For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
#1893280
Rob P wrote:
Sooty25 wrote:
The closest I have seen to the fantasy being realised is the Mark IV tank, Deborah, buried shortly after the end of WW1 in a crater, and now resplendent in its own museum near Cambrai

Image

Rob P


When I was a very young boy, we lived in Hatfield. There used to be one of those in the grounds of Hatfield House, and I spent many happy hours playing tank driver with friends.

It was eventually moved to Bovington and restored.

https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/home ... se-7193710
Last edited by Paultheparaglider on Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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#1893282
A lot of time an effort was expended during the Manchester Runway 2 project on archaeology before the work started in earnest. Some Bronze Age artefacts were recorded.

The legend of the buried Lancasters behind the Southside hangars was once and forever proved false.
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By Rob P
#1893286
Tough old things tanks. They have been pulled out of bogs in Russia more or less intact, a Tiger or a Panther quite recently, I can't recall which.

Rob P
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By OCB
#1893295
An incomplete list of rumours about "buried war-birds and weird tech" not yet mentioned:

The underground hangers full of ME109/262 etc in or around Berlin. Legend has it, as much of Nazi production and storage went underground - there's at least 1 or 2 sites that got sealed off, but are rammed with full or partial airframes. Apparently the geology around Berlin makes it easy to dig out and construct such things?

Obviously, that ties in with the underground treasure-trove train, including the famed Amber Room....

The underground research facility where the Nazis were working on "UFO tech", antigravity drives and wotnot.

The UK "boneyard" - where (allegedly) various Cold War airframes and jigs etc are buried in the sand.

The lunar WWII bomber crash site, which the Sunday Sport first reported on.

The latter - I was in the room when that call was made....I'd actually forgotten about that until I started writing this!! IIRC, we got published as "baffled boffins" in a follow-up article...alas my copy of that edition got lost decades ago, but I've reached out to the guilty parties to see if they still have the full story :oops: :lol:
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By Rob P
#1893301
There's allegedly dozens of Spitfires buried, carefully protected in disused mine workings in Australia too.

Rob P
#1893348
Slight thread drift but bare with me.

Had lunch at Manchester Airport in the late 90s with a group of enthusiasts including Michael Bishop.

Chap I sat next to recounted a visit with his father in the late 40s to visit a farming relative in Cumbria. The farm was adjacent RAF Carlisle and during the stay they heard constant rumblings of heavy plant.

Curiosity drew them to the airfield where they found a local scrap dealer driving a bulldozer up and down lines of RAF a/c - mostly Spitfires.

His Dad talked to the contractor who offered him as many Spits as he wanted at £25 a throw.
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#1893436
Before I joined up in ‘61 I was in the Sea Cadets for a while and went on a trip to the then Royal Naval Air Station at Lossiemouth, probably around ‘58. On a tour around the base we passed a huge pound full of cooncoated WW2 aircraft. I don’t however know what they were. When I entered the service we had around 200 warships of all types similarly preserved - guns, radar etc. I did a stint on the Britannia and had to pass through the shore establishment HMS Excellent to get to it, tied up at Whale Island Portsmouth. Every day I walked past a huge grey blob which was an intact WW1 tank - so many coats of warship grey paint on it that it was almost unrecognisable.
#1893445
CloudHound wrote:
Curiosity drew them to the airfield where they found a local scrap dealer driving a bulldozer up and down lines of RAF a/c - mostly Spitfires.

His Dad talked to the contractor who offered him as many Spits as he wanted at £25 a throw.


But back then, who'd want one? The country was staggering out of the destruction of 6 years of war, no money, no fuel, so who other than someone with an extremely vivid imagination would buy an aeroplane that is totally impractical as a civilian workhorse. Can't exactly turn one into a cropduster!
#1893466
OCB wrote:An incomplete list of rumours about "buried war-birds and weird tech" not yet mentioned:

..


There were analogous rumours/myths in Liverpool in '60s/'70s about storage tunnels under Burtonwood, allegedly full of US military 'stuff' during WW2 and Cold War, and simply sealed when USAF pulled out.
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By Rob P
#1893491
Ah yes. More Jeeps and Harleys. Never defunct catering appliances and empty tin cans.

Rob P
#1893611
Rob P wrote:Ah yes. More Jeeps and Harleys. Never defunct catering appliances and empty tin cans.

Rob P


Makes sense to me, no one had fuel so couldn't use a Harley. But everyone needed to cook, so even old cookers might get spirited away!
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#1893619
When I lived in Enfield as a child, my elderly neighbour said there was an AA gun next to the cemetery at Church street, Edmonton.

He maintained there are bullet holes in headstones in the cemetery from strafing (I never went to look and I doubt the Luftwaffe ever had enough air superiority to be strafing AA guns!)

he also maintained all equipment was kept in a bunker complex under the field next door, which was sealed and left at the end of the war.