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"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 know this thread was a while ago, but unearthing old things seems to be the main topic, 'fnarr'

Mantes-la-Jolie, France. A more or less complete, but wrecked, Tiger II (production turret) is buried under regional road 913. Parts of the turret were recovered in a limited exploratory excavation in 2001. Further excavation is currently halted for financial reasons. There are plans to fully excavate and restore this Tiger II for a Vexin battle memorial.[53]

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If only you could plough up a Tiger :D:D:D

 

France. A more or less complete, but wrecked, Tiger II (production turret) is buried under regional road 913. Parts of the turret were recovered in a limited exploratory excavation in 2001. Further excavation is currently halted for financial reasons. There are plans to fully excavate and restore this Tiger II for a Vexin battle memorial

 

Artist, i think if you are like me and 'resting' at the moment, we could go over and undercover of the night, remove the road and Tiger. What do you think?

 

Then we could write the screenplay for the movie-tie in while in a French prison. Or take the option for Foreign Legion service. I'll get me shovel.:cool2:

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Not strictly related to buried Jeeps but relevent to some of the subsequent posts, a mystery which has occupied me and a (small) number of like minded people fir years is what happened to two important railway cranes at the time of the fall of Singapore.

 

In the 1930s Ransomes and Rapier of Ipswich supplied two 100 ton capacity rail mounted cranes, at the time the largest built in Britain, to the military in Singapore. One was metre gauge (shown below) and one standard gauge, and they were amply photographed before despatch. One of the reasons for their supply was apparently to handle the guns being commissioned for the defence of Singapore.

 

It is believed that with the surrender imminent they were both shoved into the sea in order to deprive them to the Japanese invasion forces, but no-one seems to know. Were they blown up or dumped in the sea, and were they recovered by the Japanese. The latter seems unlikely as there is no postwar evidence that they reappeared anywhere.

 

These were massive cranes and it is surprising that they disappeared so completely. We have been unable to find any documented fate in any of the written material about the fall of Singapore.

 

In the unlikely event that anyone can shed light, please do - it would be fascinating to solve this puzzle!

 

 

 

pencil.png

EYOE 107t 002 (red).jpg

EYOE 107t 003 (red).jpg

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I was about to put this in the new thread but as this is about non tracked vehicles I chickened out and came here;)

 

When I was an engineering sprog I worked in the outbuildings of an old stately home just outside Dorking in surrey.

The club house for the company was yet another mansion where all the light switches (old bakalite round ones) were upside down.

 

One of the engineers was a local historian with a vast knowledge of , and collection of, WW2 related things.

 

He told me that the canadians were billeted in the houses (hence the upside down switches) and when they left they buried a large buick car and 2 chevrolet trucks full of kit in the grounds.

 

The buick turned up some years later when ground works were undertaken to put in a new car park, If the truck story is as true as the car they would still be were he showed me.....

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It's a shame it can't be x ref with the Sherman buried under a post office thread as your post links up with the Dorking tank burials and yes the switch thing is very believable -I remember having to re-do a house light switches because the lady of the house -from Toronto had persuaded her husband that the British method was wrong -building inspector not convinced nor impressed :wow:-happily the sockets were correctly positioned.

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your post links up with the Dorking tank burials

 

As the crow flies the tanks were less than a mile from where I worked, the local historian knew about those as well, not sure when they were recovered but he would have spoken to me about them around 1970/71

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Really interesting thread..does make you wonder!

 

I think the Plymouth connection as originally posted could be about the story/myth that has been circulating for donkeys years about a load of Jeeps buried in a farmers field somewhere around Kelly Bray which is a village a few miles outside of the city. Can anyone shed more light on this?! Ive always wondered!

 

I do remember when I was about 12 someone telling me there was a load of blown up Sherman parts dumped in a hedge on the edge of Dartmoor near the village of Bittaford..well off i pedaled on my bmx dreaming of finding a turret or a wheel or something only to discover a pile of rusty bits of farming impliments!! Oh well..dream shattered and only aching legs for my 12 mile round trip!!

Edited by extrogg
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Really interesting thread..does make you wonder!

 

I think the Plymouth connection as originally posted could be about the story/myth that has been circulating for donkeys years about a load of Jeeps buried in a farmers field somewhere around Kelly Bray which is a village a few miles outside of the city. Can anyone shed more light on this?! Ive always wondered!

 

I do remember when I was about 12 someone telling me there was a load of blown up Sherman parts dumped in a hedge on the edge of Dartmoor near the village of Bittaford..well off i pedaled on my bmx dreaming of finding a turret or a wheel or something only to discover a pile of rusty bits of farming impliments!! Oh well..dream shattered and only aching legs for my 12 mile round trip!!

 

There was a chap, who had supposedly found the site, where the metal had been collected during the WW2 scrap/salvage propoganda campaign, and buried somehwere on Dartmoor. This could feasibly have the WW1 tank which was on a plinth in Millbay, near the park. Although the whole would be a pile of rust by now.

 

Plenty of rumours of kit buried around Slapton, including bodies after the ill-fated Op. Tiger.

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Hiya - Interesting thread.. I have some info that could help (or not!)

 

I have a friend who works for the MOD in my dream job (although the money is bad!) Her job is working on the excavation and disposal of kit for the MOD. This ranges from buried wrecks to making bombs safe (well their finding - the bomb disposal people take over from there)

 

She has worked on all major American sites and airfields in the past. I was talking with her about kit left over and she said they come across a lot of 'debris' but never anything like complete ww2 vehicles.

 

She about a year ago was called to two airfields in South Devon as they had found a large amount of debris buried at the edge of the airfield. It turned out to be a large amount of large calibre rounds in cases. These were from the returning bombers/ aircraft where the munitions had developed faults and couldn't be fired. The airfields were Dukerswell and Smeatharp. They scanned the whole site and this was the only debris of any note found. She did hint at a listening station they may be called to in the near future also in South Devon - its still MOD property so theres been no access to the public.

 

Think the greatest task she has dealt with was the Harwell 'job' which they had to deal with radioactive waste in fire buckets buried under a infant school.

 

I quizzed her extensively and she insisted digging anything up from these sites were very dangerous.

 

Interestingly she then went on to tell me about the 10K german bomb in the road outside my current house! Apparently its safe and they don't see the need to remove it!! (I HOPE SHE WAS JOKING! BUT THE OLD LADY OPPOSITE REMEMBERS IT DROPPING!)

 

 

Hope that hasn't shattered any dreams of finding crated jeeps. I have enough problems with 'top hat sections' without 60 years plus of constant moisture!!

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stanleywindrush

I quizzed her extensively and she insisted digging anything up from these sites were very dangerous.

 

On old USAAF airfields a major danger is that a lot of kit was buried in pits used for burning unused chemical weapons stockpiles at the end of WW2 so the ground is very contaminated and probably the residue that is difficult even for the military to ID, digging around "cleared" military sites/airfields is likely to be dangerous but often the danger is insidious.

 

Steve

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Interestingly she then went on to tell me about the 10K german bomb in the road outside my current house! Apparently its safe and they don't see the need to remove it!! (I HOPE SHE WAS JOKING! BUT THE OLD LADY OPPOSITE REMEMBERS IT DROPPING!)

 

 

I once worked in North Acton in London and stayed in a house in Park View. My Landlady pointed out that the 2 houses opposite were destroyed during the Blitz and were rebuilt later and were exactly the same- just detail differences. However, my Landlady was still convinced that the Bomb had not exploded and was still under the road. Her Husband was in the ARP at the time of the incident.

Also, how many wartime Bombs have been found on the site of the new Olympic stadium in London?

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Also, how many wartime Bombs have been found on the site of the new Olympic stadium in London?

 

I don't know - have many been found ?

 

I thought most of the Olympic Stadium site was the former Stratford Loco Works and Stratford Loco Shed area, plus Temple Mills hump shunting yard, but I freely admit that it is an area I don't know well so may be wrong.

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There has only been 1 found so far, and that was just inside the perimeter fence. BAE Systems were employed to search the site before work started, they found nothing, but suspect that "2 or3 bombs" may still be buried. Most of the excavation work has been completed, so there is little chance of finding any UXBs

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  • 2 weeks later...

i'm lookling into a dump in norfolk where apparently jeeps and trucks were driven in and bulldozed over, the guy that told me was adamant it is there so i'm going to have a look with some detection equipment in the next week or so and i'll let you all know if anything comes of it.

 

eddy

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  • 1 month later...

Hello!

Some more resent examples from my own experience: When I was working as an chief officer sailing in Greenland the draft surweyor from DNV told me about the problems with trucks and equipment left by the americans after the cold war.

Apparantly a lot of the trucks were dumped into the water and was now concidered an enviromental risk.

thus it had landed on DNV:s table to make up plans for their recovery from the water. Wounder how it went?

 

Johan Erlandsson

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I don't know - have many been found ?

 

I thought most of the Olympic Stadium site was the former Stratford Loco Works and Stratford Loco Shed area, plus Temple Mills hump shunting yard, but I freely admit that it is an area I don't know well so may be wrong.

 

According to this site http://www.contaminatedland.co.uk/sere-dip/estd-uxb.htm#KEYWORD-THREE there are at least 73 known unexploded German bombs buried in England.

 

Benji

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There is a site just outside bristol that had lots of army surplus just after the war and you can find odd jeep bits still lying around on the floor. and there are other ww2 military vehicles there just rotting into the groung. Ie black mans chev, 12 cab chev, henschel wrecker, american radar trailer lots of gmc bodys axles and engines etc etc etc.

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  • 7 months later...

Buried things, when working at Elstree Aerodrome in the 70's, was told by the local sage. ''Don't do compass swings down there, 'they' buried a load of jeeps n stuff after the war'' Well we never had any problems with compasses.

 

Some years later, a Pickett-Hamilton Fort was dug up, (now in London Colney Aircraft Museum) .

 

From little acorns mighty oaks do grow, given enough time. Stories improve with the telling.

 

BillyH

Button stick, collar stud.

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At the end of the war my Uncle was stationed in Cairo and he was part responsible for the disposal of anything that was not considered worth taking to India. This involved digging pits in the desert and burying trucks and other equipment.

 

They had to mount a guard to stop the Egyptians digging it all up this of course meant that the locals knew exactly where it all was.

 

He then went to India and spent the rest of his time making sure that demobbed officers retired with the correct rank.

 

A friend of mine worked at the MOD dealing with enquiries from families of long departed soldiers as to what medals they were entitled to. In the fog of war many were forgotten and a few made sure that they were remembered more than maybe they should have been.

 

My Grandfather won the DFC in the First world war for shooting down Barrage Balloons over enemy lines whilst fighting with the Italians. This was awarded in 1919 as part of a cleaning up operation in order to make sure that all those who should have been given medals got theirs. Sadly his bravery went unrecognised as there is no citation just this blanket cover all.

 

He was almost court marshalled earlier on for flying over enemy lines in Belgium. At the beginning of the war it was considered too dangerous. This experience of being charged for an offence led him into the law so much so that in the second world war he was conscripted into the RAF to act as a defence council to poor airmen who had fallen foul.

 

He like me was called Dowding, not that one, but his younger brother!

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Not strictly related to buried Jeeps but relevent to some of the subsequent posts, a mystery which has occupied me and a (small) number of like minded people fir years is what happened to two important railway cranes at the time of the fall of Singapore.

 

In the 1930s Ransomes and Rapier of Ipswich supplied two 100 ton capacity rail mounted cranes, at the time the largest built in Britain, to the military in Singapore. One was metre gauge (shown below) and one standard gauge, and they were amply photographed before despatch. One of the reasons for their supply was apparently to handle the guns being commissioned for the defence of Singapore.

 

It is believed that with the surrender imminent they were both shoved into the sea in order to deprive them to the Japanese invasion forces, but no-one seems to know. Were they blown up or dumped in the sea, and were they recovered by the Japanese. The latter seems unlikely as there is no postwar evidence that they reappeared anywhere.

 

These were massive cranes and it is surprising that they disappeared so completely. We have been unable to find any documented fate in any of the written material about the fall of Singapore.

 

In the unlikely event that anyone can shed light, please do - it would be fascinating to solve this puzzle!

 

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40441[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]40442[/ATTACH]pencil.png

 

That will have needed a bloomin big hole to bury it ;-)

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Not strictly related to buried Jeeps but relevent to some of the subsequent posts, a mystery which has occupied me and a (small) number of like minded people fir years is what happened to two important railway cranes at the time of the fall of Singapore.

 

In the 1930s Ransomes and Rapier of Ipswich supplied two 100 ton capacity rail mounted cranes, at the time the largest built in Britain, to the military in Singapore. One was metre gauge (shown below) and one standard gauge, and they were amply photographed before despatch. One of the reasons for their supply was apparently to handle the guns being commissioned for the defence of Singapore.

 

It is believed that with the surrender imminent they were both shoved into the sea in order to deprive them to the Japanese invasion forces, but no-one seems to know. Were they blown up or dumped in the sea, and were they recovered by the Japanese. The latter seems unlikely as there is no postwar evidence that they reappeared anywhere.

 

These were massive cranes and it is surprising that they disappeared so completely. We have been unable to find any documented fate in any of the written material about the fall of Singapore.

 

In the unlikely event that anyone can shed light, please do - it would be fascinating to solve this puzzle!

 

 

 

pencil.png

 

That is an interesting mystery.

 

I cannot see that it would have been used to move around guns as I dont think there was any real attempt to upgrade the place before the Japanese came down through Malaya.

 

The main defensive position with 15 inch guns was in Johore (Malaysia as Singapore as a country did not exist at that point) Sentosa and I would not have thought the guys there big enough to warrant such a large crane also I have never seen a large enough rail system on the island. May have been a lot different back then. At several locations the artillery was pushed off the hill top positions into the ocean and quickly recovered by the Japanese.

 

I would suspect these were sent possibly to Singapore Naval Base at Sembawang (It was completed in 1939 at a staggering cost of £60 million[1] — equivalent to £2½ billion in 2006. The dock covered 21 square miles (54 km2) and had what was then the largest dry dock in the world, the third-largest floating dock, and enough fuel tanks to support the entire British Navy for six months.). Possibly to unload the guns

 

Interesting thing about Sembawang is a lot of old stuff still being used, modified etc so may be a good place to start if you can find some historical society.

 

maybe a starting place http://travel.nuraina.com/tumpat-train-station/

Edited by fesm_ndt
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Very interesting to see that my post/question about the R&R cranes has come back to life!

 

The cranes were without doubt primarily intended to service the 15" guns, and I do in fact have somewhere a photo of one of them adjacent to a 15" battery. The problem was, as usual with naval ordnance in land mountings, the enormous weight of the barrels and breeches when tube changes were needed. There are, alas, very few photos of the Singapore cranes especially actually in Singapore.

 

A similar problem handling tubes was found with the Kent coastal artillery, where once again steam breakdown cranes requisitioned from the railways were used. To perform a tube change on the 14" guns "Winnie" or "Pooh", or the 15" guns "Clem" and "Jane", no fewer than three steam cranes were needed, two at the breech end and one at the muzzle end. The cranes used were the largest (and most modern) railway cranes in the Britain at the time, with a 50-ton capacity.

 

Winnie and Pooh were BL 14"/45 Mk VII guns weighing approx 80 tons, whilst Clem and Jane, and the Singapore guns were BL 15"/43 Mk I guns weighing approx 100 tons (these weights are of course the barrel and breech alone and do not include the mounts). The problem of handling guns this heavy on shore at that time is easy to underestimate, especially nowadays when cranes of 1000-ton, 1200-ton capacity are widely available. In GB in 1939 the largest cranes capable of moving round the country were the railway breakdown cranes, and the largest of those were only of 50-ton nominal capacity.

 

It really was a huge problem, hence the reason for the construction of the two enormous cranes for Singapore.

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ahhhh confusion reigns........ Johore battery was on Singapore island not in Johor. The guns were paid for by the Sultan of Johor

 

Buona Vista had 15 inch also

 

Johor also had a battery but the size is not stated

 

http://victorkoo.blogspot.com/2010/11/old-singapore-quiz-20-yet-another-old_29.html

Edited by fesm_ndt
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Very interesting regarding the cranes, I hadn't heard anything about them before. A friend now in his late seventies and still restoring vehicles to keep busy was stationed there when the army pulled out in the fifties, hundreds of jeeps and GMC's were pushed off a pier and dumped into deep water as they were not required to be brought back to the UK and would have affected the local economy if suddenly dumped on to the market. The tears still come to his eyes when he tells the story as it wasn't something he just heard about, he actually had to do it.

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