18 October 2012
A project to excavate the Burma Spitfires is to begin at the end of October. Burma’s government has signed an agreement with Lincolnshire aviation enthusiast David Cundall to allow the excavation of dozens of rare Spitfire fighters which were buried in the country at the end of the Second World War. It’s thought that the Spitfires are rare Mark XIV fighters, equipped with the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine.
Mr Cundall, 62, spent 16 years and over £130,000 of his own money scouring former RAF airfields in Burma for the aeroplanes, after receiving a tip-off that they were buried at the end of a runway in August 1945. It is believed that the aircraft were abandoned in Burma before they ever took to the air because they were no longer needed with so many Spitfires then flying and the war ending – they were carefully greased and wrapped to preserve them, before being buried in crates. According to reports, there could be up to 60 aircraft buried, and each aeroplane may be worth up to as much as £1.6m.
Mr Cundall has been quoted as saying, “Spitfires are beautiful aeroplanes and should not be rotting away in a foreign land. They saved our neck in the Battle of Britain and they should be preserved.”
Most of the Spitfires are expected to be returned to the UK, with some remaining in Burma on display.
5 comments
Hi
Have the Spitfires now been found?
I knew someone who was there in the war and he told me over 30 years ago where 6 were burried.
Get in touch if you want to know.
Hi John can you please email me
[email protected]
Not sure of the date of this article, but it appears to be a rehash of old news first published in 2015.
Mr Cundall didn’t dig up any Spitfire then and will not do so in the future.
Despite claiming many times he’s on the brink of their discovery/has compelling new evidence/new eye witnesses, he comes back each time empty handed. Why? Because he has no documented, verifiable evidence to prove they ever existed. All the evidence that is available shows none were shipped at the time of the alleged burial and that the RAF simply never took the trouble to bury aircraft to prevent them falling into enemy hands-they would simply destroy them.
An obsession has taken over common sense.
You are quite right, the Air ministry would have documented the supposed buried spitfires with their registrations which the MOD could confirm from its air ministry inherited documents but the MOD always said it had no evidence of spitfire burial in Burma. Why did no one believe that when the MOD said that even before the waste of time dig occurred in 2013?