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Spitfire in crate.......


Willyslancs

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(Sunday Express Page 42 today)

 

 

 

 

 

FILM makers in Australia are hunting for a wartime Spitfire believed to be buried near a disused airfield.

 

 

 

 

 

The aircraft, still in the crate it was delivered in, was hidden to prevent it being melted down for scrap in 1946.

James Carter, who is making a TV documentary about the plane, said: “Finding a Spitfire, especially one in its greased wrapping unassembled inside a crate, would be a huge coup.

“It could be worth as much as £6million. We plan to donate any aircraft we find to a museum, however.”

The search is centred on Oakey airfield in Queensland, 100 miles from Brisbane. In February 1946 more than 550 planes from all over the world were stored at Oakey waiting to be scrapped, including 50 Mustangs, 240 Kittyhawks and 225 Spitfires.

They were eventually bought by a Sydney scrap dealer who built a smelter on the site.

Five local men watched in horror as the aircraft slowly disappeared and decided to keep one for posterity.

The crate was buried under cover of darkness close to the airfield.

One of the men, Nev Marshall, returned to the site 12 years ago, shortly before he died but was unable to locate the spot because most of the old landmarks, including several water towers, had been removed. Nev’s son John, a pharmacist in Brisbane, says his father spoke about the buried Spitfire all the time. “I don’t doubt the story or his credibility.”

Local residents Lester Resinger and Bill Martin have rebuilt a Spitfire using parts found around the airfield. The finished aircraft is displayed in the Oakey Aviation Museum.

They too are believed to be searching for the buried crate, along with a third team, a mystery British group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertising copywriter Carter and cinematographer Karl von Moller have been working on their documentary for 11 years. Speaking at a preview in Sydney, Carter said: “Of course we haven’t got an ‘end’ to our story yet but TV executives here are very keen on our project, including those from the BBC.

“It’s like the ultimate boyhood adventure...the wading through thousands of wartime documents and photos, the searching and of course the dig. We know there are a great many old coalmines under the town. A lot of stuff was dumped down there and the entrances blocked up.”

His research has shown discrepancies between the number of planes disposed of and those that were on the base at the end of the war.

“We’re certain it is there in the ground. It’s now up to us to prove it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Willyslancs
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I love all these stories. Will there be the same stories about the buried A-10 warthogs and warriors in the gulf in fifty years time?

 

Also one thing comes to mind.

They stole a crated Spit at night and buried it. Didn't leave a marker or wrote a treasure map, bad pirates weren't they.

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Just thinking. I have heard stories about crates being buried on Newbury Racecourse when the Americans left - it was a storage dump in WW2. With the trouble this weekend about an Electric cable at Newbury Racecourse http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/horse_racing/9396218.stm I wonder if they will dig up any of those crates? I think it unlikely as I saw a report of the sale of used Jeeps for £300 in 1946 at a surplus sale in Newbury (source=Newbury Weekly News) so if they could sell the stuff, why was it buried?

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Interesting stuff. You hear about this sort of thing occasionally.

 

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/archive/index.php?t-23954.html

 

Strangely enough, when i was in Illinois some years ago i met a chap with two Spitfires that he had recovered from India. One was retored and flying the other a kit of parts (albeit a very complete kit) which was for sale.

He found these in a ditch, not a crate. But maybe the crate had been pushed into the ditch first.

 

Oh hang on. here is a picture of it:

 

http://www.warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=30840&start=0

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i drove to norfolk today, 430 miles round trip to investigate a trench containing ww2 vehicles that was buried by the yanks after the war but needless to say i didn't find anything but it's an ongoing project, you never know there might even be a crated spit in with all the rest of the stuff :-D

 

eddy

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diver99

I love all these stories. Will there be the same stories about the buried A-10 warthogs and warriors in the gulf in fifty years time?

 

If I recall it correctly wasn't a boxed up Iraqi air force Hawker Sea-Fury found after the 2003 invasion:???:???

 

Pzkpfw-e

All the hallmarks of a good urban myth.

 

What happened to the crates of Seafires & Corsairs that were supposed to have just been pushed into the sea off Oz?

 

Most urban myths starts from somewhere Blackburn Rocs Skuas Fulmars and Wildcats were all pushed off the decks of carriers to make room for better aircraft -probably Spitfires Corsairs and Baracudas.

 

In modern times the US navy off Vietnam in 1975 during the final days of the war pushed HU1s off the decks to allow others to land.

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i drove to norfolk today, 430 miles round trip to investigate a trench containing ww2 vehicles that was buried by the yanks after the war but needless to say i didn't find anything but it's an ongoing project, you never know there might even be a crated spit in with all the rest of the stuff :-D

 

eddy

I asked a Veteran G I who was stationed here during ww2 ,once about the rumour of vehicles pushed into the end of warton runway, he confirmed it!(in great detail too) also that when he asked about a plane so he and his brother could do crop spraying after the war, they ripped them apart so they could not be used . One jeep was pushed thru the hedge as they left , have seen that one .. :-(

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somebody else on the forum has mentioned warton as a dump site, i reckon all the old airfields have dumps, only the quality of material to be found in them differs from one to another. what makes the one i'm looking into interesting is the dump location was recognised when a local was watching archive news footage of the trench being filled with vehicles and then bulldozed over but that was in 1982 so his recollection is a little vague

 

eddy

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somebody else on the forum has mentioned warton as a dump site, i reckon all the old airfields have dumps, only the quality of material to be found in them differs from one to another. what makes the one i'm looking into interesting is the dump location was recognised when a local was watching archive news footage of the trench being filled with vehicles and then bulldozed over but that was in 1982 so his recollection is a little vague

 

eddy

 

I believe all the airfields have dumps too, however, having spent all my life surrounded by dozens of wartime airfields and been involved with airfield museums on and off in the last 30 years, I've heard load of 'eyewitness' statements of Jeeps, radial engines etc etc all brand new in crates..... Nothing, other than rubbish has been found as far as I know. Of course, yeterdays rubbish is viewed differently today but I feel the vast majority of these things will turn out to be wishful thinking.

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Nice to think that it may actually be true but only time will tell.

 

If proven it would have been a superbly executed task. Not the biggest aircraft in the world but it is an aircraft. If it were still crated, to move it.....locate it as per your wishes, presumably with the wings and get it filled in with all of the subsequent dragmarks etc hidden up by daytime, well, all you can say is good onyer mate!

 

When you think of all the changes to areas over the time scale not surprising that the precise location cannot be pinned down.....when you consider the above it must be close in to the the airfield. Wonder if ground radar would be any good or is it rock solid out thier ??

 

Tim

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As Adrian says, in this area of East Anglia where there was an airfield every few miles in any direction, ( which makes navigating in light aircraft fairly easy ), stories of buried goodies abound. I live next to the 34th. Bomb Group Airfield at Mendlesham, and have met many 34th. veterans, sadly fewer of them nowadays, but allways remember one man telling me about the remains of a german aeroplane which he said had been shot down over the airfield, being buried in 'the dump'. I of course asked him where the dump was, but he was a bit vague about it's location which is not surprising given that 50 years had elapsed, and so much of the landscape had changed, but I have no reason to doubt the story.

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All the hallmarks of a good urban myth.

What happened to the crates of Seafires & Corsairs that were supposed to have just been pushed into the sea off Oz?

 

There was a guy pulling them up with a grappling hook a few years back but the US stepped in and said it still belongs to them put it back. I guess something written in the fine print that required the destruction of all this stuff after the war as I would have thought the historical value would have prevailed but at the time it did not.

 

Basically the shelf aint that far out so they went out and dumped it off the side.

 

As for Oakey I heard the stories about that in the mid 70's and later I was actually stationed there. Never heard of anyone rebuilding a Spitfire from bits laying around the airfield as Oakey Airfield has been the home of Army aviation since the early 70's

 

The coal mines where some said the Spitfires were hidden are a bit further east at Acland which last I heard was now a huge pit. When I was there it was a museum with small underground mine.

 

A lot of aircraft were melted down in Kalgoorlie and I recovered a lot of spitfire panels and parts what a guy had built his chook shed from. Also Merredin was a smelting area

 

Truscott had a lot of stuff buried and dumped there as due to its inaccessibility few people got in to see. I knew a guy who did a trip up there for the aviation museum and found some good stuff laying around and it was always my dream trip to get in there by boat. Alas Truscott has been reopened to service the oil rigs in the Timor sea and everything there is now belonging to the local historical society and therefore rusting away

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There was a guy pulling them up with a grappling hook a few years back but the US stepped in and said it still belongs to them put it back. I guess something written in the fine print that required the destruction of all this stuff after the war as I would have thought the historical value would have prevailed but at the time it did not.

 

 

 

Thats a shame he didn't check the law. If you look at the P-38 site, U.S. have abadnoned kit before 1961 because records lost in fire. If i have misquoted i apologise. I know they always lay claim to kit. Interesting test case.

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There is a big difference between an aircraft which crashed and one which was dumped.

 

In the UK(and UK Waters) ALL crashed military aircraft irrespective of nationality or date of loss are protected under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986,under the act it is an offence for anyone to tamper with,damage,move,remove or unearth any part of a crashed military aircraft.

 

The USAF did indeed claim to have abandoned ownership of the remains of aircraft lost prior to 1961,however in the UK this makes no difference due to the 1986 PoMRA. Other Countries may also have similiar local laws which protect remains.

 

The US Navy's position is that if it ever belonged to them it remains Navy property.

 

With dumped aircraft,parts,equipment etc the ownership could rest with the landowner,but again there may be local laws/bylaws protecting the site,depending upon the location.

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