You have to think about these stories logically..The Forces had a system for the disposal of larger items of surplus equipment which was generally used. Spitfires, particularly new ones, were a very high value commodity..Why would they bury them and not sell them to someone or simply fly the things out of there?
Large quantities of smaller items of equipment were buried for various reasons..I know the locations (verified by eye witness accounts from the time) of three of these dumps in the Plymouth area...
The largest item I have heard of being buried was DR bikes, which were buried on a camp in India when we left before independence because they, and all the other small items also buried, did not warrant the shipping cost back to the UK..The guy who told me that said all larger vehicles were shipped back...
Wrecked, written off Spitfires, old parts for Spitfires etc. might have been buried..but I don't believe new ones ever were. Or new Harley Davidsons, Jeeps or any other vehicles.
I think these are folklore stories that have grown up from the fact SOME equipment WAS buried...
Usually when you hear about things like this they say...'They're there but the farmer won't let anyone dig the field...Yeh, right...Most of the farmers I know would have dug up new bikes or Jeeps pretty much as soon as the last army lorry had dissappeared up the lane! 
....So I guess the stories of the Battleship buried near Plymouth Dockyard aren't true then?
...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
I remember when I went to France at about 6 or 7 years of age there were still a few tanks from the war rusting quietly in the countryside...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
If they find them and get a weave on with the restoration, there'll be more Spitfires than Nortons in Normandy in 2014...
As a Norton crack I can tell you I wouldn't mind losing this battle....
but I WANT to be there in 2014!
Regards,
Sven
email (option): snvosselman@gmail.com
like ian said i wouldnt have thought they buried then whole because of the size of the crate and if you know squaddies they would have smashed them up for fun but why is david cameron and a british millionair getting involved 
email (option): roger.beck@node6.com
trevor i have got an old army shovel all i need is money to go hi ho
email (option): roger.beck@node6.com
Sorry but, your guess is as good as mine Kit. If you know of an ex WW2 USAAF base near Hitchin that was developed for housing in the late 1980s early 1990s, then that's probably the one.
The report stated they thought there were 'up to' 36 buried...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
hi,the sad thing is all this stuff was generated for one specific goal'',to win at all cost''.
after it was successfully accomplished,the world had to get back to some sense
of order,and to flood the place with superb equipment for zero return,would have hampered the economy of every country that took part. the equipment had been paid for,manufactured and now was surplus.
easiest way,get rid ,start afresh.
all wars are fought by the money men of the world to protect their vast fortunes
and generate more wealth.
after a few minutes of google,i turned up two very sad youtube videos,the one i wanted was not where i looked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woVz2hqolho and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY7mTCMvpEM
these are just two,what a shame,you may find more if you delve into the past
cheers rick
ps heres another https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84nqvJT_LdA
email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com
in 1945 a man in Iceland which owned a steel furniture company asked the US army surplus sales if they had any scrap aluminum. He was approced by offciers of the 33rd Fighter squadron which offered him their complete squadron of 32 each P47 Thunderbolt fighters, which were only 1 years old. A deal was made, making the buying price ca. $5 per plane.
They were scrapped at the airfield and moved to Reykjavik were they were turned into chairs, tables etc. If he would of only kept one intact it would be worth over a million $ unrestored today........
Here are before and after photos from my collection:
email (option): hsteinsson28@hotmail.com
Hi,James. I can confirm that story of the Somali police Duo Glide Harleys that were thrown to one side.My brother in law lived in Mogadishu around that time and had his own buisness repairing/servicing vehicles and generators for the embassys and aid agencys.He showed me some pictures of his friends two (i think)harleys that he was rebuilding,as you say ex. police Duo Glides.I know the week before he was evacuated (from the roof of the U.S. embassy)He disabled his landrovers by taking his prop-shafts etc off and burying them in the garden of his house.His idea was to return when the fighting had blown over and carry on as before,that was 20 years ago.So if Land-Rover 110 propshafts ever become collectable i have a rough idea where to start digging Mick.
When I worked in a british bike shop in Plymouth a guy came in and bought a lot of T140 spares...He had bought a quantity of T140 Bonnevilles that were ex Nigerian Police...He paid the approx. equivalant of £2.50 each! These bikes were one of the last batches made by the Meriden Cooperative..some only had very minor faults like a broken throttle cable which the Nigerians hadn't bothered to fix and most had seen only fairly light use...
There were also the late model A65's and the police version of the Tridents (T160 Cardinal) that came back from Libya and Saudi Arabia...A friend of mine bought one of the Cardinals from the dealer that reimported and rebuilt them. He told my pal that some of the virtually new T160s he had 'rescued' had been literally piled up behind a Police station in the desert...Ian
email (option): Ian@wright52.plus.com
Mick.Small world indeed - you're talking about Roger Carter who's just emailed me after you pointed out my message. He's old friend from East Africa days.
Roger will also be able to confirm another interesting old bike find from our African time - the large cache of ex-police Norton Dominators unearthed by one Phil Warren who I understood got them all shipped back to UK. Can't remember exactly where they were found but it was either Somalia or the Gambia as I recall.
See my post 28th Nov in "parts for sale / wanted" covering the WD M20 I'm selling.
email (option): fanning_james@hotmail.com
Your conversation about bikes in East Africa makes me very tempted to plug a new Great War memoir that I've been instrumental in getting published. It covers the story of a chap serving in East Africa and spending much of the war riding an old Douglas 2 3/4hp dispatch bike through the inhospitable terrain. However, I won't plug it and I'll even resist saying that it's called 'Chasing von Lettow-Vorbeck' and is available now from all good bookshops. 
Never mind the Spits out in Burma, what about some a bit closer to home!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9732585/Is-there-a-squadron-of-Spitfires-buried-in-Birmingham.html
... nicely plugged. The WW1 von Lettow story in German East Africa is fascinating and I came across many stories and artifacts from that whole episode during my three decades of living in East Africa. Very resourceful fellow whose story has been covered from different angles in books ("Battle of the Bundu") and on film ("Shout at the Devil" with Lee Marvin and Roger Moore).
The massive hull of the Konigsberg battle ship still lies in the mouth of the Rufiji river in the south of Tanzania and you can still find in Dar Es Salaam old emergency Heller coins minted by the Germans from brass salvaged from this ship while they continued resisting British forces - they only finally surrendered several days after the official armistice in Europe on 11th Nov 1918.
You've probably just made one sale at least !
email (option): fanning_james@hotmail.com
It is a fascinating theatre of the war that gets very little mention, it has been said that 'Von Lettow-Vorbeck was forced to surrender an army that had not lost to an army that couldn't win'. Lots of use of motorcycles of all sorts in Africa too, probably lots still out there? In the book, the chap who wrote it says that he comes into contact with the South African Motorcycle Corps who are riding Harley Davidsons, but in the 1919 Daimler/BSA book covering their part in the war, they say that the South Africans were equipped with BSA. It's also available through ebay if anyone is interested.
Spitfire crash lands yesterday 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9786243/Spitfire-crash-landing-closes-East-Midlands-Airport-runway.html
email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk
The Kenya police used the Norton Commando 850 Mk3 for presidential outrider escorts from 1976 to 1982 - there were 16 machines imported and they used to follow the first president Kenyatta around the country. I got hold of one in 1983 when the cops retired them , re-equipping with BMWs , rebuilding it - went all over the country with it over the next twenty years and shipped it back to UK when I left.
In the mid to late '60s , right after independence , the Kenya cops used Matchless 650 CSR machines scrapped examples of which I used to come across occasionally scattered round the country.
Not to worry...We can still enjoy a good 'Battle of Britain' fry up with the WW2 lard that has washed up on a beach in Scotland after recent storms...Apparently it comes from a WW2 frieghter that was sunk off the coast there in 1940 and is still edible... ...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
A proper old fashioned fry up, in real lard, now there's a thought!
The chap in charge of the expedition says that he thinks the archaeologists haven't found any Spitfires because they are actually digging in the wrong place?
Hang on a minute..If he's in charge why are they digging in the wrong place?..He should sack them and get another lot who do what they're told.. ...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
It all sounds a bit odd to me anyway..Some articles say they were buried near the end of the war in sealed crates to stop them falling into enemy hands.(presumably on the basis that they would come back and get them at some point). Well, near the end of the war there was no chance whatsoever of the Japs recapturing Rangoon..but apart from that, why didn't they come back and retrieve the planes?. Other reports say they were buried because they were 'surplus to requirements' at the end of the war..if that was the (more plausible) case they wouldn't have bothered to 'seal' them in crates..in fact they probably wouldn't have bothered with crates at all as they just wanted to get rid of them. In that was the case there wouldn't be too many useable parts left anyway I wouldn't think....
Finally, If the guy does know where they are, why the f**k doesn't he just go and dig them up instead of 'digging in the wrong place'..Does he think they need digging practice?...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
Maybe they need the Time Team to get involved, at least they are able to do their Geo Physics properly before digging?
I agree with Ian, Sack him
email (option): 79aust@sky.com
And if the Time Team do find a nut and bolt they'll soon have a computer image of what it looked like as part of a whole Spitfire... ...Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
First see, than believe..................
Regards,
Sven
email (option): snvosselman@gmail.com
...Ian That would be because it came from Australia
email (option): wariron@tpg.com.au
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9732585/Is-there-a-squadron-of-Spitfires-buried-in-Birmingham.html
I see from this article there are now 36 Spits in Burma, or is this another batch ?
Seriously the RAF could not get rid of their surplus and even then highly obsolete Spitfires fast enough.
Remember the jet fighter and jet fighter bomber had been developed during WWII which made every piston powered fighter obsolete so the RAF would not have been preserving them for future use.
Down here in OZ , Simsmetal made a special cradle for melting the Merlin & Griffon engines complete , strait out of the crate and we were still dropping them into the furnaces in the 70's when I worked there.
We were also melting complete wings ( no cannons fitted ) and a lot of other WWII surplus.
Cartidge cases were always fun as some apparently managed to find their way into the scrap pool intact. very interesting indeed. Even the ones that still had the fuses ( caps to some ) left in were "fun " enough.
No army , navy or air force wants to use last war's obsolete gear.
While some would have been put into government stores most were sold to fund the demobbing.
What turns up every now & then are parts that were squrilled away during the war into stores then forgotten about usually till a developer convinces the war office that the land needs to be converted into new housing estates.
Back in the 80's we consolodated all of the military stores into a single department ( DAS ) and they started decommissing warehouses . Some of these had stores that dated back to WW I let alone WW II. Totally forgotten about after the end of hostilities . Most of them have gone now & the land has beed redevoloped but as late as 1998 a forgotten about warehouse was found & decomissioned in regional Queensland.
There were a lot of WW II Harleys , a few WM 20's and tons of general military spares most of which went to Sims for scrap.
We had a "Lend / Lease " agreement with the USA so if we did not use an item, we did not pay for it .
At the end of WWII a lot of unused stuff was driven into old mines or dumped in caves as the USA did not want them back & we did not want to pay for stuff we were not going to use .
The Yanks did a "Bash Burn & Burry" to the stuff that they did not want to take back to the USA.
email (option): wariron@tpg.com.au
What did they do with them?...I have never seen a WW1 tank as part of a civic memorial...Perhaps they were underwhelmed by the 'gift' and THEY buried them? ..Personally though, I still think there's an aircraft carrier buried just outside Devonport Dockyard...Well did anyone see HMS Eagle sail down the river Tamar?.....Ian
email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com
Don't forget that the army is full of men with time on their hands who need to be kept busy and digging holes is a time honoured tradition in the forces. If you've got something to get rid of and need to keep 25 blokes busy, you just need to get 25 spades and hey presto, both problems solved in one go.
..]The one in my home town was buried in a large hole, photos exist of it happening. It is still there under a carpark; metal detected it myself some years ago before it was more recently further encased under a new thicker layer of hardcore and tarmac!
email (option): cruiserchooser@hotmail.co.uk
The Friends of the Lincoln Tank have spent years researching these Presentation Tanks and have found photos of just about every one, except, quite ironically, the one that stood on display in Lincoln itself!!
hi,following on the discussion,Salford was awarded a tank,apparently for raising
funds for the war effort.Also there were some captured guns ,and it seems some
guns from the Crimean war.
here is a link if you want to read the fate of these trophys.as a point of interest,pictured behind the tank is the facade of Salford Royal hospital,
this took a direct hit during the Manchester blitz of December 24th 1940,
resulting in the death of many nurses and patients.
you may have to sign in to this site to enlarge the content unless you are better than i at working pooters.
http://salfordwarmemorials.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=957
cheers rick
PS,i searched for spitfire production records,as about forty years ago my brother had two books from the library,one about the spit one about the hurricane,listed at the back were the details of what had happened to each aircraft.
i found this site which resembles a copy of Orchard and Madden .most are listed
i tried to contact the site to ask the questions,but my limited knowledge of pooters let me down again as i couldnt answer the questions relating to what format my e-mail system uses
anyone like to view or ask the questions
http://www.spitfires.ukf.net/home.htm
good luck
email (option): richardholt@rocketmail.com