140 Crated Spitfires buried in Burma (Myanmar)?

[Mrs Vampire]

So no further reports after many months.

[Wayne McGee]

It's been less than a month since I posted the most recent article that laid claim to [U]140[U] buried Spits', Hanno must have joined my thread starter with an older one dating back to the origonal, much smaller discovery.

Cheers

Wayne

[cletrac (RIP)]

I tried to find a picture I have here somewhere but no luck yet. It's a 'photo' of the mines south of Drumheller at the 300 and 600 foot levels made from a helicopter with a ball hanging from a cable as he flew a grid over the site. I don't know if it was magnetic or radar based but you can see which stopes have collapsed and which ones had junk abandoned in them.
If anyone was serious about those Spitfires wouldn't they just get hold of some of that equipment for a few days and know for sure?
I couldn't believe you could come up with images like that and this was about 15 years ago!

[Wayne McGee]

Being no expert in the field, I would think that ground penetrating radars would work best in a medium that was as dense as possible, then refelct from any voids present. Mine shafts thru bedrock sounds ideal, however wooden crates in rotting organic topsoil seems less so. Eh?

Cheers

Wayne

[Lang]

I think you could bet the farm that the guys involved did not have any fancy equipment hanging from helicopters in Burma.

The most common form of Ground Penetrating Radar and the most likely to be used, IF it ever was, is the push trolley style widely used by archeologists to seek out ancient structures. The same style equipment is used by companies looking for power and pipe lines, various rock strata, voids such as sink-holes or old mines and wells.

The display is highly subject to professional interpretation - there is no "picture" like airborne radar or underwater sonar and the average person would have no chance of identifying anything.

Interesting subject to Google if you have a spare moment.

Lang

[Lang]

Here is a photo of a Spitfire in a crate being unloaded at Cocos Island about the same period our mystery Spitfires were being unloaded in Burma.

We are not looking for a hole dug by pick and shovel, it must have taken some serious equipment to bury 20 ( or 140) of these.

Just the dirt pile would be huge. Quite apart from the dirt required to put back on top of the buried box they would have to remove about 100 cubic metres (the rough box volume). Let's say we overload a CMP tipper with 5 metres of dirt that is 20 loads per box to take it "somewhere" - 400 truck loads for 20 boxes or 2,800 truck loads for 140 boxes. If they just pushed the spoil up in a pile, Everest would only be the second highest mountain in the world and we would not need ground penetrating radar to find them.

[Mrs Vampire]

to my mind I don't understand the burial story. If they had a bull dozer capable of digging a huge hole and burying them . I presume they would get crushed in the process. Why not just doze over them or even easier throw some petrol over em and strike a match.

The notion that in 1945 they would be coming back for them or waned the Burmese govt to have them eventually just doesn't make sense.

If there was a need for Spits there were a hundred or so of em sitting in Australia . if the need was to simply disable them take the props off and dump them at sea . In Australia the props were taken of the Mozies and Spits to prevent anyone using them after a wag took a spit for a taxi.

if they were in boxes disassembled it seems it would be an easier task just to destroy all of the port wings or somehing rather than dig a huge hole tediously place all the boxes in the hole then bury them.

So I am giving odds on this being a Hoax along the lines of the 1990's hoax about fishing up sunken aircraft of the Qld coast that was so enthusiastically supported by Joh Bejelkie .

I dont doubt there are still treasures to be found...theP-40 found in the desert the FW 190 still in the black Forrest and the amazing junk turning up in the former Soviet union Guy Blacks Demons out of Afghanistan . but this story just don't do it.