The Spitfires buried in Burma story is probably true. RAF & RAAF buried planes. It is still being done, retired F-111 airframes being buried.

 

You'll need to some time on Google, but I'm fairly sure there are 109's still on the ***embly line. The factory was underground and we managed to cave in the place. Bob

 

Lol I was thinking the same thing!!!
Holy balls how cool is this story,I hope they are in good shape!!!!

 

Because you don't want any upstart Military leaders in those countrys to be left with a usable squadron of new fighter aircraft? LoL

Whatever...the burying of war materials after WW2 all over the globe is fact.
Personally, I would have run a dozer over and thru the crates...but maybe it was all done by manpower...who knows!
Maybe someone asked Churchill and HE said to bury them...

They made a lot of hasty decisions back then...look at how the powers disposed of nerve gas etc after the war if you really want your toes to curl!!!

 

I can confirm that, there was wholesale dumping off the Australian coast after WW2. it related to the lend/lease contract Australia had with theUS. Something along the lines of if australia kept them, we would have had to pay the US for them, but of we dumped them we didnt need to pay. There are some dive sites in Queensland if memory serves me right were you can dive on the equipment, others were dumped further out

 

I remember watching a show where it showed the US army shoving equipment off a ship after a war.

 

I've never seen a Spitfire but I can tell you I have seen L19 Bird Dog observation planes that were crated for Korea on a guess the crates are 6 feet wide 8 feet high and around 18 long. the wings and landing gear are taken off ,The plane is set down on padded cradles one being right where the landing gear bolts on, there are cables that connect to eye bolts where the wings bolt on and these are crossed front to back on both sides of the plane and tightened down there are also short cables attached at the tail. The wings are stood on the leading edge in padded cradles along both sides of the plane. The prop is off the engine. The engine has some kind of thick oil in it and the plane is covered in some kind of grease or oil I do not know it this is cosmoline or not having no military background. there were 8 of these planes delivered to a surplus dealer here along with 6 T33 Shooting Star jets the L19s had US and Korean markings and the guages were marked in both. I know they were untouched "War Surplus" because the Morphine capsules were still in the included first aid kits over the left side window. this same place now has 3 or 4 Beechcraft military planes sitting rotting. I hope I got the names right the ones I say were L19s look sort of like a piper cub this is what I was told they were I know the T33s are correct. there are still T33s hulk there. There are also some of the MASH type Bell helicopters in a closed up shed.

 

Those Rolls engines are wicked! With luck, the story will be true. By the way: Who footed the bill on all the equipment that was buried, burned, tossed, ect? Yes, the tax payer's...........the more thing's change, the more they stay the same.

 

The beautiful designs of these birds is truly as infectious as cars. This is one facet of life that I have missed, I always wanted to get a pilot's license and I just never got there.

 

I don't know about any Model A that was buried - how about the '57 Plymouth Belvedere that was put in the time capsule and uneathed a while back?

http://www.unburiedcar.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/unburied_car.pdf

 

as someone mentioned...after WWII....they shoved mucho planes - tanks - jeeps and what ever off those aircraft carriers.....hope this find goes well...

 

Rumor has it, after WWII the US buried a lot of surplus around Townsville here in Q'ld, including crate Harley Davidsons etc. No one has ever located them so far.

 

This Aussie was buried with his Spitfire and only recently found

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...ound-69-years-on/story-e6frg6nf-1226207505838

 

This guy found a HARLEY

 

The loses of equipment during WW2 stagger the mind. The US lost about 45,000 aircraft!!! Total aircraft loses of all combatant nations was around 150,000. How many ships sunk,10,000? Never mind the 50 millions souls lost.
By 1945 the jet age had begun.Other than the latest heavy bombers and a few select fighter aircraft,all the rest was obsolete.
And what condition is a buried aluminum plane is a damp jungle? Combat planes back then had a very short life and were made with little to no corrosion protection.

 

Anybody know if the Griffon powered Spits used wooden props too?

 

This just makes me want to cry, the Glorious Pig does not deserve this as an end!!

This same story pops up every few years, somewhat more often now there is the internet!! There are a couple of the same type of stories of different aircraft types, even some that include old airstrips in the top end of Australia and MK8 spitfires, Beaufighters, p-40s.
Basically you name it, if it is a desirable aircraft type there is a story about them buried somewhere.
The basis for this particular story is the fact that MK14 Spitfires were delivered to Burma too late to see combat and never saw service. The eventual end of these aircraft was not recorded. Sound strange? Well just try and track them down! Lots of people have tried!!

Doc.

PS: The Mk14 Spits had metal props, variable pitch for better performance at higher al***udes, they were five bladed Rotol propeller of 10 ft 5 in Dia.

 

Here is my guess.

The story is true, the planes will be unearthed......and every one will be a worthless hunk of ****.


I am reminded of this story:
http://www.allpar.com/history/auto-shows/time-capsule.html

 

cool story... it has my HAMB approval!

 

Spitfires being un-crated, Malta, WWII (for those dis-believing that airplanes were shipped in crates)

 

The old man called it the Million Dollar Reef!! He said anything that was loose was tossed overboard..Saw it happen when he was coming back from Okinawa in Sep 45'

Bill

 

I wish someone would dig up pattons tanks out at Imperial sand dunes. Then I could stop thinking about finding them...

 

Beginning in 1992 there were untold numbers of vehicles and tanks taken out of Germany that were cleaned up and sunk as artificial reefs. My own M60 is probably sitting in the ocean somewhere....

 

That buried Harley will buff right out. I recall after the Vietnam war seeing helicoptors pushed over the sides of aircraft carriers. Hell, its only tax payers money, plenty more where that came from

 

ok guys I dont know if those planes are there or not here is what i have personally witnessed 1967 while in the corps we provided security to remove from storage and load small arms for severall thousand men that were stored in 1945 when the war ended. they were loaded on an old ship and sunk. lest any of this is cl***ified pm me for details and wittnesses.as a govt.contract employee I have wittnessed burial disposal of all kinds of goodies. any one that doubts that these events did occur on a regular basis just visit any town near any large military depot ****nals and talk with the old timers or surplus dealers and they will verify this. P.S. one of Ed Roths favorite shopping places for neat stuff was aircraft sircraft surplus yards.

 

No idea on the Spitfires,but there ARE B-17's buried in central Florida...
The Sebring racetrack was originally a WWII bomber base. During my time there in the 80's some college group showed up to do archeological digs on 'indian burial mounds' on a cattle ranch nearby. Yep,seems that wartime wrecks were thoroughly salvaged and promptly buried.Don't think they ever turned up an arrowhead...

On a related note, a couple of 'new in the crate' WWI fighters showed up
next door last month.

 

There is a WWII tank on a local beach that was used for erosion control, who knows when. The turret came back into view a couple of years back after a pretty bad nor-easter.

Bob

 

I heard about this from an FAA inspector last week, I thought he was pulling my leg.

It would be awesome to get those back either stateside or back to England and airworthy again.

John

 

There were several thousand men
in storage since 1945....and you
help to load them all onto a ship
that was then sailed out into the
ocean and sunk???!!! Oh, the
humanity!!!

Mart3406
==========

 

we would probably be thrown in jail, because we endangered the Milkweed!!...my pop use to tell me stories about all the **** that was dumped out there..he did find a nice Dummy bomb, and some 50cal bullets..i cant believe he left the bomb out there...it was cool..