Burmese Spitfires! there are none!

[phoenix leader]

Just heard on the radio that there are none, and infact they believe there are none at the others sites either, how did they get it so wrong, and the cost!

[500N]

They didn't get it wrong.

They got exactly what they wanted, extracting a huge amount of money
from various sources.

[phoenix leader]

Wow! why do you say that?

[500N]

Instead of carrying on with this thread, read the thread
in this forum on the Spitfires and the thread in the
Nostalgia forum on the Spirfires.

Both are near the top of the list on the first page.


I'm not the only one who thinks this is a load of BS.

Just the way the whole thing was done, press conferences,
the US link (US, lots of money), press conferences, video,
all "drip feeding" the media which in my opinion a sure sign
someone is stringing others along.

Crate full of water - but will take weeks to pump it out.
Bull****, if they were serious you'd get a pump and it would
be empty in a couple of days. Most farmers I know could
rig one up (a pump) using an old tractor of which I am sure
their are a few around.

I would be very happy if they do find some and can get
whatever it is back to the UK and something flying.
In fact it will be superb.

[500N]

"He tracked down an eyewitness who led him to the area where the aircraft were buried. He eventually located the buried planes using ground-penetrating radar equipment.


His team dug a borehole and sent down a camera to look at the crates, which were said to be in ‘really good condition’.

From the DM article today.


So, they HAD ground penetrating radar but in the last few days they had
to use another method to search for them.

They found crates, but now it seems that their aren't any ??????

Does it not seem strange to you ?

[ShyTorque]

No Spitfires. Well well, what a surprise this was(n't) :rolleyes: .

But then I was just a pessimistic nay-sayer, all along.

[TBM-Legend]

From the beginning the story never made sense and kept changing like a politician's promises....:=

The gullible media soaked it up...never let the facts stand in the way of a good story!:hmm:

[Yamagata ken]

Ground penetrating radar won't see below the water table. That's a hard limit to the system. I've not been paying attention so I didn't know about the GPR claims.

[airsound]

phoenix leader

[Pedant hat on.] Surely the thread title should read ".....there is none!"

Thank you.

Doffs pedant hat.

airsound

[Kitsune]

'There are no buried Spitfires', archaeologists claim - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9810503/There-are-no-buried-Spitfires-archaeologists-claim.html)

[Chris Scott]

airsound,

You missed the lower-case T. Should try harder...

This whole business seems to have been suffering from a similar lack of rigour... :}

[airsound]

Quite right Chris. Will try harder.

At least the Torygraph remains grammatical in its headline, thank God.

airsound

[Pontius Navigator]

Now maybe he will come back to Lincolnshire and excavate the Lancasters at Caister.

[percy prentice]

Secret unpublished picture of one of the Burma containers

http://www.elvisinfonet.com/image-files/product_coffin1_med.jpg

[Thelma Viaduct]

Is there even a copy of 'Lord Mountbatten's' orders instructing the Spitfire burial??

Was Mountbatten a bit of bell-end? He has a very silly name. :ok:

[aviate1138]

Wiki says
"Mountbatten is the family name originally adopted by a branch of the Battenberg family during World War I because of rising anti-German sentiment among the British public. On 14 July 1917, Prince Louis of Battenberg ("Prince Louis I") assumed the surname Mountbatten."

The Mountbatten blown up by the IRA had a career full of absolutely awful decisions. The most notable concerned his handling of the India/Pakistan Partition. Also the WW2 Dieppe raid was his idea and a disaster. He is also known as Prince Charles' Mentor - another disaster! Canadians hated him for the massive losses of their troops on the Dieppe Raid.

His meddling in the TSR2 debacle didn't help matters either.

Mountbatten's self publicity hid the many gaffs but historians have shown the reality of a rather mediocre career that cost many lives.

[Dengue_Dude]

However . . . we quite liked his cake :cool:

[CoffmanStarter]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/20/article-2265255-16FD689F000005DC-86_634x392.jpg

Even PPRuNe has given up on us :(

[dctyke]

There is definately a Spitfire mahjong tile underneath the dragon, honest.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/01/20/article-2265255-16FD689F000005DC-86_634x392.jpg

[cribble]

(thread creep)

Aviate
While I appreciate that there is little room in a forum such as this for detailed bibliography( and I hold no particular candle for Mountbatten), your casual dismissal of his accomplishments around partition have me at a loss for words. :ugh:

[proteus6]

just remind us how many people died during the partition of India?

[GreenKnight121]

After all, even Douglas MacArthur did something right... his handling of the Japanese people in 1945-50 was simply brilliant, and defused any possible civilian resistance while creating a close friendship with the nation that had just kicked their butts!

Not a small accomplishment, and carried out in the face of severe opposition from those who wished the Imperial system be demolished (which would have caused a massive civilian uprising) and the country "de-industrialized'.


Which success, like Mountbatten's in post-war India, does nothing to lessen MacA's abysmal failures in the Philippines in Dec 1941-early 1942, nor his catastrophe in Korea (both in the winter of 1950-51 and in allowing hard intell on the NK build-up in March-June 1950 to be suppressed).



If MB had been as bad as is claimed, there would have been open war between the central (India) and western (Pakistan) parts of the partitioned lands instead of "only" purges and suppressions.

Yes, a lot did die... but nowhere close to as many could have died with a less-capable Viceroy.

[proteus6]

There is still till for open war between the two counties, the partition left a unresolved tension which simmers to this day.
It is true that a war in 1945 could have resulted in death, but a contuined UK lead aministration may have been a better choice, of course we will never know

[NutLoose]

As for the NO spitfires I would suggest you read the post 1542 from here

Spitfires From Burma (Merged thread) - Page 52 - Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums (http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=116104&page=52)

From Peter Arnold who has been out there and is the renowned Spitfire Historian.

Makes interesting reading, especially as they are not digging in the right place.

[500N]

Nutloose

"Myitkycina is 900 odd miles north. It is a military base. I would suggest the next move would be for David Cundall to quietly retrace his steps there from December 2012 with his Burmese geologist and partners, expand the hand dug hole by 300%, expose more of the crate, if that is what it is, cut a substantial hole in it, and using a very large pump and generator set get sufficient water out so that a conventional camera can record what is there. I would allow a couple of weeks."


Look at it this way. I find gold in our Golden Triangle here in Aus but not just gold, the edge of a gold vein. I organise financing, permission, people and god knows what else.

I then go and start digging 900 miles away where gold veins are also known to occur but haven't actually been found.

They found a crate and then start the dig in one of the other locations ?

Are they there to find and dig up crates of Spitfires or scrape off
the top soil placed in the area since WWII ?

Because the reports had said they had already found a crate, people's expectations were when they started digging they would be digging something up.

Sorry, but it has to be one of the messiest PR explanations, all flag waving and headlines with little clear explanation of the various stages. Then again, as was said in a post below the one you suggested we read if "David Cundall, the figurehead, will be the obvious focus of ridicule -- some deserved, much not
but he is the one who's name is tagged alongside this whole thing.

All this could have been avoided if they had clearly laid out what they
were doing, where, when and how and what they expected to find, it would
all have been avoided.

Sorry, just my HO.


Although I do hope they find something.

[Load Toad]

If they had found a crate, full of water which would take 'weeks' to pump out - where is that?

Rapidly looking like a scam or the work of a bunch of eccentric buffoons.

[500N]

Load Toad

From what I can work out, the crate full of water is at "Myitkycina".


"Weeks to pump out". As I have said before, someone needs to do
some thinking, it's not exactly the size of Wembley Stadium that is
needing to be pumped out !!!

[L J R]

...actually, they are all in a crate between Dalby and Oakey (S/E Queensland Australia), allocated and delivered to RAAF but never 'un-crated' nor assembled, let alone accepted and flown....That is still an unproven (or disproven) folk law.

[Valiantone]

Pontius Navigator

The rumours of buried Lancasters were at Elsham Wolds, as for Caister thats by the sea in Norfolk. The nearest actual airfield to Caistor in Lincolnshire is Hibaldstow.

My Grandparents grew up there.

V1

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

AvWeb (USA) has caught on too.....

"No Spitfires Found At First Dig Site In Burma

An internationally supported expedition to Burma to dig up Spitfires thought to be buried there after the close of WWII is quickly drawing skepticism as it has so far found none after one week digging at a primary site, Mingaladon airport. The project's mastermind, British farmer David Cundall, believes there's still hope. Cundall had found eyewitness support of his theory that the British military packed more than 120 Spitfires in crates and buried them in the ground before vacating Burma more than 60 years ago. His evidence drew the assistance of David Cameron and cooperation of the Burmese government in arranging permission for a dig. But after one week digging at Mingaladon airport (now Rangoon International Airport), and with one witness, a 91-year-old British veteran, in attendance, archeologists Wednesday suspended the search on lack of evidence. Counterclaims and alternate theories of explanation are beginning to surface, including one from another witness. Cundall expects to continue.

In a letter published on Jan. 9, by TheTimes.co.uk, Lionel Timmins claims to have served with RAF 81 squadron from August 1946 through February 1948, spending time at Mingaladon "for a substantial part of each year." Timmins states he "neither saw anything of the burials nor did I hear any rumors, which I believe there most certainly would have been had the aircraft been buried." Tmmins wrote at the time that the steel interlocking plates of the airport's then runway could account for the search's initial indications of buried metal. The search itself has since turned up cables and pipes, as well as metal plates used in construction of the earlier airport's runway. It had expected to find as many as 36 Spitfires carefully packed in crates for storage and buried in good condition at the location. Some skeptics now believe witnesses may have confused burial of the planes with the disposal of other equipment while Spitfires were assembled or disassembled nearby. Cundall's project had acquired funding from Wargaming.net, an online gaming company, and the project's spokesman, Frazer Nash, has said the team will continue its investigation at two other sites in Burma.

Oh Dear....
Is it REALLY just a hoax..??
:sad:

[B Fraser]

Frazer Nash ???? I think not. Does he have a brother called Austin Healey and a sister called Mercedes Benz ?

You couldn't make it up, wait a minute...... they probably did.

[sled dog]

Did`nt Austin Healey at one time play rugby for England...........

[aviate1138]

cribble said.....

"your casual dismissal of his accomplishments around partition have me at a loss for words."

Hmmm, not sure I would view them as "accomplishments" frankly.

A bisexual cousin of Queen Elizabeth becomes viceroy of India, rids Great Britain of a colony, which he does by hastily dividing the county into three sections (two Muslim; one Hindu), result: chaos.
Mountbatten's partition plan was overly hasty and a massive tragedy for India, with a million people slaughtered as a direct consequence.

August 15th, 1947, inaugurated one of the cruelest and most enduring ironies of decolonization. India, a British property with over 4,500 years of civilization and a population of 415 million, finally achieved independence. But it was a triumph that opened a social, historical and geographic wound that has yet to fully heal: the new Indian state was partitioned into two.
Violent divisions between the subcontinent's Hindu and Muslim communities, and Muslim League leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah's longstanding campaign for an Indian-Muslim political entity in the event of a British withdrawal, made partition the expedient choice for a weary and overextended post-war British government. On June 3rd, 1947, British Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten announced that, as of August 15, India would be split between separate majority-Hindu and majority-Muslim countries.

The border between the future modern states of India and Pakistan was created under the supervision of Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a London barrister who was given only five weeks to draw the new borders. The resulting armed conflict persists today, from Hindu-ruled yet majority-Muslim Kashmir, to the bifurcation of Pakistan into remote eastern and western halves that later waged war. Millions of Pakistani Bengalis lost access to Kolkata, a regional metropolis that now sits on the Indian side of the border.

[ZH875]

Pontius Navigator

The rumours of buried Lancasters were at Elsham Wolds, as for Caister thats by the sea in Norfolk. The nearest actual airfield to Caistor in Lincolnshire is Hibaldstow.

My Grandparents grew up there.

V1

The nearest actual airfield to Caistor in Lincolnshire is (was) RAF Caistor. Less than 2 miles from Caistor.

Hibaldstow airfield is approx 8 miles from Caistor, putting Binbrook closer at a distance of 6 miles from Caistor.

Caistor was a very small airfield, with a brief life span. It acted mainly as a support field for training units. It was first used in 1940 as a relief airfield for Kirton Lindsey, but by 1942 it was used by the 15 (P) Advanced Flying Unit from Kirmington, and then by Cranwell. Flying ended in 1944, and the airfield closed at the end of the war. Source (http://wikimapia.org/4480573/Former-RAF-Caistor)

[Blacksheep]

What has long puzzled me about these legendary Spitfires is this. There exists a long production list of every Spitfire ever built, giving its delivery details, where it went and, for those sent to ACSEA, the MU at which it was assembled and the name of the ship on which the crate was sent. In this list one cannot find a group of a dozen or more crated Spitfires shipped to Rangoon in early 1945 or late 1944. Or anywhere else in Burma for that matter. Batches were sent to MUs to be assembled and then flown to end user squadrons. Given the absence of an MU in Rangoon at the time, who was to assemble them? Even in the madness of war, would the powers-that-be send a squadron of aircraft in crates to be assembled on a remote site by a Squadron's own fitters?

So, where did these legendary dozen, three dozen or even more crated Spitfires come from?

[Andu]

A bisexual cousin of Queen Elizabeth becomes viceroy of India, rids Great Britain of a colony, which he does by hastily dividing the county into three sections (two Muslim; one Hindu), result: chaos.

The urban myth (which might not have been a myth at all) doing the rounds in my youth was that Mountbatten put the ridiculously tight (and disastrous for so many) deadline on "resolving" the Indian independence question so he and the missus would be back in Blighty for the coronation of the Queen.

It's also now pretty widely accepted that Jawaharlal Nehru was bonking Lady Mountbatten, which, if Lord Louis was aware of it, must surely have added another "dimension" to the negotiations. (Edwina Mountbatten-Nehru affair was sexual: Catherine Clement | Rupee News (http://rupeenews.com/2009/11/edwina-nehru-affair-was-sexual-catherine-clement/))

Back to the Spitfire element of the thread: I agree; surely there's a paper trail that gives a pretty good idea of what became of most airframes. The longstanding myth of buried Spitfires near Oakey, in Queensland, centres around some of the disposal teams diverting a couple of airframes into nearby disused mines rather than make the long journey to the disposal point, probably as much to steal the petrol they saved as to save the aircraft for posterity.

[Danny42C]

I think the communal riots after Independence would have occurred whoever had been the Viceroy at the time. The British Government's policy was one of despair, but it was the only policy in town. Jinnah did not trust Nehru and the Congress and was never going to agree to a junior partnership in a Hindu dominated unitary India.

The situation was not dissimilar to the Arab/Israeli impasse today. The two successor States have already fought four wars over Kashmir (besides the secessionist war which resulted in Pakistan/Bangladesh.

At home, the Daily Mirror at the time had a sub-head: (IIRC)

"THEY KNEW".

"How depressing it is when the wrong people turn out to be right, and to see the Indians behaving exactly as the blimps and curry-colonels said they would".

*********

As for the Spitfires, my view has always centred on the unanswered question "Why ?" Your doggie buries a bone, you know why. The squirrel in your garden buries his nuts, you know why. You only bury things when you intend to come back for them (ask any pirate), or envisage future circumstances which might cause you to do so.

We were the ruling power in Burma till Independence on 1st January 1948. What possible reason could we have to bury perfectly good aircraft (which the IAF was using and the Burmese Air Force could use, and that we could use ourselves) in 1945 - 1946 ?

Apart from that, the point put forward by Blacksheep and Andu is in itself conclusive. Aircraft just don't disappear off inventory with no written trace.

I'm sure Mr Cundall is sincere in his belief, but the Spitfires were never there. Forget it.

[NutLoose]

Apart from that, the point put forward by Blacksheep and Andu is in itself conclusive. Aircraft just don't disappear off inventory with no written trace.

During the war they did, I read a fascinating article about a private spit acquired by some pilot that used to use it to pop back and forth to the UK to pick up and drop off various items, eventually he got worried as the maintenance was getting a bit lacklustre so he arranged to have it quietly abandoned. Remember lame ducks would get left behind and acquired by those that came after, the original unit no doubt writing it off as destroyed as a paperwork exercise so replacements could be acquired

[TBM-Legend]

Has there ever been a case of "digging up" aircraft in boxes anywhere before?

I can't find any references to any complete aircraft in packing crates being found underground, in caves or whatever. Maybe an engine or two and certainly trashed, crushed and or burnt discards yes.

Why would Burma be the only place in some people's eyes for this 'discovery'?:suspect:

[Load Toad]

It ticks all the boxes for stuff being hidden for years since until recently it was closed.

Incidentally I fly there on 20th for a couple of days work - if anyone wants to sponsor me I'm happy to take a trowel and have a dig about the hotel grounds.

[Blacksheep]

During the war they did, Things have always disappeared off inventory. I've disappeared quite a lot of stuff myself during my my career. However, what I'm talking about is things that are "On Inventory". Any crated Spitfires being shipped to Rangoon for assembly and squadron allocation would have been firmly "On Inventory" until such time as the squadron adjutant scribbled his name at the bottom of the transaction slip. And although there is plenty of evidence of Spitfires being sent to Burma, they were previously assembled by an MU in India. There is also plenty of documentary evidence of unused crated Spitfires being shipped back from ACSEA to UK, and others being handed over to the Indian Air Force and - surprise, surprise - the Burmese Air Force. Its the lack of any evidence of any large batch of Spitfires being shipped to Rangoon that makes me sceptical about their existence.

[FATTER GATOR]

BBC reporting that the search is officially off.

BBC News - Search for 'buried Spitfires' in Burma called off (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21483187)

Shame really.

There's a well informed picture at the end of the article which gives highly detailed information as to why the Spitfire was so successful.:ok: