Somebody out there knows all about this !!

[Sean N]

6 hours ago, Matt W said:

 ... I think the main points are these -

 

1) There was no rush by the War Office to dispose of vehicles.

 ...

3) The tanks were obsolete, but the War Office had to be pressured to dispose of them

Matt, great bit of research, and I agree Waterbeach seems unlikely, but I'll challenge a couple of your conclusions. Though there were certainly shortages at the time, and metals were in short supply, there was also a collosal amount of materiel to dispose of, and there would have been a limit to the speed at which the metals industry could reprocess surplus armour. I'd be surprised if pressure from someone who (albeit a former defence minister) was by then a backbencher with perhaps his own axes to grind made any difference to the process.

[Matt W]

Good point Sean, one i hadn't considered. Another thing that just occurred to me is that with National Service the Army had plenty of manpower to spare to look after all this kit.

The answer probably lies in the DRAC / War Office policy on retention of armour. I might try searching for this in the National Archive.

[andy brown]

Came across more info on my father's military history which might be of interest to some . just a fill in while waiting for Hammond to admit to having tanks at waterbeach ...

[andy brown]

10 minutes ago, andy brown said:

Came across more info on my father's military history which might be of interest to some . just a fill in while waiting for Hammond to admit to having tanks at waterbeach ...

11 minutes ago, andy brown said:

Came across more info on my father's military history which might be of interest to some . just a fill in while waiting for Hammond to admit to having tanks at waterbeach ...

Pics of group &two father on the right of the two and in the centre of the group, believe this was when he was with the 30th armoured brigade early spring 43 possibly Bexhill Kent ....

 

[Ex-boy]

1 hour ago, andy brown said:

 

Bexhill is in East Sussex, but Bexley and Bexleyheath were at that time in Kent.

[andy brown]

16 hours ago, Ex-boy said:

Bexhill is in East Sussex, but Bexley and Bexleyheath were at that time in Kent.

My mistake , Bexhill it was , 

[andy brown]

On 4/12/2022 at 9:57 AM, andy brown said:

My mistake , Bexhill it was , 

Thought it might be of interest to someone .came across a pic I took at waterbeach airfield back in 2012 , not surprising what you might find laying about on an active airfield , the concrete seen through the fence is a small part of the east apron ( is one burial site , was checking if I could find anywhere along this fence where one could gain access without cutting holes in the concrete to implant side scan units but found that the road butted right up to the apron.. although I later recalled that I was told that both pits were encased in railway sleepers which could cause a problem ..

[ploughman]

If you know roughly where you want to look, would Google maps help?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Waterbeach,+Cambridge/@52.2846044,0.1771389,1203m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d871fdba77856f:0x557eedf4e5006987!8m2!3d52.265582!4d0.191002?hl=en-GB

If wondering what the black circles were for. They are practise bomb craters for the RE repair teams to play with.

[andy brown]

19 hours ago, ploughman said:

If you know roughly where you want to look, would Google maps help?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Waterbeach,+Cambridge/@52.2846044,0.1771389,1203m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d871fdba77856f:0x557eedf4e5006987!8m2!3d52.265582!4d0.191002?hl=en-GB

If wondering what the black circles were for. They are practise bomb craters for the RE repair teams to play with.

Hi .about a year ago I put the coordinates of the two burial sites on this thread so no I'm not looking for them was just pointing out with the picture that there wasn't enough room between the road ( peri track ) and the apron to gain access with a side scan ,ten years ago I gave all of the details to the site management that's why I was banned from the place ,,as they had never scanned the burial sight and yet announced the place was clean ..which enabled the development of the site to continue ...they had not considered the historic geographic alterations of the airfield assuming how it is now was how it was seventy odd years ago ..you might notice each of the aprons either side of the control tower have been opened up with a two or three foot wide trench across their width ,this would give access through the foot or so of concrete with a magnetometer , not something they would let me do ten years ago ...round  black holes are actually vegetation growing in what I think we're compass swings back in the day ,,yes there are plates of concrete missing from the main runway nearest the A10 that's where the young re squaddies trained in runway repairs before they went t get blown to bits in Helmand's Provence ..

[andy brown]

On 5/18/2022 at 4:27 PM, andy brown said:

Hi .about a year ago I put the coordinates of the two burial sites on this thread so no I'm not looking for them was just pointing out with the picture that there wasn't enough room between the road ( peri track ) and the apron to gain access with a side scan ,ten years ago I gave all of the details to the site management that's why I was banned from the place ,,as they had never scanned the burial sight and yet announced the place was clean ..which enabled the development of the site to continue ...they had not considered the historic geographic alterations of the airfield assuming how it is now was how it was seventy odd years ago ..you might notice each of the aprons either side of the control tower have been opened up with a two or three foot wide trench across their width ,this would give access through the foot or so of concrete with a magnetometer , not something they would let me do ten years ago ...round  black holes are actually vegetation growing in what I think we're compass swings back in the day ,,yes there are plates of concrete missing from the main runway nearest the A10 that's where the young re squaddies trained in runway repairs before they went t get blown to bits in Helmand's Provence ..

Just dug a couple more items out relating to my father's army career ..

[andy brown]

41 minutes ago, andy brown said:

Just dug a couple more items out relating to my father's army career ..

Large pic forth from left front row ,close up third from left front row ...Middlesex reg machine gun competitors Aldershot tattoo believe 1932....

[andy brown]

2 minutes ago, andy brown said:

Large pic forth from left front row ,close up third from left front row ...Middlesex reg machine gun competitors Aldershot tattoo believe 1932....

It your man who buried the tanks almost twenty years later ,,,busy boy wasn't he 

[andy brown]

3 minutes ago, andy brown said:

It your man who buried the tanks almost twenty years later ,,,busy boy wasn't he 

ok it's upside down .....many of you will know what this is ..if you were still standing in may 45 you might have received one......

[Ashcollection]

chatted to a mate of mine who was in RE airfield repair, he said all the concrete pads and runways where like swiss cheese after the Engineers finished there, and another thing he was trained on was looking for under ground bombs, so any big unknown magnetic signatures would probably have been found at some point.

 

[andy brown]

7 hours ago, Ashcollection said:

chatted to a mate of mine who was in RE airfield repair, he said all the concrete pads and runways where like swiss cheese after the Engineers finished there, and another thing he was trained on was looking for under ground bombs, so any big unknown magnetic signatures would probably have been found at some point.

 

Fortunately or unfortunately.depending how you view this the burial site at waterbeach was designed to carry the weight of u/s bombers circa 49/50 just as the cold war picked up speed ,they were never deployed there instead it was a parking lot for venoms and meteors eventually becoming a parking lot for the royal engineers plant and vehicles ,yes there are many or were many of the ww2 concrete pod stands scattered over the three hundred acres used back in the day by stirlings and the like many of thes are isolated with vegetation growing through and many have ground workings visible but this was all before the two aprons were laid for the u/s aircraft ....and if one walks across or around the two 50s aprons they are unblemished. ,only recently has the concrete been cut on each of the aprons in the last two years ,wether or not the developers decided after I gave them the info to have a soil test their main worry would be pollution or contamination beyond that it would all be down to the mod to clear up , the end result to why this are was never checked with gpr was that the stands were laid at the same time as the burial or days after , moving that volume of soil and dumping it on the perimeter of the airfield would have insured that apart from fifteen or sixteen thousand tons of armoured vehicles that went into the pits would have been clean ....but at the end of the day it was done in secret ,there it an awful lot more to this story but my prime objective was those tanks ,as I said I was a witness when this plot was hatched .......

[andy brown]

On 6/27/2022 at 4:56 PM, andy brown said:

Fortunately or unfortunately.depending how you view this the burial site at waterbeach was designed to carry the weight of u/s bombers circa 49/50 just as the cold war picked up speed ,they were never deployed there instead it was a parking lot for venoms and meteors eventually becoming a parking lot for the royal engineers plant and vehicles ,yes there are many or were many of the ww2 concrete pod stands scattered over the three hundred acres used back in the day by stirlings and the like many of thes are isolated with vegetation growing through and many have ground workings visible but this was all before the two aprons were laid for the u/s aircraft ....and if one walks across or around the two 50s aprons they are unblemished. ,only recently has the concrete been cut on each of the aprons in the last two years ,wether or not the developers decided after I gave them the info to have a soil test their main worry would be pollution or contamination beyond that it would all be down to the mod to clear up , the end result to why this are was never checked with gpr was that the stands were laid at the same time as the burial or days after , moving that volume of soil and dumping it on the perimeter of the airfield would have insured that apart from fifteen or sixteen thousand tons of armoured vehicles that went into the pits would have been clean ....but at the end of the day it was done in secret ,there it an awful lot more to this story but my prime objective was those tanks ,as I said I was a witness when this plot was hatched .......

 

[andy brown]

10 minutes ago, andy brown said:

 

Sorry dropped phone and canceled out what I had written ,don't know how to retrieve it !!!!.......

[andy brown]

1 minute ago, andy brown said:

Sorry dropped phone and canceled out what I had written ,don't know how to retrieve it !!!!.......

If at first .....

I figured that if this hot weather continues for any length of time inside those pits would be like ovens then if it rained and cooled the surrounding area and the temperature of the concrete aprons were checked and also make a comparison between the apron temp and the runway temp  that being concrete as well  but with little apart from a foot of granite chippings under.it might point to there being a reason for the aprons to be working like a night storage heater ...although a drone would come in useful something I haven't got nor have ever used.. yes one has to have permission and a licence but it wouldn't be the first time I drove around for six months before I got an MOT...........as Clarkson said ;what could possibly go wrong;;

[andy brown]

On 7/8/2022 at 7:16 PM, andy brown said:

If at first .....

I figured that if this hot weather continues for any length of time inside those pits would be like ovens then if it rained and cooled the surrounding area and the temperature of the concrete aprons were checked and also make a comparison between the apron temp and the runway temp  that being concrete as well  but with little apart from a foot of granite chippings under.it might point to there being a reason for the aprons to be working like a night storage heater ...although a drone would come in useful something I haven't got nor have ever used.. yes one has to have permission and a licence but it wouldn't be the first time I drove around for six months before I got an MOT...........as Clarkson said ;what could possibly go wrong;;

Just an update ...wrote to a Mr Ryley he being the mod surveyor responsible for the waterbeach development , asking if he could provide any information as to the latest thinking or proposals concerning the buried tanks, pointing out that of the four areas of concrete laid in 1950 all had been opened on the co ordinates that I had provided on the hmvf web ..this I did quite recently ..way back in 2012 when I discussed the tank burial with both Philip Hammond and Andy Burnham I did not give out the co ordinates just citing the approximation below the two apron stands and pointing out that the runway east and west had been widened but did not contain anything other than hard core... As yet I have received no reply which doesn't surprise me ..as the subject matter was on more than one occasion denied to ever existed although he had only been in charge of his prize possession for three days when I first bridged the subject with him ..he has had ten years to think about it ...one or two tanks shouldn't cause a problem but thirteen thousand tons might cause a few sleepless nights ........

[Ashcollection]

Well, that are gutted they haven't found anything, the world wide publicity would have been amazing for the company, not to mention the current value of the complete vehicles and the value of the scrap of any rubbish. 

[andy brown]

23 hours ago, Ashcollection said:

Well, that are gutted they haven't found anything, the world wide publicity would have been amazing for the company, not to mention the current value of the complete vehicles and the value of the scrap of any rubbish. 

I can't recall saying they didn't find anything!! The object of my writing to them was to promote a reply ,which as yet has not arrived , the idea that they have not found anything only comes from your view of the world that would be rather than the world as it is...why would they commit to answer any question ? far better to pull a version of the fifth amendment (be non committal say nowt) that leaves the question dead in the water and no headway is made by the inquisitor (stalemate) 

Do you honestly think that these people or person would forgo their closed shop investors only strategy in favour of a big heap of scrap metal far better to leave it till you've made what you came for and leave the rest to the mod to sort out ,these people lie and lye low they have never relished getting their hands dirty,..

Near to the area where I live is the most expensive property market in the UK 

[andy brown]

8 minutes ago, andy brown said:

I can't recall saying they didn't find anything!! The object of my writing to them was to promote a reply ,which as yet has not arrived , the idea that they have not found anything only comes from your view of the world that would be rather than the world as it is...why would they commit to answer any question ? far better to pull a version of the fifth amendment (be non committal say nowt) that leaves the question dead in the water and no headway is made by the inquisitor (stalemate) 

Do you honestly think that these people or person would forgo their closed shop investors only strategy in favour of a big heap of scrap metal far better to leave it till you've made what you came for and leave the rest to the mod to sort out ,these people lie and lye low they have never relished getting their hands dirty,..

Near to the area where I live is the most expensive property market in the UK 

Had't to break off there for a cuppa.....for those that do not know ,a point of interest we have Wentworth golf course ,Ascot ,st. georges hill, Windsor great park ,this is all money ,Russians and Arabs ,with their hidden assets, it follows that there is a waiting list for property ,one such prime target again mod was the chobham tank factory so secret it was not featured on any ordinance survey map just hidden surrounded by conifers,thats now part of a complex of top end 1500 unaffordable desirable properties just as exclusive as the tank factory was ,further sout by a few miles was the royal logistics museum in mytchett a relatively new building again in much sort after area ,now moved and replaced with you guessed top of the range housing, then there was the reme museum at arborfield now pushed out to the wilds of Wilshire again with unaffordable stock starting at upwards of two million each ,all of these with one common denominator crest Nicholson aka Mr Hammond...you can throw in another dozen ex mod sites all down to this man's portfolio..and you worry about tanks ,wouldn't suprice me if they pumped two thousand tons of liquid concrete into the weterbeach burial and forgot about it ....

[Meekumslr]

I don’t know about Waterbeach but I do know about a site near to me, which has the same dodgy history, with a huge amount of buried vehicles, munitions and even biological vials.

I’d love to know the truth behind the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, London and the stuff buried there (yes, I do know people who saw the vast underground storage of vehicles as well as buried tanks).

I also know those involved in land surveys for the building of Thamesmead and HMP Belmarsh (prison) on top of biochemical test facilities, who chose to shove soil and concrete down them rather than decontaminate them.

so, although many are wondering what the big deal and secrecy is surrounding the burial of WW2 stuff, in the years just after the war, an amazing amount of stuff was buried and wasn’t of great importance in the 1950s but it is now, because they’d rather the land NOT be contaminated.

The whole point now is not the secrecy of tanks, but the lack of decontamination before building new housing projects on seriously contaminated land…. And when I say contaminated, I mean the worst kind of stuff imaginable.

unlike Andy, I don’t have the time to unearth the skullduggery, backhanders over land acquisition, failure to decontaminate after regrettable ‘burials’ etc, but don’t forget, burying vehicles may not be the greatest conspiracy in the world but what they could have put in a sealed tank may be!

some people have asked why they weren’t simply scrapped? Well there’s your answer. You don’t get rid of dangerous unwanted nasties by just burying it because of the water table which rises and falls. You make sure it’s in a ‘container’.

Ive lived near the site all my life and lost count of the horror stories from people who were there,  of ‘buried treasures’. It’s true, they are treasures now, but they weren’t then…. And they are buried for a damn good reason.

like Andy, I wouldn’t just come out with the complete story as huge investments are involved and many powerful people too. I think we all realise that if you upset the wrong people, they’ll let you know.

[andy brown]

5 hours ago, Meekumslr said:

I don’t know about Waterbeach but I do know about a site near to me, which has the same dodgy history, with a huge amount of buried vehicles, munitions and even biological vials.

I’d love to know the truth behind the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, London and the stuff buried there (yes, I do know people who saw the vast underground storage of vehicles as well as buried tanks).

I also know those involved in land surveys for the building of Thamesmead and HMP Belmarsh (prison) on top of biochemical test facilities, who chose to shove soil and concrete down them rather than decontaminate them.

so, although many are wondering what the big deal and secrecy is surrounding the burial of WW2 stuff, in the years just after the war, an amazing amount of stuff was buried and wasn’t of great importance in the 1950s but it is now, because they’d rather the land NOT be contaminated.

The whole point now is not the secrecy of tanks, but the lack of decontamination before building new housing projects on seriously contaminated land…. And when I say contaminated, I mean the worst kind of stuff imaginable.

unlike Andy, I don’t have the time to unearth the skullduggery, backhanders over land acquisition, failure to decontaminate after regrettable ‘burials’ etc, but don’t forget, burying vehicles may not be the greatest conspiracy in the world but what they could have put in a sealed tank may be!

some people have asked why they weren’t simply scrapped? Well there’s your answer. You don’t get rid of dangerous unwanted nasties by just burying it because of the water table which rises and falls. You make sure it’s in a ‘container’.

Ive lived near the site all my life and lost count of the horror stories from people who were there,  of ‘buried treasures’. It’s true, they are treasures now, but they weren’t then…. And they are buried for a damn good reason.

like Andy, I wouldn’t just come out with the complete story as huge investments are involved and many powerful people too. I think we all realise that if you upset the wrong people, they’ll let you know.

Life is a strange old lot isn't it ? You get so use to having all of your apples tipped of the cart your lost for words when someone comes along and starts putting them back..

Yes there is so much I haven't said there is so much I am I'll advised to say ,I had no idea at the outset as to what I was to be confronted with ,the deeper I dug the greater resistance I encounter.but ones ignorance of what goes on behind the scenes the who's, the whys,means your trying to open doors that nobody wants you to open .....All I can say is that this is vast not in just burial or "s" but implications past and present.......

Meekumsir has encapsulated a raft of reasons that highlight just why you can't open the doors ,the hidden fear of allowing the truth out of the box, and what it cost, ironically most of the guardians of these historic ( criminal offences) haven't the faintest idea what's in the box or even where it is ,only you can open it .........

[andy brown]

On 9/5/2022 at 10:30 AM, andy brown said:

Life is a strange old lot isn't it ? You get so use to having all of your apples tipped of the cart your lost for words when someone comes along and starts putting them back..

Yes there is so much I haven't said there is so much I am I'll advised to say ,I had no idea at the outset as to what I was to be confronted with ,the deeper I dug the greater resistance I encounter.but ones ignorance of what goes on behind the scenes the who's, the whys,means your trying to open doors that nobody wants you to open .....All I can say is that this is vast not in just burial or "s" but implications past and present.......

Meekumsir has encapsulated a raft of reasons that highlight just why you can't open the doors ,the hidden fear of allowing the truth out of the box, and what it cost, ironically most of the guardians of these historic ( criminal offences) haven't the faintest idea what's in the box or even where it is ,only you can open it .........

Just to clarify an earlier statement I made re opening the burial concrete and the concrete from the same period which extended the width of the runway , some may have misconstrued this as in (the dug down ) to some depth ,in fact it was only the concrete that was broken through In a channel form across the width of the concrete in question ,in fact if you Goole map it you will see only the concrete spoil lays along side the shallow trench . There is probably two to three foot of hardcore to go before the spares would show and approx three more ft before you reach the tanks ..

It crossed my mind that these trenches were cut just to evacuate the volatile atmosphere within . The fact that the runway trenches were cut would appear that they were working on my information and not something they had discovered since I had informed them of the burial and it's whereabouts ten years ago....if they found such info they would have known there was nothing under the runway extensions, which means they are in for a shock when they start digging in certain areas that if they had played ball in the first place i might have mentioned .........