I have recently been contacted by a landowner, requesting help in trying to find a dump pit, full of RAF tools and aircraft parts. The landowner has owned the site of an old RAF base for many years, and has had a number of veterans return to visit the base where they once were stationed. Two of these veterans told the landowner a story, independently of each other, of how, at the end of the war, they were instructed to dig a pit near one of the main hangars, and throw away all the tools from the hangar, as well as assorted small aircraft parts. Many of these, so the story goes, were still in wax paper wrappings. They identified which hangar it was, and that these pits were dug to the south of the hangar. He invited us to come and try and find these pits!

Now I am as aware as the next person that these kinds of stories abound across the UK, but none have ever been proven. Stories of motor bikes being buried in their crates, whole armouries chucked in a lake, and of course the fabled Spitfires, all stories that seem too far-fetched to be true. But with two men who personally disposed of the tools, independently giving the same information? It seemed to me that this one had a better chance of being true than most! (Do you have a story about kit being buried at the end of the war? Contact me as I would love to hear it!)

Our first visit involved the digging of the site of an old pond, just to the south of the hangar. This pond was a decent size, and being just outside the hangar, an ideal place for groundcrew to chuck stuff that wasn’t needed. We secured the use of a digger and set to. We hit on a fabulous spot with our first attempt, recovering large numbers of aircraft parts. Despite the fact the hole we dug filled with water very quickly, (it was an old pond….who knew!), we were able to recover some excellent finds, but unfortunately no tools!

Anything yet??

Digging deep!

Aircraft parts

Quite a few Merlin exhaust gaskets, none of which appear to have ever been used.

Quite a few milk bottles from a local dairy

Aircraft parts

Aircraft parts

Aircraft parts

The aircraft parts kept coming…..

An amazing find! Front panel and screens for an early SCR radar, mounted in Mosquitos, showing the C-Scope (Azimuth/Elevation) display on the left and the B-Scope (Range/Azimuth) on the right.

After a while, this spot dried up, and as we hit the clay at the bottom of the old pond, moved on to other areas of the pond. We were sure, after this first pit, that the whole pond was going to be full of WW2 relics. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. We dug from 8am to around 4pm and basically excavated 80% of the area of the pond. Digging in strips, we went down to the clay level, then moved on a few feet. We did get a few more finds, but nothing like the volume of our lucky first pit.

With the day over, next came the job of cleaning, preserving and identifying the finds. We hadn’t finished with the site yet, and a few weeks later returned, armed with some good hits from a magnetometer. The result of that visit is further down the page.

On to the finds……

Mustang exhaust/engine panel! It was a bit bent, so I took a hammer to it….

Better!

Stamp on the inside, showing it to be P51 (102 prefix)

Definitely goes there

Spitfire fuselage fire wall. Sits between engine and instrument panel.

Took some searching to find a stamp, but finally found one hidden here. 361 prefix. Spitfire Mk IX

You can see it in this picture. That looks suspiciously like asbestos fabric, so I have soaked each piece in varnish to keep it from shedding fibres

Another big chunk, and it took ages to find a stamp to identify it.

Finally found one. De Havilland. Mosquito engine/exhaust panel, or at least the right hand side of one.

Merlin engine thermostat

Piece of instrument panel. No stamps on this at all, so remains unidentified

RAF bomb shackle

Mosquito part

98 prefix gives it away

Spitfire part. Two stamps on this piece.

300, Spitfire Mk 1

But also 351, Spitfire Mk VII

Spitfire rudder trim tab

This had stamps all over the place!

Merlin engine compressor cover

Nice Rolls Royce stamp….

Not tracked this bit down yet. Leave a comment if you know what it is

Small electrical box. It is from an aircraft, given the Air Ministry part on the right

RAF armament switches and cables

5D –  Aircraft Armament Electrical Stores

Cockpit switch. 5C – Aircraft electrical switches

Found loads of these, about 20 in total

All stamped the same. FB = Bristol. Bristol Hercules engine mount rubber pads. Probably from Beaufighters which were stationed here.

There were quite a few finds taken by other people who attended the dig. Here are some of what they had…..

Spitfire coolant pipe

Piece can be clearly seen in this photo

Another piece of coolant pipe

300 prefix. Spitfire Mk 1

Undercarriage piece. Identified as Spitfire

Hydraulic strut, probably from undercarriage

Has a nice data plate….

…..and a 300 prefix. Spitfire Mk 1

Not got a picture of this cleaned, but we assumed it was Mosquito, given the wooden skin.

We’ve not been able to work out much of the wording on the stamp though.

This is defying identification. If you know what it is, please let me know! Had various suggestions, including the motor for a recon camera, but nothing to confirm this as yet.

Contact me if you can ID this!

And I now have about 10 of these, collected over the years from RAF and USAAF sites. I have waited a long time to find out what they are off, and thanks to a friend in Australia, (thanks Dylan!), I finally know what they are!

20mm Hispano rack operating levers!

Having not found the tools, Gary returned a few weeks later and got some big hits with a magnetometer. So we returned a couple of weeks ago to dig these signals, convinced that one signal in particular was going to be the tool pit!

However, it was not to be. The big signal turned out to be a 3 foot length of old water pipe. Second signal was a pile of metal straps sat on a concrete base, 3 feet beneath the surface. Third spot was an old oil drum and chunk of a big water tank. Fourth spot, an old burn pit, full of coal slag, with chunks of pottery scattered through it. We did find a couple of bits to add to the finds from the first visit, but the location of the tool pit remains a mystery, if it was ever there!

Two finds worth keeping

Chunk of Mosquito instrument panel, with a red indicator light.

98 prefix – Mosquito

The bulb holder is AM stamped

RAF battery cable, AM stamped

So, no tool pit! Mind you, there is quite a big area to search so we haven’t given up on it just yet!

Please send me an email via the contact page if you can identify any of the parts above, or if you have a story about ordnance/kit/aircraft/motorbikes/Jeeps being buried by the British/Americans at the end of the war!