Scunthorpe Spitfire hunter returns to Burma for fresh search

A man who has spent more than 17 years trying to establish whether Spitfires were buried in Burma at the end of World War Two has returned to the country to conduct a new search.
David Cundall took part in a failed attempt to find the aircraft in 2013 but remains convinced they exist.
A dig at Rangoon airport was abandoned when no trace of the planes was found.
Mr Cundall told the BBC that ground surveys had suggested a new underground location near the runway.
The North Lincolnshire farmer said he has been granted permission by the Burmese government to drill bore holes at the new site, prior to a full excavation.

'Amazing story'

He has new backers after his previous supporters pulled out of the project when they failed to find evidence of the aircraft during the search in February 2013.
Claridon Group's managing director, Chris Scott, said: "We decided that after hearing his amazing story and seeing the passion that this guy had for this project we thought that we had to get involved and help him find them."

David Cundall has been searching for the Spitfires for more than 17 years
Mr Cundall has collected eyewitness reports from United States and British service personnel and local people who claim a number of the fighter planes were buried at the former RAF base between 1945 and 1946.
According to those accounts, the aircraft were unused, unassembled, packed into crates and buried on the orders of Lord Mountbatten.
The previous excavation at Rangoon airport was unsuccessful, despite a survey by scientists that uncovered large concentrations of metal under the ground.
But Ian Reed from the Yorkshire Air Museum, near York, said he had doubts about the story.
"Why were they buried when they were still worth a lot of money? They were still operational aircraft, so why would a country bury them?" he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-li ... e-26136291

Hunter David Cundall given green light to excavate at Yangon International Airport near Rangoon

A new dig for the Birmingham Spitfires which are rumoured to be buried in Burma was beginning today.
Spitfire hunter David Cundall has finally been given the green light to start the fresh excavation work after weeks of frustrating delays.
Supported by Staffordshire-based JCB, a special hydraulic hammer was being used to smash through a layer of concrete near a perimeter fence at Yangon International Airport near Rangoon.

“Things are moving at last,” said 64-year-old Mr Cundall.

He has been on a 17-year Indiana Jones-style quest to try to find the World War Two fighters.
Legend has it that a batch of Castle Bromwich-built Spitfires, which were shipped to Burma but never flew, were buried in their crates before Allied troops returned home.

Mr Cundall believes he has located the planes but an initial dig 12 months ago ended in bitter disappointment when it was halted by airport officials amid fears that sensitive infrastructure was being damaged.

Mr Cundall said JCB had flown representatives and equipment out to Burma to help with the dig.
They were using a hydraulic hammer to break up a “thick layer of concrete” that covers the location of a wooden crate identified underground.
Mr Cundall hopes to discover one of the iconic aircraft sealed inside the box.
He then plans to move on to dig in another location where recent hi-tech surveys have identified “at least” 12 large metal objects buried at several metres deep and up to 30 metres long.
And he has promised that, if salvageable, he will put one of the Spitfires on display in Birmingham.
Mr Cundall said: “We hope to do a bore hole and then use a bore hole camera to see into the box.”
The green light to dig again follows new evidence coming to light which included a drawing of where eye witnesses testify to seeing or helping to bury up to 12 Spitfires near a railway track in Myitkyina.

It tallied exactly with the location of Mr Cundall’s hi-tech tomography investigations which located “at least” 12 large objects – believed to be Spitfires – buried at several metres deep.
He thinks the crates of boxed-up Spitfires – which never flew in action – were lifted straight from a train and into a carved out trench.


http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/mi ... es-6776986

Broken Wings Trailer
http://vimeo.com/68214038

Monsoon seems to be according to this : The year is separated into three seasons in Burma: The monsoon season starts at the end of May/beginning of June bringing heavy rains; the dry season starts in November with lower temperatures and then the heat returns in February until May reaching the highest temperatures of the year of up to over 40°C.

Blev nog inte mycket grävande för David Cundall detta år för nu börjar regnperioden i Burma.
Troligen är det nog bara för han att åka hem tomhänt.

Kanske detta är the end of story om begravda spitfire i burma eller .......

"Is there any news from Burma?". No news gentlemen. That is all.

Hope Fades in Burma Search for Buried Spitfires

RANGOON — A quest to unearth dozens of British Spitfire aircraft thought to be buried in Burma looks likely to come to an unsuccessful end in October, with monsoon rains hampering excavation efforts as the two-year search contract’s expiration nears.

“We’re going to end the project to excavate the Spitfires in October when the contract ends if there are no leads. We still believe that there might be Spitfires in Burma,” said Tun Kyaw, a spokesperson for Shwe Taung Paw said.

He said Cundall had returned to his home in Britain in June.

“We’ve stopped surveying around the airport since June because of heavy rains. Since then, we have been prohibited from surveying in some restricted areas of the airport due to international air rules. We still hope that there might be Spitfires under the ground [in restricted areas], but we can’t dig there,” Tun Kyaw said.

So Mingaladon Airport was our only major excavation site. Now, we are going to stop all surveying,” Tun Kyaw said, adding that digs around Mingaladon had produced no trace of the planes.

http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/hope-fad ... fires.html

Tuesday 16 October 1945
The Dakota swung on takeoff and ran into some parked Spitfire planes.
The Dakota caught fire and the Spitfire PR.11's PA959, PL779 and PL783 were damaged beyond repair.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... 19451016-0

Så Spitfire var det säkert på Yangon-Mingaladon Airport men om dom blev begravda vet ingen.

Konstigt att dom inte hittade detta flyg när dom grävde på flygplatsen.

Tydligen är det slut på den här historien nu så jag slutar med denna film.

The 2013 Burma Spitfires Project Research Team is pleased to announce that the technical report into the 2013 Excavations at Yangon International Airport will be made available worldwide from Monday 2 February 2015.

The attempts to find buried Spitfires at Yangon International Airport, led by Lincolnshire farmer David Cundall and funded by international computer gaming company Wargaming.net, enthralled the World's media and millions of aviation and military enthusiasts worldwide in 2012-2013. Now for the first time, that audience will be able to make up their own minds as to why no Spitfires were found in the 2013 excavations as the evidence for the buried Spitfires story, both for and against, is published in full and analysed in detail by the Burma Spitfires Project's team of independent experts.

The report will contain detailed accounts of the 2013 geophysical fieldwork and the excavations on sites where Mr David Cundall believes Spitfire aircraft were buried in 1945-1946, as well as an account of previously unpublished excavations on the site.

The various excavations at Yangon International Airport will also be described in the context of the original detailed research the team undertook in documentary, photographic and oral history archives in the UK, the USA and Australia in an attempt to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, the reality which lies behind the legend.

The Report authors will also examine the importance of the "Buried Spitfires" story in the context of understanding the growing mythology of World War Two and the psychology and frailties of witness evidence as gathered in oral histories.


The success of the Burma Spitfires Project Team in successfully ground truthing the legend of the Buried Burma Spitfires demonstrates the value of applying rigorous and impartial field and archival research and good science to question the reality behind even the most high profile and appealing of wartime stories. Thus this report will be an important contribution to the growing body of academic and popular literature relating to the Archaeology of Modern Conflict Given this importance, and to ensure the report is both widely available and affordable the fully illustrated report will be published as an e-book and any profits from the sale of the report will be donated to the Royal British Legion.

Full details of the report and information as to how you can obtain your copy will be released as the publication date approaches.

Assumed Missing – Reported Buried – the search for the lost Spitfires of Burma.
It was a story which captivated the world’s media in 2012 and even attracted the support of British Prime Minister.

Now for the first time this full colour illustrated report describes in forensic detail the archaeological work team undertook at Yangon International Airport and the detailed archive research which led up to it. The solution to the mystery of the buried Spitfires which the team proposes may not be that which was wanted or expected by those who wished to believe one of the most compelling legends of World War Two.

http://www.heritagedaily.com/2015/03/as ... rma/107095

Lite sorgligt är det ändå att dom inte hittade några plan efter så mycket tid och arbete som lagts ner på detta projekt.

Kanske ändå han hittar flygen för sökandet är tydligen inte över


British farmer David Cundall, 74, told The Daily Mail that he now has permission to renew his search. He has spent 20 years hunting for the iconic planes, he believes lie in shipping crates underground in Myanmar.

But his venture has raised eyebrows with claims by some experts he is on a wild goose chase.

“The Spitfire project is all mine now and I can confirm that it is going to happen and it will happen this year,” Mr Cundall told The Daily Mail. “It has been a long struggle. I can't believe that the project is finally mine - I am over the moon.”
Skepticism has been voiced over the search, following previous digs that failed to unearth any signs of the aircraft.

Mr Cundall claims some of the damaging comments about his Spitfire project come from rivals seeking to unearth the aircraft themselves.
He told the newspaper he plans to return to Myanmar to bring back the lost squadron of Spitfires back to the UK. My team has overwhelming evidence that we have found something. We plan to go back to Burma and hopefully bring the lost squadron of Spitfires back to the UK where they belong. This should generate jobs to those who have no jobs and give them prosperity all being that it is now four years late. Part of his success lies in depending upon a Harrogate-firm that uses X-ray-style satellites in space to confirm that the planes are definitely where he believes them to be.

The film was shot in the Cocos Islands, a remote island group in the Indian Ocean that’s been administered by Australia since 1955. During World War II the islands roughly half way between Australia and Sri Lanka were home to three bomber squadrons and 136 Squadron who brought Mk VIII Spitfires with them – the ones shown in the film.

Burma Spitfires - Indication of how they will be Packed in Crates

Så här började drömmen om att hitta Spitfire-planen i Burmas djungel.

Har inte hängt med helt och hållet, men varför skulle de gräva ner dem? Eller knappast gräva ner, utan täcka över. Har dom fraktats i lådor någonstans så måste de ju fraktas någonstans där det finns eller kunde byggas en startbana.

Patsy (Charles William Patrick) Hathaway who will be 95 in July and is living in Thailand. He flew spitfires in the Burma Campaign - RAF Squadron 17 - so maybe he flew one of the buried ones.
He says they were buried because there were too many of them & too expensive to fly out but doesn’t know where. His squadron flew theirs to Singapore.
Some spitfires were buried in or around a place called Meiktila Burma they did not have enough pilots for them when they left to go to Sumatra.

Spitfire Documentary

https://youtu.be/EA-lYGvBH4I

Historien eller myten som aldrig dör.
2020 fanns det ett reportage i en tidning.