Whilst checking out the RAF Honington website for an entry form for the upcoming 10k road race I happened to chance upon this on the “History” page of the website:
Before the Americans left, several large pits were excavated near the woods opposite Crash Gate 2, and filled with great quantities of equipment, ranging from broken aircraft to small technical and domestic items. Honington was the last American wartime base in England to be returned to the RAF in February 1946.
http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafhonington/aboutus/history.cfm
Anyone ever checked it out?
(Its a lot closer than Burma 🙂 )
By: Airfixtwin - 25th August 2012 at 12:12
I’m not sure if this was posted before, but this dig took place a few years ago.
If it’s anything to go by, I’m sure there’s others.
By: DaveE - 25th August 2012 at 11:55
i think weve all heard tales of this sort ? my brother in law witnessed 6 Gnats being buried at Chilbolton and i worked with a chap in the 1970`s who was stationed at Middle Wallop when they buried (according to him) a fortune in Spark plugs and spares there as well.
both of these accounts came from eye witnesses to the events so i place faith in them actually occuring, i dont expect anything to surface until time team get round to digging up 100% of the english countryside 😉
By: cypherus - 25th August 2012 at 01:32
A few years ago I recall catching part of a TV documentary which covered the disposal of munitions in East Anglia with one of the contributors reciting his own experience of them shoving large quantities of Mustard Gas bombs into pits and then as he put it, ‘shooting them with machine guns’, raised my eyebrows at the time but I guess this was as simple a way of opening the cases to allow the contents to escape rather than leave them intact.
The places mentioned were never specified directly but there were aerial images of the areas showing several large round stains at regular intervals said to be the disposal pits, a method apparently used by both US and UK forces, often near now former airbase sites.
Sadly I did not catch the name of the program as had to leave before it ended but it begs the question as to how much ordinance was disposed of this way, the why I believe we can all answer, the ‘Were’ is probably best left unpublished.
By: baloffski - 24th August 2012 at 22:25
I would be very careful about digging on any airfield in the UK. The discovery of ‘significant amounts’ of asbestos at RAF Woodvale recently has forced the famous Woodvale Rally to permanently relocate to Southport. RAF Barnham (coincidently administered from Honnington), was supposed to have been cleared of all chemical weapons in the 1960s. However, a mate of mine on 5131 BD Sqn suffered Mustard Gas Burns having been called into dispose of some shells dug up by contractors in the 1990s.
By: AlanR - 24th August 2012 at 22:15
I’m told the Americans used to bury all sorts of things. An electrician friend of
mine was working at Sculthorpe around 30yrs ago. Somebody was telling
him that there were lots of the big old American cars buried there.
Maybe scrap metal didn’t have the value it does today ?
By: paul178 - 24th August 2012 at 21:17
No we are all waiting for the monsoon season to be over!
What in this Country,fat chance!:)
By: GrahamF - 24th August 2012 at 20:41
No we are all waiting for the monsoon season to be over!
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August 24, 2012 at 2:16 pm