Digs 1946 to late 60s ???

Ian,.. I think your qoute was very apt, it really is a lottery.. Most sites WW2 or otherwise , are full of surface small parts, shards the odd plate or interesting find.. and well cleaned up over the years.. especially WW2 . as everyone has been there countless times, the Joy of Post war stuff, in a archaeological point of view, very few seem to have bothered to hunt down these wreck sites, purely through lack of interest.. being there has allways been a good amount of WW2 air losses to investigate.

over the past 50 years the jet age stuff has not seen no where near as much attension.. that is why i study hard on this subject. as it is a un-tapped source .. on the whole . with a better chance of finding a good site .
🙂

and to add.. why “would” any archaeologist bother to hunt down a Vampire etc. . when in the 80s you could pick up a complete example for 500 quid.. (re- torbay aircraft museum) they were not rare, and not as well coveted as say a Hawker hurricane, spitfire, or 109 ??

I would like to ask now… all the guys on the forum, and lads who have been in a group, or started a group, aviation collection, archaeology, models, visits etc.. Ive put a idea on this forum, but it is too far and wide for local interest, I have in the past run this idea past the local paper as well,

What do you think would be the “BEST” way to start a new group.. where would you throw your Idea of starting a new group of aviation enthusiasts to start the ball rolling in your local area ??

I’ve wanted to have a small bunch of friends who would be keen to do this together in my local area , say somerset ,wiltshire , glos, …. How would you chaps who have done it start it all off.. ??

Just the local rag??… Flypast ???.. … forum, websites .. Facebook ???

Would I be laughed at for thinking or wanting to do such a daft Idea.. ??

Post war recoveries seem very similar to those in wartime. A lottery as to how well they were recovered. A Spit that came down in 1946 in South Wales was hardly recovered at all, in fact I don’t think an MU even turned up. Most of it was excavated in the early 70s. As for FAA losses, they did a very thorough job on two Corsairs that have been investigated, one wartime, one immediately post war. Even with the aid of metal detectors and magnetometers there are still considerable remains at more recent crash sites. As a very excited child I picked up bits of a Falklands veteran Sea Harrier long after the Navy had finished their recovery. They made me put back the bits I souvenierd while they were still there.

Seeing N.Wotherspoons post has reminded me of something that I heard once (possibly without any basis to it), and that is that the FAA didn’t appear to recover and clean up a crash site as comprehensively as the RAF did, is there any basis to this as the above evidence suggests there might be?

I got a good meteor site.. but cant dig it, as its to close to power cables 🙁

but the seahawk site, is a better one, just dealing with land owner , he is taking his time 🙂

Here’s two for:

Spitfire XIV RN210 – Freckleton – 8th May 1948

Supermarine Attacker WA535 – Winwick – 5th February 1953

and one against!

Meteor VT121 – Over Kellett – 22nd July 1951

I would need a lot of persuading to go anywhere near a Meteor site again! 😡

I can agree and will say, I am sure the RAF recovery teams, Allways tried there best to recover all they could. before,during and after WW2.

I tend to look at the months of the year too, say a aircraft came down in the middle of winter, or autumn, lashing down with rain, not a nice job in the first instance, but in bad weather conditions even worse, the aircraft had dived in making a hole.
I am sure they would have cleaned up as best they could, even possibly throwing some back in the hole before filling it. we dug a Vampire at stoke sub hampden Somerset back in the 80s, and I think most of that was the wreckage that was thrown back in the hole.

so these sites are worth looking at, as I am sure many were not as carefully cleaned up ,as some others.

does anyone in the bristol area fancy investigating some.. i got a huge list, with some cracking types on them

And there were certainly many in our area Philip. A friend of mine has metal detected and dug on a few known sites, with permission of course before anyone asks, and found very little.

I was taking into account personal experiences in and around RAF Driffield with it’s postwar Mosquito, Meteor and Vampire crashes – nothing remaining – only wartime aircraft, like Halifax LW172.

There were plenty of crash site alright, but debateable how much a crash site was cleared up.
An old boss of mine was stationed with the RAF recovery team in the 1950s (he was on shift for 6 x Hunters loss), whenever we spoke about what he did he always said that everything possible was removed from the site, as they had the time, man power, and vehicles to do it, and the AM/RAF was keen to clear the site up for the landowner due to claims from them previously.
The odd parts may have been left about, and would assume these would be from the deep impact sites where the aircraft had ended up making a big hole on impact.
There are a few parts left about on the higher level and more inaccesable hill sites, this is a good site http://www.peakdistrictaircrashes.co.uk/
However it is nice to see these bits still lying there as some form of memorial.

in a 70 mile radius i can think of countless Vampire and meteor types, ranging from F1. FB.5. T-7 F4 F8.

about 5 or 6 hunters, a EE Lightning,2 Javelins,2 seahawks, a sabre,2 Canberra’s ,B36, Target tug Beaufighter ,3 Hastings, 2 Lincolns,Venom, alot of harvards, 3 chipmunks, Baliol,2 x brigands,Varsity,wellington T10,spitfires,
Tempest II the list is endless.

and thats just on the land, and off the top of my head 😀

I Kindly will have to disagree Phillip.

I have found that the period from 1946 up to the mid 1960s especailly the mid 1950s , most sites were not recovered like they are today. simply cleaned up, any remains human remains recovered, where possible, and the rest either taken away, or as is mostly the case, surface wreckage taken away and the hole/crator filled in, I have come across this numerous times, whilst talking to farmers, one of which said his father had to fill the hole in , not the RAF, also the early jets when diving into the ground made such a big hole that they buried themselves, and showed little on the surface,this would be also down to the time of year, how wet the ground was, angle and speed of crash.and if indeed any were killed, the meteor the farmer was talking about, they knew “why ” it had crashed because both of the crew baled out,they gave there report, and it was quickly cleaned up, not much was recovered.
This has been proven a few times . I did scan the site, and the magnoteometer went off scale, … the same way it did with a sea hawk just up the road from it in boggy ground, that dived in in 1962 (pilot ejected)
and i had a expert with me who used the Magnetometer reguarily and he corroberated that there was a lot of metal under the surface. and quite deep
.
Also during the late 40s early 1950s there was a massive overstock of scrap metal, it was almost worthless,and adding to that the high amount of losses in the RAF and RAFVR , FAA in those days .. I believe there is alot worth looking at for the 1950s losses in the UK.. and alot yet to be found .

RAF losses as follows in these years
1946 =1014
1947= 420
1948=424
1949=438
1950=380
1951=490
1952=507
1953=483
1954=452
1955=305
1956=270
1957=233
1958=128
1959=102
1960=80

this list was compiled in the Broken wings ,Air Britain book, post war losses .
as you can see. there quite a few losses in those early post war years.
Hence why i think it a very interesting and rewarding timeline to study 🙂

Unless your prepared to travel or climb the odd mountain, most aviation archaeologists settle for what is buried locally. Also, most postwar wrecks (unless inaccessible) were removed to the point that nothing remains.

Sadly, like the aircrews who flew during the war, substantial wrecks – buried in the countryside or dumped in your local scrapyard are becoming a rarity.