Mystery Spitfire

Contacting EOD via Police.

Do have to confess the new system seems far from perfect 🙁

Took several phone calls, two weeks and three police visits – including one by an armed response unit whilst I was at work – frightened the neighbours out of their wits 😮 Then they closed the main dual carriageway bypass for an hour whilst the offending items were finally picked up. All because the local police would not take the items into their custody – in case junior officers got too curious at finally having something in their new bomb-proof bin at their HQ – seems it is used as an ashtray during smoking breaks :rolleyes:

Oh! this was for three live flares and an MBEU barometric firing device – which were not discovered until power-washing through a ton of aluminium cornflakes at home, a week after a dig on a Supermarine Attacker.

Call the Police, they will contact EOD who will deal with it properly.

I’d add the word “eventually” into that sentence!

Way back in ’93 when I found an SC50 on the Kent coast, the EOD phone operator asked a series of circular questions, then rang off with a promise to ring back. The Coastguard and I sat and watched the tide cover it (in EODs defence they’d have had to break a lot of traffic laws to get there before the tde covered it – and besides, they were the silly beggars who’d left it there!) before the Coastguard looked at his watch and said “You know what?… Three o’clock kick-off on a Sunday!”

Adrian

What about

09/11/1947
Spitfire FR.14
TZ125
2m from Ringway
crash landed in farm yard
Engine Failure
613 sqn

mystery spitfire

hello everyone .

many thanks for all the input and advice everyone .

ive known about this site for years and once a blue moon i have a search to see iff any thing comes up ….

i will post some pics when i get some free time . as i work late shifts .

will keep you all updated regarding this mystery fighter .

best regards tatton …:)

Just a thought…most people on this forum are aware of the dangers …..if there is a potential that what ever you’re about to do could end up going ‘BANG’………..don’t do it…….

Totally agree with Spitfireman’s sound advice – If you don’t know what it is – and in many cases even if you do! Leave it well alone and call in the experts.

Call the Police, they will contact EOD who will deal with it properly.

Spifire identity

Interesting thread – No its definitely NOT BL585 – we spent five years pinning that one down & the surface remains amounted to one “cooked” .303 case and three aluminium cornflakes – the site had been levelled & the hollow filled in when a hedge had been removed 20-30 years before. Also BL688 can be ruled out – we found that one too – in the next field to the one everyone else had looked in!

Tatton – I think you should PM Alan who has already replied on here – I think he is almost undoubtedly your best bet at tracking this one down – you just need to present it to him as a challenge – like I do! If you want to investigate the site further please get in touch (PM me or Alan or via website email – see link below) as we can advise + we have the deep seeking equipment, including a modern Ferex magnetometer & would strongly suggest the involvement of a local group rather than one from outside the area.

Re the “cooked” rounds – I concur with TT + having 25+ years experience of AA I have seen all manner of damage to cartridge case – including (very rarely) melting! .50s do seem to take quite a lot of heat / damage before exploding and I too have seen some spectacular damage to these including neighbouring rounds being driven right through each other without going off! Re spitfireman’s comment, I would say that cooked rounds can often have the cap intact as they have blown inwards. 20mm seem to be particularly prone to impact damage as the collar that supports the projectile is very thin (it actually balloons in the chamber slightly to form a seal on firing – hence you can’t secure heads into fired shell cases). I have found full drums of 20mm with every single head detached! On one Seafire site our metal detector specialist found dozens of 20mm cases spread across two fields & not a single head. Though all were unfired – I made him change the discriminator settings on his Minelab Explorer & go over the area again – virtually the same number of heads this time! Luckily all ball rounds – watch out for HE 20mm heads – the mercury fulminate in the detonators on them degrades badly making them very sensitive and potentially very dangerous.

Crash site parts

Hello Tatton,

I’ve excavated four type 300 Spitfires and am very familiar with the various components.
I live an hour’s drive from you and could come accross and have a look at some of the parts, if you would like.

Regards,

Anon.

The first thing I would check was the percussion caps

aka: ‘Primer’

Moggy

‘preciate that – all I’m saying is its very common to see separate heads, separate cases and separate complete rounds, sometimes with (or in) links, sometimes not.

Apart from cooking off, which was very common, remember the force of the impact on an ammo box – when you hit at 400mph – I’ve found rounds burst apart, or snapped in half as well as bent at extreme angles.

With aircraft such as B-17s for example I would expect to find loose cases from the waist guns.

In a fire the cordite finds the easiest way out – if that be forcing the projectile out or bursting the casing. Equally it depends on the head – whether its incendiary, tracer etc, which may cook off on their own.

Funnily enough I dont remember finding many melted cases

TT

Turret armed aircraft are a little different to those with wing mounted guns though.

Moggy

Pretty usual to find separate cases, separate heads and complete rounds in any site, even if they didnt cook off in the fire, there is always the possibility of loose cases which did not eject cleanly.

In 20 years of Aviation Archaeology have found all three types at most crash sites – when dealing with a Wimpey for example (which I think I have done 10-15 times) there are usually bucket loads of ammo left over, we used tosave some for display and the rest usually went back in the hole.

TT

equals .303 inch spent cases

Quite so. But spent cases aren’t retained in the aircraft, they are ejected and drain out of the wings.

However I had not considered the possibility of rounds cooking off in a post-crash blaze, which seems a reasonable thought. But whether they would eject the bullet head, or retain it and split as seen in that image I am far too amateur to know.

Moggy

Yes, 300 is the part number prefix for Mk.1 Spitfire components, and any component that was unchanged from the Mk.1 onwards retained that number. 349 was Spitfire V, 361 Spitfire IX, etc etc.

Hi All, yes you are right Eddie & if its 30008 its a wing part & if its 30027 its a fuselage part.

Steve

Yes, 300 is the part number prefix for Mk.1 Spitfire components, and any component that was unchanged from the Mk.1 onwards retained that number. 349 was Spitfire V, 361 Spitfire IX, etc etc.

There were a number of crashes around the airfield during the wartime period, very few were recorded in the RAF station record book. The PTS lost one Whitley on the edge of Wilmslow, an ATA pilot lost control of a Mohawk somewhere either on or just off the airfield and Fairey lost a handful of aircraft in the area.

I take it the 1/4 mile is from the present boundary.

Part numbers beginning 300 do suggest Spitfire or Seafire, I have found 300 marked items on a Mk.15 Seafire. If there is 20mm then is suggests Spitfire Mk.Vb and later or Seafire Mk.II and later.

I recall my brother in the 60’s coming back from Downe woods (round the back of Biggin) with amongst other things dozens of spent 303 cases from a hurricane crash site, which had cooked of in the resulting fire, they had not melted, but had split down the side, as until they are in the breech I guess this is the weakest point. Many of them still retained the bullet.
Terry

Just for the hell of it – one of these was one of mine.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/RAF2/303.jpg

The non-burst one? But it went through a fire.

= Tim

mystery spitfire

hello all .

thanks for the input . first it cannot be BL585 because this crash site is only a quarter of a mile from manchester airport . some of the parts have a serial number on them starting with 300 ?? . ive also seen some what i believe to be 20mm cannon shells that the old chap picked up after the crash …

i will try to post some pics of the parts ive found over the years from the site .

ps .. the word ( cases) refers to the empty and full 303 rounds found at the site .:)

best regards tatton…:)

if there was a fire, could they not be ‘spent cases’ from bullets ‘cooked’ in the fire.

True, I guess that could happen, but I think such a fire would also melt the cases.

Hopefully we get a closer description of the cases.

Not sure if i get there before Moggy….

Cases normally refer to spent amunition – the empty case.

Otherwise its a cartridge.

if there was a fire, could they not be ‘spent cases’ from bullets ‘cooked’ in the fire.