andy brown

As I said I originaly posed a suggestion.....some one knows..it was just that ...not a wind up ..hadn't the slightest idea if at the time if someone might say Oh yes my uncle dug pits to put tanks in in the late forties with an RB 30 ....but they didn't . .I am not looking for backing ...I know where they were stored in the forties years before they were taken to buried ...I also know this is just the tip of the ice burg the mod has a problem because they were completely unaware of this until I bought it to their attention ...I have a problem which is I shouldn't have mentioned it in the first place. PS ..my father appears to have been a bit of an enigma..he gave me a lot of hints on many things he was involved in, nothing in writing ,nothing in the records , nobody close to him had the faintest idea what he had been up to in his thirteen years in the colours .he had a far as I can see become a will of the whisp Mr fix it with some strange Friends .....tank saga was just one of many .....

Not sure where you got German from ...!!! And no I know where they are ive walked across the concrete that covers them on numerous occasions I've known of their existance for over seventy years but not the location till ten years ago ...as for recover it's never been an ambition of mine and it's quite on the cards that it's not the ambition of the mod ....think of the cost of a health and safety pollution clean up cause that's how it's seen ...likely mod will plump to pump couple thousand tons wet concrete in and call it quits.......

Hello Bob When embarked on this saga ten years ago all I had at that time was a memory of one of many meetings when I was around nine ,until I stumbled into the tank plates ,from that point on all I could do was try to see if the two were connected not knowing if someone else had already unraveled this mystery ,hence someone out there knows ,Inthe hope that if someone knew or had unraveled it then I could drop it and walk away ..but no mention the was fothcoming .where I landed up was a long way from anything I could have ever imagined ..,perhaps it was the wrong thing to try and answer all that came at me from the forum good bad and indifferent as it was me that wanted answers but as no one came forward with info I suppose the right thing to do was pull the plug on the forum .just to say that under what one could say is normal circumstances the opportunity to carry out such a search should be relished this turned into me and them ....the grey people..initially I had a welcomed access to the site once I found it (2years) work...under the umbrella of the army ..private enterprise takes over I am thrown of but not before I had a good working knowledge of what lay under some 200 acres ,spent great deal of time trying to get permission to finish search ..but site owners invested millions and although I took to their table all I had it just got worse ..I had now become a threat ..these are people who are the movers a verbal threat from a top minister was followed by being banned from reading in or on line at the National Archives .which meant my movements are under surveillance ,ridiculed in a local paper, and having my computer swamped with junk from a department run by the site management for eight months ... It looks as thou I've made my self public enemy no 1 and you rightly ask what I want .I will get there eventually .anything you can add I will take on board thanks Andy

As one cannot bring politics to the table I thought a simple analogy would do ..sorry if you missed the point

Hi everyone ,another couple of years has crept by since I was last here, being nieve I had worked on the assumption that if you asked a straight question you could expect a straight answer ..but not if you unwittingly hand the keys to the chicken run to the fox especially if he has m.p.as part of his title ..my objective was to prove that the information that I had carried for some seventy years along with additional supporting later evidence would eventually prove me right . unfortunately I didn't take into consideration early enough as to how deeply entrenched the fox was in being able to block any question or request that I might put to the authorities concerning my quest ,he having a position such that my questions and requests would go no further than the bin next to his desk . So learning the art of cunning from the fox gave me an advantage ,as they say there's no taste in nothing and that goes for a fox but more so as the may be hungry but blinded by greed the will kill all of the hens in a pen .lesson learnt I looked round for a big old badger to put in the pen one not so easily swayed by the corruption of the fox he came in the form of Ben Wallis ,suffice to say progress has been slow but it's getting there although I have not had it from the badgers mouth so to speak but evidence has bought me to believe that the fox no longer rules the roost . All that said, money lots and lots of money an unbelievable amount is tied up between a great many foxes ,who are not leaving without there bag of chickens .thanks for being so patient will keep you posted Andy

Hi everyone ,another couple of years has crept by since I was last here, being nieve I had worked on the assumption that if you asked a straight question you could expect a straight answer ..but not if you unwittingly hand the keys to the chicken run to the fox especially if he has m.p.as part of his title ..my objective was to prove that the information that I had carried for some seventy years along with additional supporting later evidence would eventually prove me right . unfortunately I didn't take into consideration early enough as to how deeply entrenched the fox was in being able to block any question or request that I might put to the authorities concerning my quest ,he having a position such that my questions and requests would go no further than the bin next to his desk . So learning the art of cunning from the fox gave me an advantage ,as they say there's no taste in nothing and that goes for a fox but more so as the may be hungry but blinded by greed the will kill all of the hens in a pen .lesson learnt I looked round for a big old badger to put in the pen one not so easily swayed by the corruption of the fox he came in the form of Ben Wallis ,suffice to say progress has been slow but it's getting there although I have not had it from the badgers mouth so to speak but evidence has bought me to believe that the fox no longer rules the roost . All that said, money lots and lots of money an unbelievable amount is tied up between a great many foxes ,who are not leaving without there bag of chickens .thanks for being so patient will keep you posted Andy

I would like to thank everyone for their input on this subject.it has been very enlightening to see so .much interest in what I would admit one could consider to be a very dubious claim .it was this aspect that delayed my decision to give it an airing after all these years ,there isn't a well trodden path to follow when you decìde to make that leap Into the unknown , being ridiculed I accepted would be the price I would have to pay I do not hold that against anyone but I would ask what would you do if what had came at ýou when you were ten years old and you had sat on for over sixty years ?.just as an example of is it really worth it I spent hours in the national archives until I came across a hint of information that obliquely referred to my subject ,I asked to get access to said documents and was referred to a manager who informed me that this could only be read under ministerial supervision so I would have to file an application , in doing so I was told it could take up to two years to get permission or longer ..so much for freedom of information.on a latér visit out of the blue I was called to the desk and told I could now view the elusive files ,strange I thought why the change of heart ? I new that what I was eager to get my hands on was somewhere in 12 volumes ..i was handed one hard back ring folder within which were 12 cardboard dividers each divider had a new label with the same legend ...This file has been weeded coñsidered not to be in the public interest..! Much later I happened across a MP at the top of the pile who gave me a thinly disguised warning along the lines that i should take up a different hobby..you kind of get the fèling you are not loved ...some might have difficulty swallowing what I had bought to your table that I accept but none of you threatened me...it's obvious that I was looking under stones that someone didn't want disturbed but at least in the end it pointed a finger at someone who did know about this.... Thanks for your support and input Andy....

Sorry for the delay in getting back to this obviously thorny subject matter .. Answers to some of your comments and questions :- Firstly I have never been in reciept of why there was burial nor I suspect was my father any the wiser as to the reasons behind his task .I think I should deal with the comments and questions that related to my father if only to protect his memory as best I can ,now there is no reason that I shoul;d enter into this apart from a gesture of good will , I never asked a direct question as the likelyhood of anyone out there still being around in sound mind from the period in question who may have been directly involved in this is highly unlikely but you never know unless you ask ..which I did .. Father Embodied 2nd Sept 39, acting lance Sgt; Mddx Reg;.. REME 12 Oct 43, Staff Sgt.. REME,15th Dec;43. 30th Armoured Brigade. North Western Europe 2nd June 44,Guards Armoured Canadian ? Nan Beach 6th June 44..Returned Uk 25th Sept;45.released from REME to Army reserve 8th Dec: 45.Mentioned in Dispatches twice 44/45. All of the forty plates I purchased "which at the time did not coonect with what I had witnessed 50 years before" were Churchill Id; plates ( why not buy more ? cause I had a sneaky suspition they were not worth anything and wasnt far wrong)...I am in contact with the Sotherby auctioneer that delt with the 20 plates that were sold on the 13th April 1999 and have no intention of asking him to substantiate this you either believe what I am saying or you dont ..with the exeption of not more than 30 tanks all that were buried were Churchills mostly low Mks..as someone said "This must be a wind up "I didnt come here to pss about nor argue with anyone jog someones memory perhaps about something they didnt believe 30/40 years ago....I know exactly where the are but like you I do not know the WHY..

You think as in assume or calculated guess ' whichever it is it is misleading try Hansard you might laern something

A few details As there appears to be an interest in the area these would take up this might help :- two pits dug nose to tail approx; 250yds apart width 90ft depth 16ft no idea of the length only that one pit was longer than the other ..Many of the plates I saw and some I bought were quite early for instance a couple of Southerby plates as follows Churchill Mk 2 Nov; 41..Churchill Mk4 1942. yes that probably puts them outside of lease.lend money many of those plates I saw were in Sand or buff paint some buff and black or brown all had been chiseled off some had the hex: hole where the head of the bolt pulled through the plate instead off shearing ..,chisel must have worn blunt !! ..I figure you will have a problem with the 16 ft ! the reason for this was that they needed the space because on top of the tanks they bulldozed hunreds of tons of spares and used I was told an M6 not exactly sure what that is to crush everything down between the turrets , he did say this M6 had no turret a wide seat where the turret area was which at a push could seat five people and it drunk so much fuel it needed filling three times a day .this will no doubt raise more cries of dis-belief within the ranks ..

Part one is getting to crowded chasing its own tail .. I like many of you when I was scratching around in the Archives year after year couldnt see why this burial actually took place it just didnt fit into any of the known procedures used at that time that was until I came across some notes containing the wrath of Winston Churchill a couple of years after he lost the 45 election ..It seemed he had waited for this moment to vent partly his frustration in ever loosing the election and more to the point loosing it to as he saw them a a crowd of trade union loosers ..at that moment in time the labour party were faced with drumming up all that was required to defend the country from an anticipated Russian invasion and not loking very convincing ..Churchill blew his top and tore into opposition like a chain saw ..pointing out amongst many other things that after the first war as he was in the position to do so he ..Quote " In 1919 I recovered as many weapons as were made vast amounts of weapons I had them greased and oiled and well wrapped and kept in safe places ,They dont go off they dont go sour they are not like cheese or milk and when the blitz of London and other Cities I bought the gun out to defend the country and none of you stopped to ask where had I bought them from... When you think that what he had done in secret and for twenty years had kept them safe yet he wasnt in office he was landscape painting most of the time in france so who was it that was working behind the scenes on his behalf who was it watching his back for him ? then the last part of his rant is Quote ; What happened to all of the vehicles I put by after the war (ww2) you gave them all away ..the six million rifles you through in the north sea ..and he ended with Quote I and the prime minister have been holding talks about this issue ;;what it boils down to is that winston openly admits he had been stealing weapons ,had he won the election he wouldnt have had to admit that to anyone but when you consider we never made any payments to the WW1 lease lend and winston had most of it in store and again theres my father and others collecting them up so he could do it all again ...now it could be that the labour party started to panic and earmarked enough tanks to balance the books and smartly buried them I dont know but sure as hell they didnt want the Americans going through the books. my father had to report prior to the off to then Major General Slim who was in charge of this little campaign ..

Hoping to answer Peter45 & Bob Grundy's query.. Yes they were part of the repayment scheme or would have been if they had been kept. Four or five years after the war it was now the US money men that were calling the tune they had the UK where they wanted them on there knees they could finally put British Imperialism where they thought it belonged even if they had to throttle it with there bear hands "The King is dead ..Long live the King "so we were hounded into submission, it wasnt that the US wanted the money ,they just wanted to prize the British Colonial fingers off of an Empire they now saw as theirs "All fair in love and war "so make them pay till they bleed ..and they did up until Ed Balls made the last payment quite recently ..so instead of the pink bits theyve got McDonalds .As for being saved from speculating !is it worth it ? I was about 9 and a bit when the meeting took place in the garden and unlike now there was a protocol a sense of the correct procedure here were men who you rarely saw in daylight or any other time Camp Coffee and Digestive bikys that blew the ration book for that week now I must admit I saw my father in a different light he was the same as these guys but they were asking him not telling him Telling him what ?telling them about Tanks that much I gathered but that wasnt unusual my world was tanks we lived yards from 10 command wks Mill Hill there was always one or more of dads mates having a cupper with some great newly painted iron monster parked out side in the road my world smelt of pool petrol, gun oil, and hydraulic oil ..If my father said he buried 326 tanks he buried 326 tanks you lot treasure a hand full of sprocket bolt as if they were gold ..they were cutting them up and tossing the lumps into railway trucks just across the road from our house so as for evidence yes that I have but you can go on speculating ! all I needed to do was register what I knew to be fact while I was still capable of doing so I have no intention of argueing the toss with anyone I saw the state of my Dads hands when they finished that job chiseling off all the plates in a tank X 326 over the course of 10 weeks I refrained from telling the whole story enough toys have been thrown out of the prams thus far .....

The Labour government in 45 gave away all and any equipment they could lay their hands on either to interested parties or scrapped , Winston tore into them for doing just that ask "what did you do with the 6 million German and British rifles i'll tell you what you did with them you through the lot in the North sea ..the Americans called the tune on this aspect of the dictating the terms of our financial existance ..Lend Lease repayments = I you want to keep and use it pay for it ; you cant scrap it because that would earn you money ; we dont want it back ; so you will have to bury it or pay for it ;and the labour party wanted to get their NHS up and running which Truman saw as the next step to communism so no love lost there ..

hi pete It wasnt intended that German armour be bought to the UK just moved back out of harms way into Belgium and France ..none of this is relevant to the issue of the uk burials it was only to show that there was a conserted effort to amass sufficient armour to match the russian build up both in Germany and the UK ..the UKs stock also included the tanks that were eventually buried ...there never would have been a problem had Winston won the 45 election .. HI Rick ..eddy8men .. as you can see making heavy weather of this HaHaHa ..Answer is they wont even speak to me let alone let me out there ..but then if they find i am right how many millions to clear up the pollution ..Did try diging under but needed bigger machine ..figured in the end easier to go through the top as am pretty sure of the co-ordinates now..

Hello kevin Sorry for the confusion 45 he was searching out german armour along with a team that conscripted german tank crews to bolster Winstons anticipated push against the Russians as in Operation Unthinkable this never got off the ground through the Americans not supporting the idea but at the time only they new about their atomic bomb which may have had something to do with there unwillingness to partake in his venture . around 1947 /8 the fear was that the russians were coming and the Labour party were forced to go onto a war footing opening up munition factories and ordering aircraft such as 500 venoms that they couldnt afford. russians didnt cone Winston in opposition tore into the labour party asking what had happened to the equipment he had put by in 45 Quote "all of the tanks that I had parked in the fields of northen France" "you gave them away to any Tom Dick or Harry who couldnt believe their luck" what happened to the 6 million rifles in 45 you through them into the north sea because you convinced yourselves there wasn't going to be any more Wars but winston in saying that had painted himself into a corner having to explain how he came by his hoard in the case of the german equipment it was down to slight of hand and clever documentation none of these were buried ..fast foward to 49 labour party has unravelled most of what winston had been up to with his hep it was the same M/O here he nicked them . Back to 1919 Liberal party couldnt organise P in brewery some million soldiers and sailors still overseas give job to Winston who does this on a very personal basis making sure that as he put it "I bought back every weapon that was made and put them in grease and oil and carefully stored them away from prying eyes with the help of the very people i went to rescue " in his dressing down of the labour party he added " nobody even bothered or wondered where the ack ack guns came from when the enemy turned their attention to London in 41""" trouble was he had been stock piling WW2 equipment as he was well aware that if America came of worst with an invasion of Japan and Germany was undefeated he might need a secret back up plan just like the ack ack guns of 1919 as I said lucky for us he was Del boy long before Del boy existed ...so no all of the buried were British ..had to be buried otherwise we would have had to pay for them and the Americans had given the British government a slaughtering that would bring us to our kneesas it was which is what they had intended if any one was to have all the Pink bits it wasnt going to be us .

Just as I expected it was bound to find the people who knew they knew everything ! I will admit to a slip up in the Sotherby sale date though was looking at the wrong catalogue in fact the ident plates were sold on the 13 april 1999 at sotherbys summers place sale room in sussex..Lot no;148..in their Arms, Armour, Militaria and Aeronnautica sale.. It wil be a hard story for some to get their head round which is why in the past I have been reluctant to give it an airing but this is only half the story god knows how the rest of it would go down ..there are a few out there that are privvy to this package and have had no problem with its content but then they are professionals ..

I have decided to air a subject matter that I have been toiling with for a very long time despite the likelyhood of being seen as a train spotter ,in fact it was (eddy8men )back in mid 2014 who with his question regarding the whereabouts of buried tanks that made me think that it was time to unvail what I have known about this subject for over sixty years more because I am at an age when one is begining to run out of road , one major problem with this is that seventy years ago was a different world in just about every aspect of life ,speak when spoken to,should be seen and not heard ,respect your elders, you may not be guilty but you will be caned as a deterent to others , so like your parents you knew that it was wise to keep your mouth shut and forget what you had seen or heard . Out of this convieniant atmosphere well suited to a government who might have things to hide came a misuse of information things that were considered not in the public interest and so it became accepted that in some hidden inner sanctum within whitehall some little man would decide on behalf of the nation what you got to know about and what you didn't. My father was by the time war was declared in 39 a long serving soldier in fact less that a month to go of his reserve not that it cut any ice he was back in for another six years at thirty six he was on the D/D landings six a.m.swam ashore landing craft swamped and he was at that time in the REME ..Latter months of the war he was part of a small team who's brief it was to locate and assess german armour and if found to be of use remove said item a soon as possible making sure the Americans were not aware of their activity this was carried out under a direct orders of one Mr. W. Churchill the whole thing died a death when the Americans refused to engage with or support Winstons life long wish to crush th Russians in june 1945 . Now if you are going to fight a war youi need someone in charge that has more than one string to his bow and more than enough arrows to this end we were lucky enough to have Winston Churchill in reality a sort of Del boy who knew how to duck and dive when needed an opportunist able to make the most of a bad hand ,a slight of hand would be an advantage and Winston had mad the most of that ability long before the second world war having aquired an arsenal that was cared for and maintained out of sight of even the governments of the day and as he said nobody ever asked him where they came from when he pulled them out of the bag in 1940 . Aged ten I remember my father now a civilian but working in the REME being visited one Saturday by a couple of top brass they sat in the garden a poured over a lot of maps and papers for most of the afternoon until I was called to bring the dustbin lid where upon the bulk of the papers and maps were burned I recall watching as the thin yellow paper turned toa pale gray but the writing stayed the same colour , some four months later my father disappeared for just over two months he had gone somewhere in the uk to bury tanks a lot of tanks once again it was he and a small team given the job of what appeared to be a cover up from the first operation back in 45 my part in all of this was revived around 2002 when i stumbled across hundreds of tank ident; plates that arrived in a scrap yard in west london from whitehall for destruction on the very day i was paying a visit to the yard I bought some forty of them and promptly sold them at Sotherbys before it dawned on me where these had come from so started a ten year search which came down to six acres of concrete in the easten counties so yes they are still out there but unfortunately the Government has refused to allow me to pursue this matter further..

Hi .Does anyone have any information regarding the two ww2 tanks that lay out on Chobham Common up until the mid sixties ?. They stood or rather lay out on the side of the hill that is and has been for many years used by the model aircraft enthusiasts just opposite the tank factory, back in the fifties and sixties the area was a collecting point for ice cream vans that gathered on a weekend around what was known as the Clump "a group of pine trees on the highest point a few hundred yards from the tanks , I cant remember what type they were although I seem to think that they might have been Valentines as they had a rather low profile and no turrets these had been replaced on both by a roughly cut piece of half inch flat plate "they may have originally been bridge carriers" !!..doubtfully that they were left by the army more I think were used by a demolition crew and just discarded when the clear up of a variety of war time installations out on the common came to an end ..any info would be apreciated as it ties in with an ongoing project ...

Hi I am looking for information on ww2 static smoke generators both waste oil and acid types .preferably description of construction (ie) exploded drawing , parts list etc.. although I have stated ww2 I doubt that much had changed since the end of ww1 but I would welcome any imput on the subject .. it is the static rather than the later mobile versions that i am interested in ..they looked like sectional cast iron beehives ...Thanks ..Andy..

Can any one identifiy these items found on a defunct tank testing / training ground ...they are lead with what can best be decribed as a firing pin ..all have the remains of sand /buff paint the larger two are stamped No 3 IWDC and have dates RL 9/40 and the smaller is dated 10/43 ..checked with woolwich arsenal who did not think they were munition related checked with REME museum they did not recognise them ,checked with a retired Major in the REs and he had not seen the like wondering if they are strikers for smoke canistors or flares of some description ? Any ideas ?

Hello Tony thanks for the advice ..put pics on new post ..I dont think these are munition related as in "Bang" I have a long list of probables but it needs an expert eye to confirm ....

Thes pics relate to my last post In addition to the one in the pics and described in yesterdays post I have a number of similar items same style but smaller and another damaged No 3 with what may be a date RL 9/40 and 160

Hi ..Im ok with ebay and yahoo mail when attaching pics but i still havent figured how you do it on this site .....after three months .... and yes i have pics and thanks for the reply ... Andy..

Can anyone identfy this item found on old training site ..Looks like a firing cap made of lead has a shaft through the centre as in firing pin ..veiwed as a top hat the rim is apprx; 60mm dia; the body approx; 40mm dia, height 55mm there is a recess in the top end some 25mm deep into which the pin protrudes at the bottom of which there is a brass sealing ring ir brass seat there is lettering around the back face :- No 3 1 WDC... the weight is just short of a Kilo .... Any Ideas ?

Thanks for the welcome Paul.. "MMMM" The knowledge might be useful if i could remember what i had done with it !!!! Dodge M37.. Thats got a 16.9 flat top hasnt it ? still got a boxed set of pistons for one of those some where i think ,well chrysler but i think they were one and the same engine ,used to work on the dodge seven tonners cant remember the model code it had the same style cab as the ford ET6 of the 50s but with a sharper bow like front grill but that said i think that engine was a (one size fits all ) sort of thing ..anyway just me droning on... thanks again for the welcome.. Andy...