In recent weeks we have been regaled with stories about the imminent unearthing In Myanmar of literally squadrons of brand-new World War II Spitfires – that iconic aircraft of the Battle of Britain in 1940 – that were supposedly buried 40 feet deep in their original shipping crates strengthened with Burmese teak. As many as 140 could be found, we were told, but the first phase would be restricted to excavating 36 Spitfires at Yangon International Airport (Mingalardon), 18 at Myitkyina in Kachin State and 6 at Meiktila in Mandalay Region. Contracts were signed, blessed by the British embassy in Yangon, and we awaited breathlessly the results of the first dig in mid-January. So far, though, there has been not a trace of these aircraft and as Men with Dark Glasses have told the excavation team to stop using JCB diggers after only two days because they were too close to the main runway, who can say what might have been found, or might still be found if digging by hand is permitted during the silent hours?
When I first heard of this story, back in 1998, the rumour was that in August 1945 a handful of newly arrived Spitfires had been placed in a shallow earthen silo as there was no vacant space around the airport buildings at Mingalardon and that these few aircraft had quietly sunk into the ground after heavy monsoon rains, so much so that within a matter of months they had disappeared from sight and were soon forgotten. The rumour supposedly came from US engineering construction veterans who had been tasked to do this by the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was a delightful story, scarcely credible, but one or two businessmen and Spitfire enthusiasts thought it worth a closer look and even investing a little time and money. In the end, a Lincolnshire farmer, David Cundall, saw off the opposition and secured the recovery contract.
What started off, though, as no more than an amateurish treasure hunt has since April 2012 been transformed into a saga of veritable fantasy. The report that so many aircraft might still exist is based on evidence of a very flimsy nature. In any case, there is simply no good reason to treat Spitfires in this way. It defies all common sense, which has been remarkably absent in all media comment on this affair.
US engineers: the source of the reports
The US military engineers were originally identified as US Navy “Seabees”, immortalised in the film The Fighting Seabees, starring John Wayne. But Seabees never came to Burma. They did their fighting and construction as they hopped from island to island in the Pacific. It was then suggested that they must have been a unit from the military construction battalions that built the Ledo Road from India and other roads and airfields in northern Burma, except that such construction units never worked south of Myitkyina. It was then thought that they were in fact a unit of engineers in transit at Rangoon on their way to Singapore at the end of World War II who, out of the goodness of their hearts, had offered their expertise to the RAF to help bury these aircraft, although they presumably had no transport or machinery of their own. The US unit has never been identified. And how did they get the crates up to Meiktila and Myitkyina? Would it not have been easier to assemble the aircraft at Mingalardon and fly them up, if they were needed there for whatever reason, overt or clandestine?
The main evidence was no fewer than eight eyewitnesses, US and British, who could testify to what they had seen, namely crates with Spitfires being buried at Mingalardon. Unfortunately one of the US eyewitnesses is no longer with us, and the other was on a life-support system some years ago and might by now have gone the way of all flesh. As for British eyewitnesses, I have no reason to disbelieve they saw what they saw, while some recounted what others had said they had seen. But no-one actually seems to have seen any Spitfires as such, only crates about to be buried. None of the actual eyewitnesses, though, was with the RAF, and some who had been permanently stationed at RAF Mingalardon between 1945 and 1947 have said that they saw nothing to confirm these accounts by transient eyewitnesses and did not for a moment believe that there was any truth in the story.
Documentary evidence: virtually non-existent
The final piece of evidence is what has been described as “a tantalising bundle of notes”and a record discovered by a researcher in the National Archives at Kew in London showing that some 124 Spitfire Mark XIVs had been “delivered Burma” in August 1945 and then Struck Off Charge (“SOC”). As The Times of January 7 put it, quoting David Cundall: “With an archival researcher’s help, he found an astonishing record. ‘On one day in August 1945, 124 Mark XIV Spitfires were struck off charge – no operational history, no mention of joining squadrons, they just disappeared.’” The record in the National Archives, however, has not been identified by file reference and searches by both official and private investigators, including myself, have failed to locate any such document.
Endeavouring to prove that something does not exist is no easy matter, but we are helped by the fact that every single Spitfire ever built has been faithfully recorded in detail in both online and printed record. (Spitfire: The History by Eric Morgan and Edward Shacklady runs to over 675 pages, took more than 35 years of research to compile and tells you everything you are ever likely to wish to know about every one of the 22,799 Spitfires ever built.) So far as Spitfire Mark XIVs are concerned, you have in this and other references details of those supplied to Air Command South-East Asia (ACSEA), the place they were built (mostly Aldermaston, Eastleigh, Keevil and Chattis Hill, but not Castle Bromwich as so many UK newspapers have reported), the date they were completed, the ship on which they were transported to ACSEA, the squadron to which they were allocated and the date on which they were “SOC” or otherwise disposed of.