Aircraft Dumped & buried at Kenley? (2004 Zombie)

The thing to remember is that much of this stuff would’ve have been regarded as rubbish and nothing more and any burials would’ve been purely convenient disposal.
I suspect anything that ended up buried under concrete was due to it providing extra hardcore material for a foundation rather than an attempt to make it harder to dig up. For instance, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if someone dug up the hard standings of the old wartime blister hangars at Kenley and they found dumped early war material.

Not wanting to be left out of the rumour frenzy here, I thought that I’d pass on some tales from Canada. I can’t identify the airport, but I have seen a P-40 cockpit section, a Bolingbroke nose section and several other bits that were removed from the base dump – obviously discarded during the war years. When the base was de-activated, many spares were dumped in the neighbouring water way to save returning them to an active airbase nearby.

Can someone verify this fact: It was common practice to dig trenches and throw into these trenches major items – fuselages, engines, etc. & re-fill the excavation and cover it with a concrete slab to prevent the future removal of these items. Was the concrete slab installation standard policy or was it even done at all?

Tricky things search functions!:D

BTW Does this one work at the moment or has it got the hump again?

Alan there is a recent thread on this without digging up this one:)!

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=112725

I did a search to try and find it, but obviously used the wrong key word.
That’s why I added it to this thread, rather than starting a new one. As the story had already appeared on here.

Sorry for any distress caused

Alan there is a recent thread on this without digging up this one:)!

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=112725

Buried secrets: The REAL story of the Nazi warplanes found in an Indiana field

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109029/The-story-secret-Nazi-airplanes-buried-Indiana-field.html#ixzz1oBXHdpqJ

“Isn’t there a singed Swordfish under one of the runways at Manchester Ringway?”

Nicknamed Swampy??

………….or in the current weather conditions, Permafrosty! W&R 2nd ed. says that it was Swordfish III NR946 which was interred under “the new runway” (well, new in 1963!).

“Isn’t there a singed Swordfish under one of the runways at Manchester Ringway?”

Nicknamed Swampy??

Cyril the local farmer, witnessed a bi-plane crunched up into a ball and buried in the undershoot of runway 06 at Plymouth Airport
( Roborough ), during 1944.
He told me that someone accidentally set it alight whilst smoking.

After a bit of research I discovered a Swordfish had indeed been burnt by accident and although not badly damaged
( fabric fire damage ) it was decided that as the aeroplane was deemed obsolete and declared Cat E.

Whether it’s still there remains a mystery, but as Plymouth is about to go through some development this year, we will soon find out.

I’ve got me shovel !!

Baz

Isn’t there a singed Swordfish under one of the runways at Manchester Ringway?

Buried stuff at airfields

Getting back to the original thread (almost)…
There is plenty of truth in the buried aircraft rumours, the problem is that there were no records kept – they didn’t want to record where and what it was, they wanted to lose it.
Those in charge of closing down airfields were tasked with the job of disposing of everything from cutlery to crated engines.
Many of the unused engines could be sent back to holding depots (MU’s) but the scrappers – of which there were many (just look at pics of 1940’s & 50’s fire dumps) – were disposed of in the most expeditious way.
There would have been plenty of airmen standing around scratching their whatsits with nothing to do but bulls**t who could be put to work digging holes and cutting stuff up.
There appears to be no pattern. Some airfields, I am sure, have a lot of buried stuff, others very little – it all would have depended on the local labour and the location of the nearest scrapyard, to say nothing of the whims of the man in charge.
Stuff was buried, that’s what they did in those days and they did it everywhere – out of sight, out of mind.
The Americans were far worse. For a start, they were not going to ship a load of old engines and aircraft home to be scrapped – at least, not many anyway. I used to search around Burtonwood with a couple of mates 15-20 years back and there was LOADS of gear there. We literally only scratched the surface but we found hundreds of B-17 engine mounts, cylinder baffles, engine spares fo all types, cockpit and radio parts including freq selector boxes and a P-51 stick top.
Even then, local scrapyards had lots of stuff including P-47 blades, 0.50 cal waist gun grips in boxes, B-17 and Catalina wheels, u/c legs, airframe parts, prop bosses (Ham Stan and Curtiss) all very rusty, of course.
I know a man whose father had a contract from the Yanks post war to get rid of stuff with his fleet of trucks. He would fill them up and go and find places to dump it. All the local yards were full and they couldn’t give it away. He dumped trucks, radios, engines and all manner of gear down local disused mine shafts. It is all true, however, I know another chap whose family firm chopped loads of stuff up in their scrap yard. He maintains that very little, if any stuff, like engines, were buried because there was a shortage of metals after the war and everything was salvaged. It just depended on who, when, where, and what was being disposed of, I suppose.
It was common practise to cover over the mortal remains of the aircraft on the fire dump. There was little scrap value in it after firing and the way aircraft were disposed of all over the UK after the war, it is true to say they were very much going out of fashion.
I’ve even heard stories of requests for aircraft from the hangars such as; “hey, Chiefy, we need an aircraft to do a bit of fire practise on”. “OK, take that …… at the back of the hangar with the wings missing, you can have that” and off it went to be torched. They torched stuff at BoB days and shows just for fun too.
No self-respecting airfield in the 1950’s and 60’s would be without its “heavy” – Lanc, Linc or Hastings with a couple of Meteors and an Anson and whatever else they didn’t want, on the dump. Some of these airframes, whilst probably beyond repair, were often less than 5 years old.
I reckon that locating the site of the airfield fire dump (and they all had one) could be the source of a lot of aviation treasure though don’t be expecting complete aircraft. On quite a lot of the old airfields I have been on there is usually an area of rough, disturbed ground near one or more of the dispersals on the far side of the field. What’s in there will be anyones guess – the local farmers will have a good idea.
It’s amazing though, how people forget. How many of you have been told by someone that they “know just where the site is and can take you there” to find that, after all those years, they aren’t sure at all.
Buried gear (and crash sites) can be very elusive. You can be within 3metres of it and be totally unaware it’s there. The only method would be a systematic search with a decent metal detector – and who knows what may be revealed.
I’m gettin all excited now, where’s me shovel!
Get looking guys (and gals).

Did it not used to be US policy to bury the kit when they moved out of a base? It was cheaper to buy new than to ship it all back?

There is supposed to be hundreds of Jeeps and US Aeroplanes under the Burtonwood site. Some unused.
This stuff was burried when the base stopped being used for fixed wing, the US didn’t actually move out for 20+ years after that.

An ex C.O. from Boscombe Down told me not so long back he had some contracters in to clear undergrowth from one of the large protective blast banks outside one of the hangers.They wrecked all thier strimmers doing this as they were catching on large amounts of metal protruding everywhere.The chap who told me inspected the offending items and found they were Merlin engine bearers !!!

lucky chap….I would give it a good home;) 🙂

PK665 Parts

If it’s of any interest to anyone, I have the engine cowling from this Spitfire in my garden!

It is the underside section from the spinner down to the underneath of the wings and the air intake cover section.

These were ‘rescued’ from the Kenley dump in the 1960’s and aquired from an aviation shop near the aerodrome in Caterham. The owner of the shop had also memories of the Spitfires on the dump being in the ATC at Kenley in the 1960’s and had removed the tail fin of PK665 several times for display in their hut, only to find it had been out back on the dump each time by his CO!

During the mid 1980’s a four bladed prop could be seen leaning against the ATC hut wall, presumably also from one of the Spitfires? I recall finding a Spitfire main wheel and tyre in the woods on the waterhouse lane side of the airfield around this time too. I think this was recovered by a dealer who was attending a one off areojumble held there in around 1988. Lots of rumours abounded at that time of more buried aircraft and parts. I believe a box of engine plates from various German and axis aircraft was also discovered there that had been buried after Kenley had been used to evaluate these planes at the end of the war.

Maybe “Time Team”?

Buried Whirlwind?

In this age of radar, it may not be impossible to find if the Whirlwind remains are buried and what condition they are in. But who would be willing to sponsor such a project? And is it not time to bury the fool who scrapped this last Whirlwind?

An aircraft built using large quantities of magnesium and also used for fire practice! It isn’t going to be pristine by any stretch of the imagination!

Usually “Fire Practice” does not necessarily mean setting fire to it. Often it’s for the fire service to practice their angle grinders for “rescuing” trapped aircrew etc.

Absolutely not – I agree completely on that, David. However, as I recall it, only the rear fuselage was magnesium skinned, and I’d have thought that if there was a nice reactive metal like magnesium buried with the aluminium parts, it would significantly increase the chances of the aluminium parts being in decent condition, because of the sacrificial corrosion.

An aircraft built using large quantities of magnesium and also used for fire practice! It isn’t going to be pristine by any stretch of the imagination!

LOL, yes, exactly John. I thought it was about time that the truth was made known though… surely AGOI has to be one of the most significant aviation “buried treasures” in Britain?