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Burma Spitfire search finds water-filled crate that may contain plane
By Telegraph reporters
9:43AM GMT 09 Jan 2013
It was not immediately clear how much damage the water may have caused, and
searchers could not definitively say what was inside the crate.
But British aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall, who is driving the hunt
for the rare Spitfires, called the results "very encouraging".
"It will take some time to pump the water out...but I do expect all aircraft
to be in very good condition," Mr Cundall said from Rangoon, Burma's main
city.
The single-seater Spitfire, which helped Britain beat back waves of German
bombers during the war more than six decades ago, remains the most famous
British combat aircraft.
Britain built a total of about 20,000 Spitfires, although the dawn of the
jet age meant the propeller-driven planes quickly became obsolete.
As many as 140 Spitfires -- three to four times the number of airworthy
models known to exist -- are believed to have been buried in near-pristine
condition in Burma by American engineers as the war drew to a close.
The wooden crate located in northern Burma was found in Myitkyina in Kachin
state during a dig that began last month. It is one of several digs planned
nationwide, including another near the airport in Rangoon.
Mr Cundall said the search team in Kachin state inserted a camera into the
crate and found it was full of water. It was unclear what was inside the
crate, he said, but the water will be pumped out during an operation that
could take weeks, he said.
The go-ahead for excavation came in October when Burma's government signed
an agreement with Mr Cundall and his local partner.
Under the deal, Burma's government will get one plane for display at a
museum, as well as half of the remaining total. DJC, a private company
headed by Mr Cundall, will get 30 per cent of the total and the Burma
partner company Shwe Taung Paw, headed by Htoo Htoo Zaw, will get 20 per
cent.
During the project's first phase, searchers hope to recover 60 planes: 36
planes in Mingaladon, near Rangoon's international airport, six in Meikthila
in central Burma, and 18 in Myitkyina. Others are to be recovered in a
second phase.
Searchers hope the aircraft are in pristine condition, but others have said
it's possible all they might find is a mass of corroded metal and rusty
aircraft parts.
Mr Cundall said the practice of burying aircraft, tanks, and jeeps was
common after the war.
"Basically nobody had got any orders to take these airplanes back to [the]
U.K. They were just surplus...[and] one way of disposing them was to bury
them," Mr Cundall said. "The war was over, everybody wanted to go home,
nobody wanted anything, so you just buried it and went home. That was it."
Stanley Coombe, a 91-year-old war veteran from Britain who says he witnessed
the aircraft's burial, travelled to Burma to observe the search.
"[It is] very exciting for me because I never thought I would be allowed to
come back and see where Spitfires have been buried," Coombe said. "It's been
a long time since anybody believed what I said until David Cundall came
along."
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