Fair point mbriscoe. Did no official or anyone ask what had happened to all the Spitfires this particular unit had when they arrived home empty handed.
I guess I'm just over cynical and suspicious, but I don't like the idea of a film either, as surely there's a very good reason to not quite tell-it-like-is, to build up the suspense and so on.
Fair point mbriscoe. Did no official or anyone ask what had happened to all the Spitfires this particular unit had when they arrived home empty handed.
I guess I'm just over cynical and suspicious, but I don't like the idea of a film either, as surely there's a very good reason to not quite tell-it-like-is, to build up the suspense and so on.
Steve
If they had the appropriate form to say they had been disposed of then no one would be bothered.
Isn't it said to be as big a sin in the services to have too much stock as too little?
[QUOTE= It could be entirely feasible that each example was damaged in the same way, so you copuldn't even cobble them together out of bits[/QUOTE]
Simplest way to stop them flying (at the time) would be to either mangle the Merlin beyond local ability to repair (run it up with no oil is a good way) or bury the aircraft without something fundamental, like the prop. The thing to remember is the endless ingenuity of people with a lot of time and lots of airframes to make (say) one runner from 2-3 dead ones. When the BEF were chucked out of France they did a fairly good job of demolition on stagging amount of kit. My grandad was a gunner and POW taken in France. The Germans put a POW workshop together rebuilding Bedford trucks making 1 good one (relatively) from 3-4 partly destroyed. Grandad was the test driver and NCO IC..apparently the output of drivable vehicles was disappointing low and the Germans never quite worked out why...
I guess I'm just over cynical and suspicious, but I don't like the idea of a film either, as surely there's a very good reason to not quite tell-it-like-is, to build up the suspense and so on.
I've been following the TIGHAR webpage on the search for one Amelia Earhart, presumed drowned, presumed eaten by crabs on a deserted island or abducted by the Japs / Aliens..take your pick. There is an awful sense of Deja Vu here...announcements, promised artifacts, letdowns, qualifications etc...a bit like our previous PM but one..all spin and no substance!
I can bite my tongue no longer! Emboldened by members' sceptical remarks, I offer the following:
The Spits are reported to be still in their packing cases. That means they were shipped from the UK and their record cards (preserved by the Air Historical Branch) should be annotated with the name of the vessel and the date of sailing -- most probably, also, the date and port of arrival. While central record keeping of individual aircraft operated overseas during the war was impractical (and has to be tracked via squadron ORBs and pilots' logbooks), post-war, things were tightened up. There was a major, worldwide, census of all types of RAF aircraft in late 1946 and most of what could not be accounted for was noted on its record card as "PSOC 1.1.47." (presumed struck off charge). The second and final tidy-up saw a smaller number of aircraft "PSOC 21.6.47. Thus, I suggest, there seems to have been no official policy of "bury it and b*gg*r off back to Blighty" without telling the Air Ministry what you had done.
Following from that, it should be reasonably simple to compile an accurate list of serial numbers of Spirfires shipped to Burma and which subsequently vanished from the records without apparent trace. Admittedly, this list will contain more aircraft than are reported buried, but it surprises me that -- to the best of my knowledge -- nobody has yet hazarded a guess at some of the serial numbers. If I were investing in an expensive recovery project, I would wish to satisfy myself that there were enough unknown fates on the record cards to make the story possible, and I would then reduce that number by combing the local RAF Spit squadrons' ORBs to trace (or double-check on) the ones which were taken out of their crates and flown. Time forbids me, but has anyone combed the amazing Spitfires.ukf.net website for serial number clues?
War-weary Spits being dumped I can believe. Brand-new ones going missing post-war with no official record being kept is, I suggest, a little less likely. And, remember, we were selling hundreds of surplus Spits to numerous air forces in 1945-47; new ones still in boxes were worth money to HMG.
If you care to wade through the 30+ page long thread on the Key/Flypast Forums you will find somewhere that somebody has actually produced some kind of tentative list of potential candidates for an honorable burial in the backwoods of Burma
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