Daz, if that’s the faux Spitfire in France it hardly slipped through your fingers.

Bombsaway, since you don’t know the details perhaps you’ll refrain from posting white noise? You wear your ignorance like a badge of honour.

My point was that something’s hardly slipped through your fingers if you make no effort to organise collection and when a friend (sadly no longer with us) organises a lorry, you have no notion of the transport costs nor any way of even splitting the bill on a shared ownership basis (considering he was going to store it and provide workshop space and tools as well). This wasn’t a “nearly was”, it’s a “never was”. So yes, I do question the “slipped through the fingers” status of this and it’s hardly surprising that the post has now disappeared.

Laurence, the photos were posted by Steven Phipps in a group named “Tiger Tanks, Armoured Vehicles & Places of Combat From WWII till Today”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/599117760244236/permalink/934039226752086/?pnref=story There’s another photo from 11th November on the “SaharaSafaris Club” page.

Tim, according to the info board infront of the example displayed at Junagarh Fort in March 2013, there were two dH9s which were used to assemble it.
De Haviland DH-9 by bill williams, on Flickr

I’ve found it a great resource.

It’s good to see WB569 out and about again. This was the Chipmunk in which a good friend took his first flight and it flew in his memory after his funeral. Life – Live It – Love It.

Dear All,

Indeed, as I am sure Mark 12 will confirm, the complete sentence without redaction reads:

“It is reported that underground hangArs are under construction 4950 feet SSW. of the intersection of runways No2 and No3.”

Second, the suggestion of underground works being constructed by the Japanese at Mingaladon is not unusual. The allied photo interpreters refer to such works on an number of occasions, for example, Air 23/3869 contains another intelligence appraisal which refers to unidentified “underground working” and “truck activity” at a location on Mingaladon.

Of course, these documents represent the PI’s best interpretation of what they are seeing, not what is actually there on the ground. Subsequent to the Allied occupation of Mingaladon there is no reference in any of the copious amount of documentation to any substantial underground works being located. Neither are there any substantiated reports of any such structures being found during the extensive reconstructions of the airport which have taken place in the past seventy years.

Clearly buried structures did exist, and may still exist, on Mingaladon. At least one such structure was destroyed in one of Mr Cundall’s previous excavations. However, there is no evidence for anything of the scale required to house aircraft.

So, for now it is a case of “Move along please, nothing to see here.”

Andy, furnished with the location of a supposed underground hangar, you didn’t explore this spot or mention that it was documented at the time? It’s the sort of detail that I’d expect a publicity seeking enterprise, such as your expedition, to mention but you’re dismissive. It strikes me as a glaring omission since it would go some way towards countering your opinion that there wasn’t the means to bury Spitfires, instead, you flogged to death a weak joke about warbirds to woks.

Mind you, would this information have made much difference when Matt Poole has shown that you had great difficulty working out exactly where you were in relation to the wartime layout due to mistakes in interpreting the relative scales of period photos and modern aerial mapping. Time will tell.

How does the hangar location tally with where you did dig and where the underground structure near the four nav lights was found?

“So, for now it is a case of “Move along please, nothing to see here.””
If anything does surface, your report will undoubtedly be the next thing that’s dug up.

Welcome back, Peter.

I’ll leave the rumours to you, Malcolm.