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Author Topic: Burma's Buried Spitfires  (Read 50402 times)

Bob Lanz

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #30 on: January 09, 2013, 07:57:09 PM »


C'mon, Bob.  Let me first clear up what may be my misunderstanding of D. McDaniel's phrase "not an issue" and the way I address it in my post.  I was trying to say that apparently a lack of general belief in Mr. Coombe's memory (as indicated by his own quote and by the time elapsed) caused the Spitfire search not to be pursued nearly as soon as it could have been, had he been taken at face value.  Thus "memory and credibility" of an eyewitness, without other evidence, were major issues affecting whether and when a serious search began.  Reading your and Mr. McDaniel's replies, I believe you may be using "credibility was not an issue" to mean "Mr. Coombe was right and his memory accurate".  That is not the point I was addressing, I have no knowledge or prejudice whether he is right or wrong . . . when they explore further into the crate we will know more.  I meant to cast no personal aspersions whatsoever on his credibility or lucidity, and in fact my guess, based on finding even the crate, is that he is right.

The rest of my post attempted to discuss more generally why the memory of a single witness (not Mr. Coombe in particular) was, and perhaps should not be, taken as gospel truth without factual support.  The fact that all the personal memories supporting all the different AE disappearance theories cannot possibly be true was offered as one example.  As for the rest of it, and your numerous comments, I am going to take the lazy way out and provide a quote from our friendly neighboorhood archaeologist, Dr. King:

Note that Dr. King clearly also makes a logical connection between archaeological and legal circles, as did I; I did not expect that to be controversial.  Finally, as to "independent confirmation", I would not expect anyone alive today to "do that for Mr. Coombe" -- and even if there were another nonagenarian, that would simply be another personal memory.  By "factual" I meant something much more tangible; in this particular case it boils down to: is there an airplane inside the crate?  We'll soon know; I bet there is.

Point well taken Alan.  What disturbs me is finding out that there was water in the crate they put the camera in.  Hopefully that is not the case with all of them.  That will make restoration a much more daunting task as well as expensive.  I Google Earth'd the site and it is a very small area and is right next to a major road that I doubt was there many years ago.  Hopefully some of them will not be under that road bed as well.  I also believe that they are there.

Cheers,
Doc
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« Last Edit: January 09, 2013, 08:00:37 PM by Bob Lanz »
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Chris Austin

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #31 on: January 18, 2013, 09:42:37 AM »

Rather an abrupt about-turn; odd.  :-\ ???
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Alan Harris

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #32 on: January 18, 2013, 01:22:27 PM »

This one sounds even more grim.

Also I have seen a report that the Burma Spitfires Facebook page says:

Quote
"Update from David: Burmese wouldn't let them dig where the eyewitness statements said the aircraft were located so the whole thing was futile. He still believes and is fighting on..."

Can't confirm that as I am not on Facebook.

It is all getting very strange . . .
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Randy Reid

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #33 on: January 22, 2013, 11:55:47 AM »

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Bob Lanz

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #34 on: January 22, 2013, 02:20:24 PM »

another one

Randy,

Just read the article.  Respectfully, if Officer Pat Woodward's memory is as good as his knowledge of digging equipment in 1946, "And there were no hole digging machines in those days. If you wanted to dig a hole that size you had to dig it by hand which would have taken lots of people to do", then I would question the veracity of his statement.  Steam shovels were in existence before the 1900's and this is an example of one in 1908.  That's one hell of a big rock.  Add to that, who's to say that they didn't bury those planes after he left and he didn't truly know about it.  His story should be taken with a grain of salt imo.  I have high hopes that David Cundall will find them somewhere over there.  He deserves at least a chance to continue.



Doc
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #35 on: January 22, 2013, 04:57:20 PM »

FWIW, I've been deeply suspicious of these claims from the start.  According to the BBC, the archaeologists seem to agree.
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Andrea Fisher

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #36 on: January 22, 2013, 06:20:30 PM »

FWIW, I've been deeply suspicious of these claims from the start.  According to the BBC, the archaeologists seem to agree.

Ha Ha.  I see how to use quote.  I think Mr. Gillespie is right and Mr. Lanz is wrong.  Mr. Lanz, was your picture taken in Rangoon, Burma?  If not, I think there weren't any of those steam shovels available there.  I think, too, that intelligent people would not bury valuable airplanes for no reason.  Wasn't there plenty of opportunity to get them out of there if they were really there?
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C.W. Herndon

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #37 on: January 22, 2013, 06:59:40 PM »

  I think, too, that intelligent people would not bury valuable airplanes for no reason.  Wasn't there plenty of opportunity to get them out of there if they were really there?

Andrea, at the end of WW2 the US armed forces got rid of millions of dollars worth of brand new equipment that just kept arriving overseas because the "pipeline" could not be shut off quickly enough. My Dad told me of barge loads of new equipment that were sunk in the Pacific after the war ended. In Europe, the US Army Air Force "bulldozed" hundreds of new P-51 Mustang fighter planes, with only ferry time on them, into large piles and burned them. The thinking was that it would have cost more to ship them back to the states than they were now worth. I question that logic but it seems to have been in vogue at the time. Maybe some British commander used his head and decided that the planes might be useful someday and disposed of them in a manner that they could be retrieved if needed. Just my thoughts of course.
Woody (former 3316R)
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« Last Edit: January 22, 2013, 07:28:13 PM by C.W. Herndon »
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Chris Johnson

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #38 on: February 16, 2013, 08:05:39 AM »

Looks like this ones a no goer :(

Search for buried spitifres called off
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #39 on: February 16, 2013, 08:28:51 AM »

Looks like this ones a no goer :(

Whad I tell ya?
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Burma's Buried Spitfires
« Reply #40 on: February 18, 2013, 07:08:03 AM »

Does TIGHARS Operation Sepulchre have parallels to this?

Not really.  The purpose of Operation Sepulchre was to check out stories of WWII German aircraft surviving in underground hangars.  We conducted an investigation and found the stories to be unsupported.  The "Buried Spitfires" people skipped that step and announced a discovery before anything had been discovered.
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