Spitfires in the Antipodean Colonies and Dominions

Thanks Mark12,

It is amazing that sometimes rumours and legends prove true.

Whilst I was working in Oz, and talking ww2 aeroplanes, a man I met by chance mentioned in passing I must have seen that WW2 bomber that was sitting behind his neighbour’s shed? I hadn’t, even though the shed was not a mile from my home and on a major road. I was suspicious at first, but the man was right. There was a Lockheed Hudson mid/rear fuselage behind the barn, in its original wartime paint…

Always check up on rumours.

not only the wrong ***** state the wrong ***** mine shaft as well! 😉

****** been digging in the wrong state…

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47367&sid=ff13fee584a328196df10cd00ef494fb

Thanks Mark12,

Absolutely jolly fascinating. It is amazing that sometimes rumours and legends prove true. Shall we all meet at Broken Hill, and then fan out from there on a barndoor-opening and snooping mission? 🙂

Cheers
Dave

You just gotta find someone with the a) money, b) equipment, and c) balls to go look for them!

I’ve got one but not the other – see if you can guess which… 😉

I think the sequence is wrong

a) you need the balls to go look for them and the other problems can be solved depending how willing/mad you are. For instance the Greenland P-38 is a good example.

The photo’s Mark 12 posted also show without any doublt that rumours are to be followed up, no matter how strange they may be.

Remember the B-17 that was recovered from a Swiss Lake during the fifties? The wreck was finally scrapped in the seventies, but the engines, pilot seat, throttle quadrant, piece of fuselage skinning found their way in a dark basement in the centre of Amsterdam (famous for the lack of space there). One of our volunteers was approached by the owner who wanted to donate these items to our museum. The volunteer thought the man was off his rocker and steered him away. He then went to our collegues and the rest is history. The parts are now on show in their museum. This particular volunteer will be confronted with this until he is old and grey (and probably after that too).

The problem with discussing rumours is that they tend to get out of hand and before you know it a whole squadron of Lancasters is buried in a field somewhere or a (I thought it was a) white Spit is still flying in the outback,

Think and then have a look, I always enjoy following up these leads. Remember where there is smoke, there must be fire. 😉

Cheers

Cees

:p

Hi DazDaMan

So you are rich then?

Regards
JP

You just gotta find someone with the a) money, b) equipment, and c) balls to go look for them!

I’ve got one but not the other – see if you can guess which… 😉

Oh Alright Mk12 ………

So some of the buried aircraft stories are true but most are just a tease – the Gorrie B25 is still being looked into as to what may or may not be salvagable. There is quite a good B25 still out in the middle of the Tanami Desert like the one recovered and in Darwin but it will take quite an effort to recover. The aircraft dump at Williamtown also has quite a collection in it but the water table seems to have taken it’s toll from what I dug up – it would still be worth a dig though ( some barracudas and Corsairs there I think).

I think the best prospect is still the dump sites off Sydney where a lot of stuff was pushed off carriers. I saw an Avenger wing and a Corsair prop that were trawled up and given to HARS many years ago and they were fantastic – they were so deep that there was little oxygen to corrode them.

At the time I consulted the metalurgist at Newcastle BHP steelworks and he stated that the corrosion tapers off markedly past 400 Ft – The aircraft are in 400 METERS + so I would definately think it’s worth a look.

Kindest regards
John P

Bloody hell! Good luck to ’em! 🙂

Gorrie burials

Tell more Mark12. Is that really a bit of a MkIII Spitfire then?

DaveH,
The photos shows the port side and door aperture of MT682. The burial also contained Mk VIII Spitfires MD338 and LV750 together with a B-25.

At the time, February 1978, these as then unidentified parts had little significance. After several ownership changes and some dispersal, a concentrated physical study of the parts and the paperwork in 1992, by a known historian, finally confirmed the IDs.

All three Spitfires are in the safe hands of one gentleman in Australia who has ruthlessly pursued and regathered the dispersed sections. At least two but possibly even the third are on track for restoration to airworthy standard. It will be a long haul.

Mark

Tell more Mark12. Is that really a bit of a MkIII Spitfire then?

I don’t have any other so sensational rumours, but I can say there is much out there that the aviation community and wider world don’t know about. After the war here in NZ there were massive post-war sales of not only the planes but all the components, etc. Only a few nights ago a mate who is a pilot and enthusiast, so knows what he’s on about, said he knows a local man who bought up a load of stuff from an RNZAF sale at the Te Awamutu Stores Depot after the war. He said he’s got all sorts of stuff in a shed, but all he specifically mentioned were boxes and boxes of BA standard instrument screws. And he also apparently has a sextant from a Lancaster that he got in the sale. I don’t know what the RNZAF stores was doing with a Lancaster sextant (would it have been used in any other aircraft within NZ?). But it doesn’t surprise me bcause in 1991 when RNZAF Te Rapa (No 1 Stores Depot) was being closed down a mate was involved in the inventory listing of all itms to be dispersed to other bases. He found boxes of Spitfire PR camera mounts. The RNZAF never operated PR Spitfires! They’d been in store for about 50 years and never used.

Anyway, there is still lots to be discovered in the way of components that would assist restorations, all sitting in people’s sheds and barns. I’m certain of that. And I would not be surprised if someday a few extra Spitfires or Mustangs did turn up in the outback either.

…and then

there was that daft story about there being three Mk VIII Spitfires cut up and buried at Gorrie.

Mark

I think the Beau in the mine was around Oakey…former RAAF AD where hundereds of a/c scrapped after WW2. Imagine driving off the base with a Beaufighter on the back of your motor cycle and finding an abandoned mine and gently placing it down there so that you could reclaim it 50 years later…mmmm

Then there was the guy who a couple of barge loads of Jap planes from a “Pacific Island”..all in perfect condition and of course the guy who tried to raise cash to collect the dozens of fighters resting peacefuly at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off Maroochydore still in crates and protected by cosmoline…mmmm

Hi

I agree with Oscar Duck

I grew up hearing rumors of “a red Spitfire and a white Mustang” etc flying secretly but nothing ever came of it. Australia is a big place but the aviation world is small and whilst nothing is impossible I think the chances of any WW11 fighters of any sort turning up like this are non exixtant – just the Fosters talking at the local I’m afraid. I don’t know anything about the 3 Mustangs from the west – were they wise? ( little joke) but I suspect it was just another rumor – people would have known about them – you can’t hide 3 Mustangs without someone blabbing.

There was another particularly good one that I liked which saw someone after the war burying a few Spits and Beaufighters in a Mine up north in Queensland ( I think it was Charters Towers ) It was all through the newspapers and some poor unfortunate believed in that one so much that he actually dug up several mine shafts and went through a lot of money disproving it. The guy that started the rumor eventually owned up and “legal action was pending for a while” !!!!! The trouble is that people still believe there was something to it and the story is still doing the rounds.

I do wish it was all true but long years following up stuff like this have taught me otherwise- better to go after stuff that is there like the aircraft dumps off the coast or the rubbish dump at Williamtown etc

Kindest regards
John Parker

Wow, it seems there is more substance to that rumour than I’d given it credit for. I can see a documentary in that… “The Secret Squadron”… hehehe

None of the rumoured Spits [and or Mustangs if you listen to other stories] have ever surfaced. Unlicenced Mustangs were flown back in the 60’s [Tony Fisher and friends around Jerilderie] as well as a couple of others. Col Pays A68-107 was flown out from a Qld “barn” after it had been stored by the owner. It was said that it might have flown locally a couple of times prior to Pay bringing it out.

The other big rumour around Brisbane [and I think it is just that!] is that three Mustangs were recently exported from the Darling Downs region [west of Brisbane] to the USA….be interested if they were. How did it happen?

I do know of one replica Spit flown illegally around Europe..! 😀 😉

Back in the 1980’s I was told by somone who’d lived in Australia and was very much into the warbirds scene that there were rumours of a small group of farmers in the outback of beyond who’d gotten some ex-RAAF Spitfires from the disposal yards, and had got a few back to flying condition. Legend has it that it was all done illegally and they really only flew them round the outback where no-one ever saw them.

I know this sounds like a fairy tale, and I don’t really believe it. But I was wondering did any of the surviving RAAF Spitfires survive because they were rescued by farmers who stored them in barns? I’m not saying anyone got them flying, that was just the rumours and legend. I just wonder if this is how some of the airframes have been rescued, and I wonder if the rumour came from this? Any ideas?

Maybe he’s referring to a replica? That’s about the only thing I can think of, but I’m sure I would have seen something about a replica Spitfire crash during one of my many browsings…