Buried Treasure

[Agaricus bisporus]

Seem to remember tales of a German WW2 airfield with aircraft hangared in tunnels in a nearby mountain that had the tunnels blocked up by bombing. Is this fact or fantasy, and if fact has anyone ever tried to reach the treasures that must be entombed there?

[treadigraph]

I remember hearing a similar rumour as well, but sadly I think it's just that - like the Stirling and two Lancs found in reasonable condition in Russia somewhere...

But I do hope I'm wrong!

[Woomera]

Like the Japanese aircraft hidden in tunnels in Rabaul (PNG), the Natzi gold in a lake in Germany, the Spitfires buried in New South Wales, the new aircraft dumped in a water filled coal mine at Archerfield in Brisbane............

Ah, the war stories......... :p

[treadigraph]

...and the Syrian late Mk Spitfires... mind you they actually MAY exist!:ok:

[Agaricus bisporus]

Oh well, it was worth a rty.

I do remember a true tale - at least, I believe it to be true - of a great lakes freighter that sank in a storm carrying a couple of dozen crated and inhibited Mustangs for onward shipment to Europe. Lake Erie I should think. The source, many years ago, was a guy who was quite senior in the lakes management authority and was utterly reliable. He did not know the exact location and was understandably cagey about giving details - the boat had vanished in a storm and might be a war grave, but thought that as the water is fresh and totally anoxic at depth that there was an excellent chance that the aircraft would be in as new condition.

Wow!

[treadigraph]

Well, the US Navy certainly pulled a number of Dauntlesses, Wildcats and the like from Lake Michigan which were in quite good condition. Saw a couple, one of which was unrestored and looked quite remarkable. They'd ditched while using the training carriers.

Unfortuantely there has been some dispute between the USN and private individuals who have tried to do the same.

There were other stories about various aircraft discarded from carriers off Australia near the GBR which were alleged to be in good nick... that one seemed to fizzle out as well - anyone know more?

[Gainesy]

Who'd want a brand new Barracuda, let alone a rusty one?:)

[Onan the Clumsy]

I guess a Barracuda would be the perfect corporate plane...for a lawyer.



What happened to that (those?) buried Lancaster in England that they found a few years ago. It was sitting there with the wings off and underneath it, covered up with dirt, just like someone was planning on coming back after the war and nicking it, or maybe it just made the paperwork easier. :ugh:

[Woomera]

Treadie.

"There were other stories about various aircraft discarded from carriers off Australia near the GBR which were alleged to be in good nick... that one seemed to fizzle out as well - anyone know more?"

No legend at all. They are well south of the Reef and not far north of Brisbane, not far off the coast. The local commercial fishermen curse the day some Royal Navy bureaucratic idiot dumped the many aircraft overboard. They have now disintegrated in the salt water and various bits and pieces are regularly recovered in commercial fishing nets - with the usual net damage.

See here (http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/ozatwar/[email protected]) for further details. The story suggests "Scores of Voight-Sikorsky F4U-1D Corsairs, F6F Hellcats, a Fairy Barracuda, at least 12 Seafires, several TBM Avenger torpedo bombers, AT6 Harvards and Supermarine Otter seaplanes were dumped" although I suspect the numbers may have increased with the passage of time!

This site (http://www.deh.gov.au/coasts/pollution/dumping/history/activity.html) suggests "...some 23,000 tons of ammunition had been dumped by the Department of Supply (former suppliers for the forces) off the North Queensland coast."

[4Greens]

They were supplied under the Terms of Lendlease. The RN weren't allowed to keep them and the US didn't want them back. Solution:Dump them over the side!

[LowNSlow]

Onan I seem to recall that when they attempted to recover the Lancasters they had been completely crushed due to the weight of soil ploughed over them. They looked good in the sonar scan but in reality were only fit for scrap.

[TwoDeadDogs]

Hi all
With regard to the remarks about buried treasure, wasn't there a story going about a unit of German tanks kept in a tunnel under Berlin, for Hitler's final offensive. Supposedly, builders found the tunnel during clearup work after the war and filled it in rather than delay the rebuilding. Also, the line about angry fishermen certainly rings true over here. Fishermen in the North kept picking up ordnance in their nets well South of the proper dumping areas.Turned out that the Navy lads going out on a dumping run on a Friday used to go out just far enough that they'd be back by early evening instead of nearly midnight.The munitions, including smoke/incendiary rounds, had become unstable over the years and very sometimes exploding or else giving off nasty vapours when hauled on deck...
regards
TDD

[BeauMan]

I would imagine there's still all sorts of stuff buried.

There was a cache of Luftwaffe aero engines unearthed at Frankfurt Main airport a few years ago, some of which I believe have either been fitted to airworthy aircraft or have to the potential to be. We pulled a load of bits out of the ground in a UK scrapyard which went towards an airworthy restoration. And also just a few years ago an FW190 was found buried under the remains of an ex Luftwaffe and Soviet Air Force hangar in eastern Germany.

There's lots of stuff out there, you just have to know where to look, and what for.

[Onan the Clumsy]

I wonder then, if in a thousand years finding someting like that 190 would be the same as us finding King Tuten kkhamen's tomb, or the fossil of an archyopteryx, or perhaps the Mary Rose.

[treadigraph]

Hmmm, I should bloody well hope so, but then again...

[Shropshire Lad]

Then there's theradioactive Swifts buried somewhere in the Australian desert i believe...

[Atcham Tower]

A Shropshire recovery group recently unearthed a complete Lancaster canopy, minus perspex, near the former RAF Tern Hill. There was an MU here which handled Lancs.

[Molesworth Hold]

There is nothing "former" about Tern Hill. It's still a very busy little airfield, even if the Army has the domestic site. Rumour has it that when CFS left in 1976 that lots of spares and tools were consigned to a very big hole. A few years back the RAF carried out environmental surveys on all their airfields looking for evidence of aircraft graveyards, but they kept very quiet about the results. Freedom of Information Act anyone?

[Shropshire Lad]

Would be surprised if in 1976 they buried a load of gear - seeing as they moved only 7 miles or so down the road! Could have loaded it into the Whirlwinds that did the mass flypast I believe. Great airfield tho - did my very first solo there in a Venture T2!

[williamp]

Perhaps they didnt report anyhting because there was....nothing to report.

Besides, metal being burried does not survive that long. If they did find something, writing a report about "various unidentifyable bits of metal, crushed and corroded" would not make very interetsing reading. Probably best if the order said "report anyhting worth writing about"

Its a dream we all have: a long-forgotten pre-war car in a barn, a Ferrari left in the garage of a new house, whose owner didnt have the key and whose previous owner had died intestate, an underground mine full of old steam locomotives, or a forgotten hanger full of Mk1 Spitfires/ Mosquitos/Lancasters or one each of Halifax/Hampden/ Wellington/Whitley plus a few zero-rated Merlin engines, still in protective oil, and a few other interetsing things.

It would be wonderful but, alas it is very unlikely. But like you (and everyone on here) I live in hope!

[Sultan Ismail]

There is a "mine" of used aircraft parts near the centre of Cambridge. At the end of the war and into the early fifties an old pit was filled with aircraft parts from Lancaster fuselages to complete cockpit canopies.

I used to stand across the road and watch the Queen Mary's arriving every day, one thing that I remember in detail to this day was the cockpit perspex, it was always yellow, not stained but the yellowness of exposure. The only time I have seen a reference to this is in "Fate is the Hunter"

There are without doubt hundreds of aircraft in that hole, now it is covered up and there is an industrial estate on the surface.

As for treasure behind a locked door, I do know of a garage in Africa that contains a 1912 Silver Ghost, a Cadillac that once belonged to Al Capone and a lot more in between, oh and an original Dennis Fire Engine.

[ShyTorque]

RAF Ternhill saw the belated recovery of a training aircraft (a Miles Magister, if my memory is correct) in the late 1970s. A solo student had crashed into a bog that surrounded the airfield during WW2 and had not survived, the aircraft and he sinking into the mire. Over the years, the land was drained and was later used for agriculture. Story was that they found an old farm boy who took the recovery team into a field and simply said "dig there". They did, the remains of the aircraft and its pilot were quickly recovered and he was later given a formal military burial.

I occupied a MQ at RAF Shawbury for a while in the late 1970s. Every time I dug the back garden I unearthed small broken pieces of perspex and metal aircraft pipework. Was never sure if it had arrived there off the back of a truck or from a great height.

[FJJP]

Apparently, the hard standing at Gib had a lot of scrapware used as fill-in ballast when it was being built, including old tanks, etc. The story goes that a Nimrod sank into a hole caused when the ironwork rotted through the passage of time. Anyone heard of this?

The atmosphere at Gib is highly salt-atmosphere laden, and is lethal to metals. The Vulcan that stood next to the stadium rotted into dangerous condition in only a few years...

[tinpis]

Then there's theradioactive Swifts buried somewhere in the Australian desert i believe...

Could well be tho havent heard of them
I know Tony Schwerdt flew a P51 out of Maralinga that had been sat with others in the blast
Last time I saw he he didnt glow in the dark.!

[HZ123]

In the 70's I was told as a PC at STN by a number of locals that a number of a/c were buried beneath the taxiways amongst other lend lease equipment. Also told that kit was buried at Fords of Langley after the war finished as there was a glut of kit.

[Shropshire Lad]

I thought i had read about the Swifts somewhere...Nigel Walpole in "Swift Justice" lists some of the Swifts in operation Buffalo at Marilinga (and mentions the Mustangs too!) Good book as that is the same chapter that gives an account of WK198's restoration (to which i am very close!)

ShyTorque - there were a significant number of aircraft scrapped at the MU in the late 60's at Shawbury so that may be the source of the bits. As a youngster a few years ago I used to go round the farmers fields next to the base in the hope of finding any left over bits - surprisingly we found nothing!!

[Fokkerwokker]

Aaaaah Shawbury......fond memories of Market Day at Wem!

I certainly remember a load of Javelins parked up for scrapping in the very early 60s when I visited as a cadet.

Latterly working there for Marshall's in the mid 60s I recollect acres of Shacklebombers, Hastings and Beverleys awaiting the 'torch'. If I remember correctly there was also a Comet 2 kept in the MU hangar for the years I was based there.

I wasn't p*ssed at the time but I seem to recollect a certain Fl/Lt B****er rolling a Dominie at the open day.

FW

[solotk]

Still lots of stuff around High Ercall. Got talking to some of the locals, who said a lot of engines and bits were chopped off the airframes and dropped into pits. An overhead of High Ercall reveals some interesting features bordering the airfield, and what appears to be the old railhead.

Buried aircraft? No doubt some around, personally, I'm waiting for them to clean up all those mines on the Libyan/Egyptian border :D

Failing that , a trawl of German/Polish lakes might bring up something. Wasn't there a Halibag in a lake in Germany? As I recall, it's still there, because it's carrying the warload.

There is still something to be found.

[henry crun]

St Athan in the late 1950's had, among many units there, an MU devoted entirely to the disposal of surplus aircraft.

From memory Hunter 1's were 300 pounds, Venoms 80, Meteors 100, a Balliol would set you back 70 pounds, and so on.
All the aircraft were complete except for being defueled and having the blind flying instrument panel removed.

Also at that time there were two hangars full of brand new Swift 1's.
They were aircraft already built when the order was cancelled.
All had just 25 minutes flying time from the factory to St Athan.

On arrival they had an Maintainance number put on, which ensured they would never fly again, and they were used by the Boy Entrants school for servicing practice etc.

[Fokkerwokker]

Henry you brought back another memory. As a kid in South Wales my chum and I would cycle miles from Newport to St Athans to crawl over that aircraft dump. We must have made an interesting sight as we struggled away with 'bits' strapped to our bikes! Ispecifically remember the Venoms.

[Shropshire Lad]

Got an interesting book about Shawbury showing pictures of the MU scrapping the prototype Jet Provost T2, Hastings, Javelins, Ansons, Mosquitos and Venoms in the late 50's and 60's. Also mentions the scrapping of Argosies and Shackletons. (Doesn't mention whether any were buried though....!) Must have been quite a sight during the 1960's with all that going on.

[TwoDeadDogs]

Hi all
Given the remark above about uncleared mines in North Africa, who did the clear-up after WW II ended? Did the Armies do it or was it left to the individual Governments? I remember a story about the Allies coming upon an ad-hoc munitions plant, alongside a lake in Germany. As the Allies got near, the Germans are supposed to have tipped thousands of stick-grenades and Panzerfausts into the lake. One report said that there were more than a million individual items! If anyone wants to read about the current French "demineurs", who deal with the modern crop of ploughed up ordnance from both World Wars, then try "Aftermath" by Daniel Webster of National Geographic.
regards
TDD

[LowNSlow]

North Africa was cleared up by the allies and the work continued into the late 50's / early 60's I seem to recall having read once.

I spent a bit of time in the Libyan desert, Tripoli, Benghazi and Tobruk in the 1980's. Tobruk still had ****e lying around on some parts of the coast as di Benghazi to a lesser extent. There are lots of shipwrecks beached on the coast and I once kicked what I thought to be a tin canwhile walking along a beach 25km South of Benghastly only to discover that it was a 3" shell with fuse still attached. The correct steps were taken; large and fast ones in the direction of away!

A pal of mine used to drive into the deep desert to mark positions for the drilling companies to drill the oil wells. He found all sorts of bits and bobs including a single seater aeroplane with the pilot's remains in it. This was duly reported to the appropriate authority who organised the recovery of the remains.

[Fokkerwokker]

Shropshire Lad,

What was the name of the book please?

FW

[allyn]

...where someone can be seduced by these rumours and be slowly, gently be driven mad chasing them down....;)

[Shropshire Lad]

Fokkerwokker

The book is "A History of Royal Air Force Shawbury" and is by Aldon P. Ferguson. it was published by the Merseyside Aviation Society in 1977. I'm not sure how easy it is to get but I have seen the odd one advertised.

[BEagle]

HTP was used in the Blue Steel stand-off weapon and a HTP dumping area would be a feature of any base to which V-force Blue Steel Vulcans and Victors might deploy.

Evil stuff it was, I'm told, and required extreme care in handling.

[FJJP]

Name the base and maybe I can supply an answer...


FJJP

[HZ123]

I recall in the 70's going to visit Shoeburyness Island and the host took me to the a/c dump and there was a TSR2 there, which I can only imagine was eventually destroyed. Anyone confirm if there is anything there now as the island is still closed as far as I know, even though there are only a few days each year when RAF practice.

[gas path]

Also told that kit was buried at Fords of Langley after the war finished as there was a glut of kit.
No such luck HZ123. The site at Langley was redeveloped a few years ago Bridgestone Tyres and the Post Office (Major sorting/distribution) now occupy the majority of the site, the remainder is made up of housing.
I don't recall anything of significance being found.
There was however a very small test/development nuclear reactor on the site that the neighbours knew nothing about. :E It went by the name of Jason and was moved to Greenwich in the early sixties, the building that housed it was still there all bricked up last time I saw it. :suspect:
Didn't the BBMF Hurricane come off the langley production site?

[BeauMan]

Didn't the BBMF Hurricane come off the langley production site?

If you mean PZ865 ('Last of the Many'), it did indeed. I'm not sure about LF363 though.

As an aside, the Hurricane is still commemorated at Langley; a freight company that we use is located in Hurricane Way on the Langley trading estate...