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Buried at the end of WWII, Burma govt. gives OK to search and recover!

Almost too much to hope for!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... e-fly.html

My dad was a US Army Air Forces airplane mechanic in the Pacific when WWII ended. He told me one time that right up until the Japanese surrendered, they worked hard on repairing any aircraft, but once the war ended, anything that couldn't fly itself home got junked. Aircraft awaiting significant repair got bulldozed off to the side and maybe buried, and he said he saw brand new aircraft still in crates pushed off the decks of ships into the sea to make room for hauling troops home.

Will be interesting to see how well these Spits held up. I hope at least some of them can be put back into flying shape.

george wrote:Weren't the Spitfires mostly built of wood? I can't see it holding up very well in those conditions.

No, the Spitfire was Britain first all metal fighter. The Mosquito bomber was all wood except for parts that had to be metal.

AndyC wrote:I'll take them! :)

No! I have first dibbs................... OK, you can have them. But can I go for a ride once in a while?

ELB wrote:My dad was a US Army Air Forces airplane mechanic in the Pacific when WWII ended. He told me one time that right up until the Japanese surrendered, they worked hard on repairing any aircraft, but once the war ended, anything that couldn't fly itself home got junked. Aircraft awaiting significant repair got bulldozed off to the side and maybe buried, and he said he saw brand new aircraft still in crates pushed off the decks of ships into the sea to make room for hauling troops home.

Will be interesting to see how well these Spits held up. I hope at least some of them can be put back into flying shape.

I saw a photograph of brand new P-38 Lightnings in the Philippines that were pushed off into a pit with bulldozers...these hadn't even flown one mission, brand new...the Philippines had no AF at that point and it cost too much to send them back or maintain them in-place...so they got buried, or scrapped...

The original Spitfires had fabric-covered ailerons. It took a while for the Brits to work out the shaping of the metal version.
I would love to see these fly! Lets hope they are in air-worthy shape after all these years of being stored underground.

ELB, my Father was at Okinawa, and wrenching on anything that had more than 1 engine on it. :)
I have post-war pictures of bulldozers stacking new-from-the-States B-24 Liberators like cordwood at the side of the runway.
Of course, the arrival of the B-29 made that almost guaranteed.

This is an amazing find! I can't wait to find out how they all turn out. I am big fan of preserving these historic aircraft. This is the coolest thing I've seen regarding WWII aircraft since I got a call from a researcher working for the National Naval Aviation Museum in back in 2010. As it turns out they had just pulled a Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat from the bottom of Lake Michigan where it rested since a January 1945 training accident. It was a rare find because it was the only combat experienced airplane of it's kind, and saw service in 1943 and 1944 in the Solomon Islands campaign. My Dad flew that plane many times in combat while stationed in the Solomons with another land based Navy squadron flying Hellcats and a Marine squadron flying Corsairs. All these squadrons flew huge combat missions together and had massive dogfights against the Japanese that went on for hours and miles. My father flew 81 combat missions (not all, but many, in that plane) from September 1943 until February 1944 and that was only one of his 4 combat tours during the war. The Marine squadron they flew with was made famous in the 1970s show "Baa Baa Black Sheep". I can't wait for his fighter plane to be fully restored and on display!
Bravo to the British for taking these steps to preserve these pieces of history!

Heartland Patriot wrote: ...
I saw a photograph of brand new P-38 Lightnings in the Philippines that were pushed off into a pit with bulldozers...these hadn't even flown one mission, brand new...the Philippines had no AF at that point and it cost too much to send them back or maintain them in-place...so they got buried, or scrapped...

The Marshal wrote:...
ELB, my Father was at Okinawa, and wrenching on anything that had more than 1 engine on it. :)
I have post-war pictures of bulldozers stacking new-from-the-States B-24 Liberators like cordwood at the side of the runway.
...

I wonder if any of the locals have been running Griffon or Merlin-powered tractors, water pumps, lawnmowers ...

The Spitfire is a beautiful plane. I hope someone feels that way about my Tomcats someday and there are some of those flying around at some airshow when I'm in my 60's, 70's, or older.

BTW, because the Mosquito was mostly wood it was also fairly stealthy because radar wouldn't bounce off it very much.