The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Outpost Cafe => Topic started by: gweimer on April 14, 2012, 05:01:40 PM
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I can't believe that I found this by accident before the aviation fans did.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9203822/Spitfires-buried-in-Burma-during-war-to-be-returned-to-UK.html
I guess they expect these to be perfectly preserved.
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Wow, that's quite a find! It seems nice that they'll go back to the U.K. too.
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“They were just buried there in transport crates,” Mr Cundall said. “They were waxed, wrapped in greased paper and their joints tarred. They will be in near perfect condition.”
:o Wow!! I really hope so, that would be amazing to see when you crowbar the first crate.
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Wow packed in crates! That is so cool. 40ft is pretty deep sure to be some damage. I wonder about crates of spares?
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The instructions for their "storage" reputedely came from Mountbatten...
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Amazing find. They ought to be in fairly good shape. I'll be surprised if they really are in "near perfect" condition.
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Now they can film a remake of "Battle of Britain" proper - No CGI ;)
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A concern that's been noted on a WWII site is the state of the original aluminumium and magnesium components...
This is the posting referencing it and those with engineering backgrounds will recognise some of this...
... Contrary to popular belief aluminum does corrode, many will have seen surface corrosion, the dusty bloom and the 'warts' of crystals. What is not seen and needs testing is internal crystallising which weakens structures. Most of the material known as aluminum was actually Duralumin an alloy of aluminum which was not brittle and could be rolled into skins with a higher tensile strength. Rivets were made from magnesium alloy and will be weakened by corrosion. Magnesium alloy was used for lightness and good rivet forming qualities, it has a short life - nobody expected these aircraft to be used for long. All refurbished aircraft have had these rivets removed and replaced with a modern material. When machining magnesium it was without liquid coolant air was used - pick the nice shiny component up and within hours there will be your fingerprints etched like sepia negatives - the acid in your skin will do that. I witnessed two magnesium flashes on the workshop the mag dust hung like cobwebs around the machine, if a labourer did not regularly remove it a spark would set it off and 50 blokes would be tempoarily blinded as as huge 'flashbulb' ignited ...
On an upbeat note, there are considerably more airworthy Spit's now than there were 20/30/40 years back and a number of "gate-guardians" are now up-up-and-away... hopefully many of these will be too...
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The article does make note that the planes will need new rivets. It also mentions:
“They were just buried there in transport crates,” Mr Cundall said. “They were waxed, wrapped in greased paper and their joints tarred. They will be in near perfect condition.”
I have no idea whether that will have been enough to preserve the metal. The composition of the dirt in that particular area will probably have had an impact as well. As as Dave says though, I would be surprised if they come up in anything near perfect shape. I'll be keeping an eye out though. I'm interested to see what develops with this story.
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This is a great discovery & while Spits are nice it's too bad they didn't dig up a few Hurricanes as well
Cheers
BTW somewhere here in AZ I've heard of a P-40B that was wrapped in cosmolien & buried at the end of the War
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My old man's job in 1945 was to run over the tails of Zeros and other Japanese planes with a tractor. He also had to dump crates of Arisaka rifles into Tokyo harbor. They were supposed to break the crates and unwrap each rifle and toss it to the salt, but they figured they would go back and dive down to get them, so they didn't. They were all 17 and 18 years old. The rifles were packed in creasote and grease, and he believed that they would last forever even down there. Somebody will find them one of these days.
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my dad brought an arisaka back with him after the war. it was used. i think he might have picked it up at iwo jima because that was one of the last places he was.
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It would be nice if there were some pictures
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Mission of Burma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR1dC0EvpQU
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An update:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/01/dogfight-over-buried-wwii-spitfires-in-burma/?intcmp=features
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go the little guy.