And you thought unopened crates of bikes were cool

Reading about this last year, hope they find them. The article i read said there is a possibility that the parts were wrapped in grease before they were crated.
 
Packed in grease? Now that would be a cool find. Screw the barn find BS, give me a preserved Spitfire instead!

I'm a metal detector freak. I always have it in my truck. So reading about these types of things makes me excited.

My buddy (aircraft mechanic and junkie) told me, " The British government can't even confirm that they actually exist, but surrendered their rights to them if they are found."
 
One of my customers (wealthy individual) got a FW190 out of North Africa that was never assembled, about 20 years ago. Amazing how things can set around and be forgotten.
 
i said grease, and it was a while since i red the article but it is meant to be wrapped in grease proof paper. buried 30 ft under and in crates the size of buses. play the link. if it is true you would think there would be some good stuff in there
 
Cosmoline and grease paper were the standard for shipping metals in the day. Cosmoline endures quite a bit. Should be interesting to see what they come up with. Hope they find 'em
 
When I worked for the Govt, they shipped us all the test weapons in cosmoline. That stuff does not come out of clothing.
The 155mm Arty barrels had to be steamed cleaned.
I had to repair a M1919 bolt assembly one time. They couldn't find the specific part, but an entire assembly itself. If I remember correctly, the paper said it was packaged in like 1942. Covered in cosmoline and perfectly preserved.
Much better than when they would put, say an M2, in a crate and then fill the crate with spray foam. We had to literally cut the gun out.
 
Allegedly a picture of one being prepared for burial:

TTH180402CC_4_news__346848c.jpg
 
aldo5468 said:
Why would anyone bother to bury them? Would take a lot of work - makes no sense to me, but maybe they did.
Click to expand...

Can't bomb what you can't see. Lots of equipment was selectively buried to protect it during specific campaigns, and because the desert did not bury it with the care the armies of the world did. Believe it or not, it was all to protect the asset from air strike, and from the very operating environment itself. Desert surface winds could, and often did, exceed 80 MPH. even if tethered, the aircraft would be sandblasted to the point of being unservicable during the storms, or thier lashings would partially let go, since firm anchoring is difficult, and the craft would just be tossed across the desrt floor. Hard to imagine the sustained hell of the North African deserts, paired with war itself.
Tough territory for man, machine, and beast.
 
They dumped tons of tanks, Jeeps, planes, ect off of ships too. Some they tossed just so they didn't have haul them back across the ocean.
 
They started digging today,Ive been following this for years,, Im praying theyre there & if so ,in decent condition .. Trouble is, I heard an archaeological 'expert' saying the crates would've collapsed by now & the soil conditions might not be conducive to preservation:(
 
Crates were suppose to be waterproof. Would the constant vibration from an airfield cause a sink hole If the boxes collapsed.
 
1n the early 70s some automatic weapons appeared on the black market in aust.they were eventully traced back to brisbane.after the 2nd world war a lot of munitions some planes etc were dumped into the sea off brisbane where the trawlers kept snagging their nets on them for years.one trawler brought up a crate of guns up in their nets and decided to make their fortune.(according to newspapers at the time)there was no mention of condition but insinuated they were useable????
 
I was serving on the USS Belleau Wood when we were sent to East Timor in '99. They landed a squad of us from a LCM. The crew lives on the vessel. They were showing us their perfect M60 and M79. They told us they rarely ever shot them. Both weapons were replaced back in the '80's by the M240 and M203, but these guys still had perfect examples and loved 'em.
 
I understand your point about hiding assets in wartime to protect them, including burying them. I got the impression from the article that these Spits were buried at the end of the war; i.e., after hostilities had ceased. Spits continued in service for several more years, for instance, in the Israeli air force; seems like these would have had some economic value for at least a little while. Obviously worth many millions now if salvageable, if being the operative word,
 
littlebill31 said:
They dumped tons of tanks, Jeeps, planes, ect off of ships too. Some they tossed just so they didn't have haul them back across the ocean.
Click to expand...

Often the price of hauling a piece of equipment thousands of miles far exceeds it's value. Given Great Britain's tendecy to melt down it's rifles 5 days after the cessation of hostilities (Just call when ya'll need to borrow rifles and tanks again!) I can see the Royal Navy bringing the boys, and not much more back home. Where would an Island nation put all of it?
We blew up thousands of pounds of our own munitions after the 1991 cease fire in Iraq, right alongside the stuff we were taking off decimated Iraqi positions and armor. Pointless to carry it half way around the world, when a great deal of it was older stock from Cold War Europe anyway. We still do it to this day in AFG. Munitions in a storage facility have a shelf life. Munitions in the field, under widely varying conditions, have a "useful life" Virtually all munitons are affected to some degree by exposure to extremes of heat, cold, and humidity. As to sink holes and water damage, that's highly dependent on the environment and terrain. Much of the lumber used in WWII was not treated, as crates typically were not shipped back anywhere, and often were burned to prevent them from being used by the enemy. It will be interestijng to see what turns up, for sure.:thumbsup:
 

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