Hunt for Spitfires to end empty-handed
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A two-year hunt for Spitfire fighter planes rumoured to have been buried in Myanmar at the end of World War II is to end after yielding no results, the team said yesterday.
The project suffered a first blow in February 2013 when online game company Wargaming backed out of its sponsorship, saying there was no documentary or forensic evidence that crated components of Spitfires were buried by then-colonial power Britain in 1945.
Britain is thought to have buried the Spitfires in 1945 as they were surplus by the time they arrived by sea. The excavation team believe there could be 36 of the iconic single-seat British fighter aircraft beneath Yangon airport, a wartime airfield, in the Mingaladon district of the city.
But British aviation enthusiast David Cundall continued the search in partnership with Myanmar company Shwe Taung Paw and the Department of Civil Aviation, on a two-year contract due to expire in October.
The search has turned up only one crate full of mud at a site near Myaitkyina, capital of northern state Kachin, last year.
Project spokesman Tun Kyaw said the search had been hampered by the location of the sites.
"Many limitations make it hard for us to search in the area," he said. "The most possible site out of three is at Mingaladone airbase, a restricted area near Yangon International airport.
"Authorities had held up operations, citing concerns that digging would damage underground cables supplying the airport, he said.
Excavations in Kachin state were interrupted by clashes between government troops and local rebals, he said.
"We left the site as the fighting became stronger."
The excavation team opened a Facebook page in April 2012, where updates of the search appear. As of today, the page attracted 3,930 likes.
On the page, the team said that “twenty iconic Spitfire aircraft buried in Burma during the Second World War are to be repatriated to Britain after a 15 year search by Lincolnshire farmer and aviation enthusiast David Cundall”.
A number of messages was last posted on June 16, when the digging was concentrated near Yangon airport.
One of them is: “At the moment the ground is waterlogged due to the monsoon so no digging can take place. We also need to produce a robust structural engineering plan to ensure that we can dig the site without having an impact on the runway. The Burmese will allow digging to commence once we submit - and they approve - this plan”.
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