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RAF Kemble Dig – Any News?

I read in either Flypast or Aeroplane Monthly that the MoD were to dig up parts of former RAF Kemble. Is there any news on the current state of play and what are they looking for?

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By: colin.barron - 15th August 2006 at 12:00

Buried Lancasters?

In August 1990 the “Sunday Express” carried a story about several intact Avro Lancasters buried in a field near Brigg. They showed up on ground mapping radar. However when they finally did the excavation they found there was virtually nothing left. What they had seen on ground radar were like “fossils” as everything had corroded away.

There are also rumours that some Mosquito wrecks were buried at Bovingdon following the filming of “633 Squadron” there in 1963.

Colin

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By: DaveF68 - 14th August 2006 at 23:53

Like the Cosford Heyford……

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By: Scramble Bill - 14th August 2006 at 22:27

I heard a story many years ago about motor cycles and other stuff buried at stansted at some period by the Americans…….trouble is apparently they flattened everything with bulldozers prior to burial !……probably another ‘myth’ anyway.

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By: HP57 - 13th August 2006 at 18:03

No one believed Ian Cotteril until he dug up something like 52 WWII Harleys in Devon.. still in the crates & on the back of trucks driven into the trenches.. 😉

True, where there is smoke there is fire, The only way to find out if a story is true is to get out and check. In 99,9 cases this never happens unfortunately. We were once told a story of a Spitfire lying in the Dutch dunes. It wasn’t but we checked it out anyway.

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By: ZRX61 - 12th August 2006 at 02:15

Most of those stories start in a similar fashion Phillip

Cees

No one believed Ian Cotteril until he dug up something like 52 WWII Harleys in Devon.. still in the crates & on the back of trucks driven into the trenches.. 😉

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By: HP57 - 11th August 2006 at 15:52

There is still RAF Lissett to dig up. They buried lorry loads of kit shortly after the war. I know of one old genetleman who saw it when he was a child, but I’ve lost contact with him.

Most of those stories start in a similar fashion Phillip

Cees

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By: Phillip Rhodes - 11th August 2006 at 14:33

There is still RAF Lissett to dig up. They buried lorry loads of kit shortly after the war. I know of one old genetleman who saw it when he was a child, but I’ve lost contact with him.

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By: LesB - 9th August 2006 at 19:43

You’re probably thinking of the ‘dig’ to be done at Kenley Airfield.

From another forum . . .

Buried treasure at Kenley Airfield?

ROYAL Air Force engineers are set to dig up Kenley Airfield as part of a secret mission to uncover its wartime past.

The project has been kept under wraps because bosses fear a swathe of metal detector-wielding plane enthusiasts will move in before them.
Archaeologists from the Ministry of Defence Fire Training School, in Manston, Kent, will help excavate a patch of the historic site believed to be an old aircraft dump.

Starting on August 7, it is hoped the dig will solve the 50-year-old mystery of what lies beneath the former RAF base. Bomb disposal teams have carried out a subterranean survey of the World War Two site in preparation for the excavation.

It is thought that legendary aeroplanes such as Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes, the two fighters that won the Battle of Britain, are buried there.
It is also rumoured that an old Avro Lincoln bomber – a high-altitude four-engined plane not used in the war – was left at the site…..

Chris Baguley,chairman of the Friends of Kenley Airfield, said: “Who knows what’s in there. They’re going to be digging up old scrap buried a long time ago.

“It could be bits of an old tip or it could be something tangible. Maybe even an important piece of military history.”

“The RAF wants to dispel all the myths about what is down there by finding out about the planes.What happened then we don’t know and it will be very interesting to find out.”

Squadron leader Keith Chandler, of the 615 Volunteer Gliding Squadron, said: “In the 1950s the RAF used a number of out-of-service fighter planes there, including Spitfires and Hurricanes, for fire training. “In the early 80s one of them surfaced and was taken away but the rest have been buried there for years. I think the RAF wants to keep it quiet, though, because the last thing they want is a legion of people with metal detectors digging up the land before they get there.”

Wing Commander David Lainchbury, the commandant at the fire training school, said …….”The site survey revealed three or four large, unusual shapes which may be aircraft fuselage. Earth-moving equipment will be used initially in the excavation, while air training corps members will then be involved in the hand-dig. “It would then be up to the Corporation of London, which owns the land, to determine what to do with any interesting findings.”

http://iccroydon.icnetwork.co.uk/news/croydon

But see here

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By: hunterxf382 - 9th August 2006 at 19:43

Buried directions to former RAF Kenley? :diablo:

Thread about MOD Kenley dig….

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