Is anyone else out there aware of 2 aircraft graveyards that contain significant numbers of Supermarine products that remain untouched to this day? One contains a number of complete Swifts that were bulldozed into a very large crater then covered – I’ve seen the photos. The second – so the rumour goes – contains a very large number of (mostly new) Spitfires that were buried complete when they became surplus to requirements at the end of WW11 – a large hole was dug close to the end of a runway and they too were bulldozed in. They probably havn’t stood the test of time as well as the Swifts. Don’t know how true the latter story is but recent scientific evidence suggests that something substantial is down there.
By: DaveF68 - 14th March 2019 at 20:56
Re the Swifts – there is some nice film in the IWM (colour) and Pathe (B+W) collections showing them before and after the nuclear tests
By: Mustang51 - 14th March 2019 at 20:30
When much younger and working as a volunteer at the Camden Museum of Aviation here in Oz, I learned about the production of Beauforts and Beaufighter’s at railway yards before the assembly of the final product. I also learned fom my mother that my uncle was a driver who transported these parts to the assembly facility. In my youthful enthusiasm I suggested then pushed the idea of going to the yards at Chullora in Sydney to see “what was there…”. Obviously this was met with a flurry of “Don’t be stupid” remarks but I persisted. Eventually Harold Thomas and my mum were granted permission to have a look and to my disgust I was not allowed to have the day off senior high school to see for myself. Wandering around they were shown a very large wooden crate – very large – that was reinforced with steel strapping and lifting lugs. It had DAP (Department of Aircraft Production) painted on the sides. On opening there was a brand spanking new DAP Beaufort cockpit with a data plate serial after the last Beaufort accepted by the RAAF together with a Beaufighter cockpit and a Beaufighter rear fuselage. All were subsequently donated to the Museum and the crate now acts as a storage shed on a property owned by the museum.
Lesson………… not all rumours are fanciful imaginings……..
By: Mark12 - 14th March 2019 at 15:32
By: Beermat - 14th March 2019 at 13:02
..which might explain their swift burial, when so many other aircraft were ‘processed’ first?
By: paulmcmillan - 14th March 2019 at 12:52
“A Number of Swift airframes went to Australia for Operation Buffalo in 1956, being placed at various distances from a detonating atomic bomb.” See Wikipedia
By: paulmcmillan - 14th March 2019 at 12:51
They were used in on the the Nuclear tests in Oz to determine the impact of explosion on airframes etc
By: Beermat - 14th March 2019 at 12:41
Just want to weigh in here and say that is the first time in thirty years of quietly looking into these stories that I have ever seen a photo of whole aircraft disposed of in a pit. Remarkable if genuine, and no reason to suppose it’s not.
By: Moggy C - 14th March 2019 at 12:09
Yay! Brilliant!
Actual evidence for once.
or is it photopshop? 🙂
Moggy
By: mark_pilkington - 14th March 2019 at 11:26
Well if anybody’s got any real proof, post a photo. I bet that not one which contains real proof will be posted.(please prove me wrong someone.;) )
OK – I will collect on that bet – there you go, real proof of some Supermarine Swifts being buried in a hole in Woomera South Australia
smiles
Mark Pilkington
By: Flood - 29th January 2004 at 02:27
Yeah – seem to recall that people died or something trying to check it out.
Flood.
By: dhfan - 29th January 2004 at 01:40
I read that website a year or two back and, IIRC, the powers-that-be suddenly put a block on any further ferreting around.
By: skypilot62 - 28th January 2004 at 19:55
good grief!!!
How come this has never been followed up on?
By: gaz west - 28th January 2004 at 18:46
found this while surfing
By: skypilot62 - 28th January 2004 at 02:01
Holy Grail indeed but remember all that German kit found in the states a few years ago – props etc. plus Glacier Girl etc. Small percentage I know but… always worth checking such a story out just in case!
By: Flood - 28th January 2004 at 01:09
Sorry – my last post was directed at Ant.
As to American supplied money – I don’t know. Would we have made Spitfires/Seafires using American money – or would they have preferred that we bought/used their products instead? Not heard of any RAF bombers being broken up immediately at the end of the war – they seemed to go into store for a few years before being scrapped, as did quite a few of the early war Spits that served in OTUs upto 1945.
Interesting thought…
Anyway, the idea of a store of near perfect aircraft, forgotten about for 60-odd years is just another Holy Grail – something so perfect it is unattainable. Be happy with the dregs from crash sites and the bottom of undeveloped scrap-yards: they are the best you can hope for now!
Flood.
By: Merlin3945 - 28th January 2004 at 00:05
Originally posted by Flood
Yes (see the ‘with modifications’ bit in my last post) – but that was not what I was referring to…
None of them were used by 603 Sqn at the end of the war!Flood.
Hi Flood,
Just retelling the story exactly as I was told.
And as far as I am to believe lend / lease applied to aircraft made with American money / materials or am I wrong.
By: Flood - 26th January 2004 at 00:55
Yes (see the ‘with modifications’ bit in my last post) – but that was not what I was referring to…
None of them were used by 603 Sqn at the end of the war!
Flood.
By: Ant.H - 26th January 2004 at 00:06
On the subject of Spitfires landing on carriers,there were a relatively small number of Mk.V’s which were fitted with arrester hooks,but didn’t have the folding wings.They were used by the FAA to train future Seafire pilots.
One of these,BL628,survives today in Australia and is currently under restoration to airworthy condition in stock Mk.V configuration.
By: Melvyn Hiscock - 25th January 2004 at 23:10
Re: SPITFIRES & SWIFTS
Originally posted by Robbie
If they do exist – and I think we are talking about quite a lot – according to the rumours!! !
Yes, loads and loads of rumours and nothing substantial recovered. That is my point. If something was to substantiate just one of these big cache rumours then it would get interesting, but a very, very small percentage of what has been rumoured is ever likely to emerge.
MH
By: Flood - 25th January 2004 at 22:40
Originally posted by Merlin3945
Flood,I would agree with that one. I talked to a 603 (City of Edinburgh) pilot about 3 years ago. A long conversation as I remember missed quite a few aircraft going by but it was worth it. People are better than planes anyday. Anyhow he told me of flying his spit to the back of a carrier off Scotland and then getting ferried back to the coast to do it all over again. The aircraft were lend lease and needed to be off british soil or Britain would be liable for the cost or something like that so he was there to see them pushed of the side of the carrier.
Hmm… One of a fairly rare breed then – an RAF pilot with the experience of landing on an aircraft carrier?
Spitfires could not land on carriers without a few modifications, so I imagine your chap was actually landing Seafires. But this would be coupled to the mention of being off British soil – American-built lend-lease aircraft certainly, but Seafires/Spitfires?
Have to agree with you that you get a better standard of conversation talking to people than aeroplanes…;)
Flood.
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January 24, 2004 at 2:05 pm