Design of crates for Spitfires (etc)

Another point which I don’t think has been mentioned before is that this region is seismically very active with a number of very big earthquakes in the last 70 years. The shake rattle and roll won’t have done what left of the subterranean crates any good.

Surely wooden crates buried under heavy earth in a monsoon environment, for over 6 decades, and with mag alloy rivets equals lots of very unzipped airframes??? As has been said above lots can be rebuilt (glacier girl anyone?) but how much original material ends up flying again is debatable!

“There seems to be some underlying suggestion however, that they’d have faired well, buried. ”

There is absolutely no intention to imply this Snoopy7422. I apologise if you perceived this. I wanted to give as balanced a view as I could of what the crates were originally for. I decided not to develop the theme into the realms of chemical degredation of airframes and biological attack of buried woodas that would be too speculative on my part.

You continue:

“This is very doubtful, but we can live in hope”. I do agree.

Judgement Day.

I’m sure that these crates were excellent and fit for purpose. At the time, – and used as intended. There seems to be some underlying suggestion however, that they’d have faired well, buried. This is very doubtful, but we can live in hope – and Judgement Day is approaching rapidly now….

As I’ve said before, I had a great many of these cases – they were actually for Merlins, but very similar, perhaps even more robustly constructed – they were 100% softwood, with some Iron/Mild Steel elements. These had been stored above ground, yet were pretty rotten by the 1980’s, despite having roofing material applied to the tops. Whilst they were well-made, they were neither waterproof nor even airtight. The sides and top were covered with a bitumen-paper lining, stapled in place. No help underground, when all these crates, if they are there – will have certainly filled with water, or even been filled with water since burial, especially as we are now told that they were buried ‘in a creek’…..in a Monsoon climate.

If extra wood was put over the crates, as the crates failed, one would reasonably expect them to be just added weight, unless there were vertical load-bearing members, which seems unlikely, unless we are dealing with aviations ‘Oak Island Money Pit’….! :diablo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Island_Money_Pit

Thank you for another informative post!

Thoughts on Spitfires in Crates

It is down to the previous work of Mark 12; the scattering of photographs on the web and those culled from Imperial War Museum photo archives that there is a good start on this topic.

Transport crates were first of all designed to protect as well as transport their valuable cargo. The transport element required export crated aircraft to be lifted and lowered on to lorries by crane at the specialist aircraft packing units. The crates then went by road to ports, having to survive the stress of those journeys. The crates were then lifted either by port cranes or ship’s derricks and travelled as deck cargo or in the hold. The lifting of such loads at ports would expose the crates to wind loads and swaying forces, collisions with other objects while being moved and to survive stresses in three dimensions. If on deck they would be subject to the effects of weather and corrosive sea water. A crated aircraft in a ship sailing to India in convoy would typically take 3-4 weeks of sometimes violent pitch, roll and yaw.

The crates would need to be robust and in many ways were the predecessors of the modern freight container. They were lifting equipment in their own right, capable of supporting themselves and their contents. That would give them, in their design, the need for considerable inherent strength. You can see in the first photograph posted by Mark 12 at #4 above of the Mark V111 being unloaded at Casablanca in 1943 that, as Mark 12 says, the wing crate has lifting eyes and shackles fitted about one quarter of the way in from each end and signs of reinforcement travelling downwards from each of these lifting points that should extend underneath the crate. The wooden reinforcement and packing of the wings shows that the wings at least were given double protection in some directions. (Accidentally,but probably not an Air Ministry original specification, the vertical alignment of the wings in crates might also permit ground pressures to be resisted better if buried in Burma.) However, the burial of the aircraft may have been done in a haphazard fashion given the circumstances and the crates may not be buried in the correct alignment. If they were pushed, possibly down hill, by machine, into an old watercourse they will not have been treated as kindly as normal. The two photographs at #4 also may reveal differences in crating design; numbers of crates used per aircraft or loading configuration/content. The tail has been removed from the V111; the Vc has the tail attached. There is a video collage of crated aircraft photo stills at

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/spitfires-being-crated-pictures-video.html.

Bruce Robertson’s book Spitfire p95 (Harleyford 1961) shows a 136 squadron aircraft in a crate similar to #4 photo 1 being moved along a Cocos Island road in 1945. I think the squadron was already operational before its move to the Cocos, and the crates might be re-used from their original export function from Britain The crate is chocked at an angle suggesting they had no crane to off load it from its trailer, but were maybe using an early fork truck. Otherwise it’s not clear why it was eccentrically placed on a trailer. Nevertheless it shows the physical abuse these crates had to withstand to ensure safe arrival of the contents.

For the intrepid researcher in funds or close to London (or a TV researcher who wants to help us all) I believe there is in the Imperial War Museum some film of a 136 Squadron aircraft being uncrated on the Cocos Islands in 1945

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060028994

Below is the IWM catalogue description.

“Reel 4: Men at work building a road in the jungle. Two lorries approach. A jeep drives along the road. Various shots of bulldozers felling trees, clearing undergrowth, and leveling ground. A lorry (probably a Leyland Retriever) tows a trailer loaded with a large crate. A crane lowers a crate onto a trailer. The trailer is marked ‘136 Sqdn’. Various shots of the lorry and trailer on the road. The lorry parks up and the crate is hoisted off. A caterpillar tractor named ‘Beryl’ towing a scraper. Two tractors pass each other; one of them tows a trailer in which a hydraulic ram pushes loose earth onto the ground. Two men operate a large chainsaw which they use to chop up a palm tree trunk. More footage of the chainsaw. A church service conducted in the open air. Palm trunks serve as pews and the chaplain, despite the remote location, appears to be wearing full vestments. Men on their knees in prayer. The chaplain kneels in front of the cross on an altar made of small rocks. A crate marked ‘136 Sqdn’ being opened. The fuselage of a Spitfire Mk VIII, covered in a tarpaulin, is unloaded. The Spitfire’s tail assembly (minus the rudder) is carried away. Men pitching a tent. A man hammering in tent pegs with a mallet. A Spitfire fuselage, missing its wings and engine cowling is held up by a crane. Airmen position a rest under the nose of the aircraft and a second rest under the tail. (Aircraft is Spitfire Mk VIII MT567). The wings are fitted to a second Spitfire (MT962). A Spitfire fuselage is towed out of a crate by a jeep. A four-bladed propeller is fitted. Close-up of the propeller.”

I have no financial or any other interests in the extraneous sources I have used.

I wonder if anyone out there has drawings or descriptions of the specifications for export packing of Spitfires who can add more?

These tunnels are cut into soft, but solid rock I.e chalk, the crates are under 800 tones of waterlogged soil…. That’s like comparing chalk to cheese!

Quite!

The WW1 chalk tunnel ‘comparison’ is wholly irrelevant.

Ref post# 20. The old control tower at Henlow was allegedly made from American packing cases and was replaced by a Portacabin version about 5 or so years ago.

It was made using Hurricane packing cases Stan…plenty of images on google 🙂

When Rolls-Royce representatives visited Russia, they found that Merlin engines had been dumped in the mud, with Russians using their packing cases as living accomodation; I doubt that cases for Spitfires would have been any less substantial.

Ref post# 20. The old control tower at Henlow was allegedly made from American packing cases and was replaced by a Portacabin version about 5 or so years ago.

That’s like comparing chalk to cheese!

Camembert or a well matured Cheddar? 😀

WWI tunnels extant and not collapsed.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-the-lost-first-world-war-89665

Mark

These tunnels are cut into soft, but solid rock I.e chalk, the crates are under 800 tones of waterlogged soil…. That’s like comparing chalk to cheese!

I heard that tunnel was full of SE5A’s. :cool::p

WWI tunnels extant and not collapsed.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-the-lost-first-world-war-89665

Mark

I’m thinking Tom,Dick, n H arry = not a lot got out ?

Does this all really matter?

If or when they find something it will all be a bonus.

And at the very least perhaps some usuable spares might come out of this.

Thanks Mk12, nice to see that basic point being remade, I will be honest and say that I’ve given up tuning into the Burma threads/articles.

Packing crates were pretty stout old things, after their designed use they would often become ‘temporary’ buildings on UK and overseas airfields.
I say ‘temporary’ because Hullavington still had Squadron offices and crew rooms converted from crates well into the 1950s.

The bit I can’t get my head around,
To dig holes big enough to bury these crates would be a massive undertaking (especially in Burma), requiring heavy REME type equipment and valuable man hours, when the norm to deprive the enemy of your equipment/aircraft was to destruct it, and if required later on another to be sourced from the ASU/MU system.

Keep up. The story hasn’t varied since day one and is again repeated in the today’s Times.

There was a former river gully, a chuang in Burmese, on the western side of the airfield. This was excavated by the US Seabees (Airfield constructors) for the purpose of the burial. The Seabees were the starting part of the story to Jim Pearce back in c.1995. Basically – “Why go looking for aircraft wrecks in Russia when we buried a load of Spitfires at Mingaladon for the RAF.”

The reasons why they were buried has yet to fully come out but it seems it was not to deny an enemy or unlikely just to get rid of them. Re-look at the Andy Brockman interview and perhaps a look at Wiki and the politics of this time…1946.

Mark

Packing crates were pretty stout old things, after their designed use they would often become ‘temporary’ buildings on UK and overseas airfields.
I say ‘temporary’ because Hullavington still had Squadron offices and crew rooms converted from crates well into the 1950s.

The bit I can’t get my head around,
To dig holes big enough to bury these crates would be a massive undertaking (especially in Burma), requiring heavy REME type equipment and valuable man hours, when the norm to deprive the enemy of your equipment/aircraft was to destruct it, and if required later on another to be sourced from the ASU/MU system.

Fingers Crossed.

Well, there are some interesting ideas here…..! Clay can certainly keep out oxygen, but items from clay are usually filled with – clay, so it’s not as impervious as some think. The ground at SLIII was deep sand, and very free-draining, and of course, pretty cold.

The conditions in the tropics are as different as can be imagined. I’m not making any predictions, but I’d be pretty surprised if the cases haven’t been at least crushed. Then again, recently, there have been some interesting digs from the Great War that have unearthed wooden-lined tunnels still in amazing condition… I think there are a deceptively large number of variables.

I wish them the best of luck with this. Like most people, I’ve been pretty sceptical, but I actually enjoy being proved wrong, as it lifts some of my inate pessimism….:)