Buried Jeeps

I am always hearing story's from various peole that when the Yanks left at the end of the war that they disposed of numerous vehicles and equipment by digging great big holes and burying them. The storys come from various people and have included the owner of an airfield (Upottery as in Band of Brothers) that there are 50 buried Jeeps on his land, a farmer in Devon who said he saw the Yanks digging a great big hole and burying all their equipment before they left, then blowing up the bulldozers they used to fill in the hole, to an article in the Telegraph (about 20 years ago) about a bloke who dug up a Harley in a crate in a field and then found several more nearby. Another chap told me that outside Plymouth a farmer when ploughing kept turning up Jeep parts - hoods, windscreens, all totally rotted of course.

An old boy that i knew who rented a workshop on an WW2 airfield said that when they were putting in trenches that they found what they thought were coffins, but which later turned out to be crates full of Pratt and Witney aero engine tools, all wrapped up in Cosmoline and like new (i beleive this guy). I remember at Stoneleigh years ago there was a chap with buckets full of rusty US cutlery that he said that he dug up from an old US camp.

I know the yanks abandoned or destroyed a great deal of equipment at the end of the war, but has anybody ever found anything them selves to verify this sort of story.

The idea of finding a Jeep in a crate buried is exciting, but totally fanciful i think. Even with the best packaging in the world, a Jeep would have suffered badly. A box of tools you might be ok with, depending on what the water table was like. Some locations things would survive better than others.

Dunkeswell does have a small museum and someone i spoke to their years ago was convinced of the existence of these mythical buried Jeeps and thought that he knew where they would be. I am still waiting to hear of his success.

Uppottery airfields just been sold at auction, maybe the new owner could be asked, never know they might have an interest themselves

Interesting topic GWT, I know that a French farmer was ploughing when he smashed into something very hard with the plough, he found later that he had ploughed up a Sherman. 8) If only I would have dug up a Sherman........

Mick.

If only you could plough up a Tiger

Maybe they hoped to get a crop of new Jeeps growing?

These places do exist, but probably not as common as the myth might suggest. I've personnally followed up quite a few of these stories over the years and only in two cases have I found evidence to suggest there might be substantial numbers of rusty bits underground. One case was at an ex Yank site in the North of England which was associated with a camp which supervised substantial bomb dumps in the neighbourhood. And no, no matter how good the metal detector signals are, I am not sticking a spade into ground which I know was somwhere near a bomb dump. : ) Another site in Devon turned up masses of signals over a huge area. Some very substantial suggesting tank size metal objects. A few small excavations turned up too much live unstable ordnance for comfort! In amongst a lot of very rusty personal and small unrecognisable equipment. Dreams of Harleys in packing cases are just dreams. And before you ask, no I wont tell you where the site in Devon is - find your own! : ) : )

"If only you could plough up a Tiger "

Well the latest issue of Classic Military Vehicle Magazine ((June 2006) has a report of a Tiger, five Shermans, a Panther and other Soviet tanks being recoved from a bog on an abandoned tank range near Moscow in 1973, and what with the Panzer III and T-34 recoveries, I'm sure these won't be the last.

I spent a few year at Gutersloh, a German night fighter base, there was a room full of machine guns and aircraft parts that where found buried on the airfield, although i think most of them had been bulldozed into a crater and filled in. Some nice items...

It's apparently been proven that there are late-WW2 german aircraft under Berlin airport in bunkers. Apparently their fuelled and bombed up ready to go, so i'm guessing they're too risky to be moved, although they'd be worth millions on the warbird market (just look at how much the repro Me 262's sold for!)

How much did the repro 262 sell for?

There's five of them altogether, the baseline was two million dollars but they expected that it would rise (doesn't every estimate!) so not sure, the website for the project is here

http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html

Thanks for the link.

I see Morris Light Recce car under your message, have you got a photo?

A veteran from the 43rd I knew fought in 1.

Not a Morris - but a Humber marked in 43rd Inf. Div markings. Did you veteran drive one of these. Was he in the Recce Corps / RAC or perhaps in the REs which also used the Morris Light Recce?

He was in 43 Recce, Able 3 Charlie to be precise.

During training he had a Humber Light car. No Morris as I thought.

In Normandy he also was in a LRC (Light Recce Car) which was knocked out, he manned the Bren.

I'll have to re-read his memoires to be sure if that was a Humber.

Got a whole website about the Morris LRC here http://www.freewebs.com/morris-recce/index.htm it needs updating though, got a gallery of Morris LRC pics here as well http://community.webshots.com/user/morrislrc if you're friend is interested in getting up and close to either LRC, the RAF Museum have a nice Humber LRC in desert camo, and the Tank Museum will let you into their Morris LRC (Was planning to but couldn't get there in the end)

Does anyone know where the above Humber LRC comes from/ owner??? would be nice to see some more pictures......

As few of you know, me and a few

http://www.longforgotten.co.uk

Like to squeeze ourselves where we dont belong!

and Alas i have have heard many many storys of buried this that and the other! hidden tunnels 500miles long and the 200 sherman tanks gift wrapped in a bunker.

But have to come across any,

Field place in Durrington, sussex is the same, a so called convoy of harleys buried! but alas no record of tunnels! and in post War times i dont think they would bury the things!

Im not sure how far most fables go... but i have been in WW2 places that most never knew existed and walked over i have never come across anything like, and we have opened alot of the sites

In classic car circles there was the tale from when Rolls Royce took over Bentley. When the factory site was being cleared the surplus Bently parts were put into the inspection pits and concreted over. Some years back a group of enthusiasts found the location and dug it up, true enough loads of rare parts were found but had suffered from 60+ years in concrete :!:

So, some of the stories are true but which ones :?:

Paul.

Hi all,

it was (and i belive still is ) very common for military gear to be buried on ite rather than transport it back home.

Ford i belive offered to make military vehicles for the U.S. and its allies stating that if it was sent overseas it should not return home (hence the number of U.S. vehicles in Europe after the war (he didn`t want the post war market to be flooded with secondhand vehicles when he could produce new !!!)

I was on site in Roberts barracke in Osnabruck (Germany) when foundations being dug they unearthed all sorts of WW2 field gear,helmets, guns, etc in the early seventies.

I also heared that after the first Iraq war the americans buried 1200 tanks rather than go through the hassle than transporting them home.

These activities did happen but how frequently who can tell :roll: :roll:

Ashley

Got a whole website about the Morris LRC here http://www.freewebs.com/morris-recce/index.htm it needs updating though, got a gallery of Morris LRC pics here as well http://community.webshots.com/user/morrislrc if you're friend is interested in getting up and close to either LRC, the RAF Museum have a nice Humber LRC in desert camo, and the Tank Museum will let you into their Morris LRC (Was planning to but couldn't get there in the end)

Unfortunately the Recce I knew passed away last year.

Fred Sylvester, Rest In Peace my friend.

My new office is built on the remains of an old car factory. When they were clearing the site a bulldozer dissapeared down a hole in the ground and landed on a large pile of Morris Minor body parts. When they stopped making them they dumped all these body panels in a cellar and forgot about them. They ahd suffered quite badly, but i dont know if any were salvaged.

Another story i know to be true because i have seen the photos and the surviving parts relate to WW1 Leyland trucks. When they stopped making the trucks they were left with a large number of bonnets and side panels which they placed under the floor of an office at the Leyland factory. When this part of the factory was demolished the panels were recovered and given to Mike Sutcliffe (Mr Leyland) who has used them in his restorations.

Now all i need to do is dig up the floor of the Dennis factory in Guildford which is now a Weatherspoons pub.

Tim (too)

With out doubt, equipment was dumped and there is a great of evidence to proof it so much so that you can actually dive the equipment dumps in the Pacific left by the US after the war.

Have you heard of Million Dollar Point?

Have a look here :cry: :cry:

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/10/million_point.php

and one of my favourite site

http://www.pacificwrecks.com

With out doubt, equipment was dumped and there is a great of evidence to proof it so much so that you can actually dive the equipment dumps in the Pacific left by the US after the war.

And sometimes you don't even need diving equipment! See Pacific Junkyards.

Hanno

A bit closer to home

http://www.cckw.org/salvage2.htm

No wonder its hard to get bits sometimes, thay have them all :twisted: