A mate of mine has asked me to enquire on something his Grandad passed on. Dortmund aerodrome - Germany from 1947-present. Old chap said 109s, 110s, cars etc. were buried there, showed him locations etc. I know it's an old old story; the mythical squadrons lurking in underground chambers etc., but said I'd ask if anyone had anything on potential dumpings in the area. Or otherwise. ~A
Seems like it was a common practice in many locations Adam. Very credible evidence that an ME 262 lies buried here at Downsview. It was the most expedient means to dispose of large objects.
I reckon some of those types would be worth more than Spitfires and in a rather drier location..... }
Seems like it was a common practice in many locations. Aware of that, mate; from Bren Carriers to Bombers and all points between, just wondering more specifically about Dortmund. Isn't there a large Airport there now? Recent news seems to imply Germany's understandably pretty careful about clearing the ground on former military sites. I'd have thought UXB concerns might have led to many large metal objects already having been checked out.
I was based in "Napier Barracks" (as was), the old Luftwaffe air base. There were persistent stories about ammunition bunkers that had been bulldozed over, and large quantities of ammunition and scrap that was buried at the end of the war. I can confirm that ammunition - mainly live cannon shells - and fragments of alumnium aircraft parts could easily be found in the waste ground around the modern-day ammunition bunkers (much of BAOR first-line arty ammo was stored there at the time). On several occasions as duty office I had to sort out ATO incidents. It was told to me at the time that it was thought a very large quantity of ammunition - including aircraft bombs -was buried on the aerodrome. Other interesting incidents did occur. All of the main buildings had air raid shelters, which in turn all connected to the Dortmund WW2 underground tunnel network. These entrances were bricked up, and the lower levels flooded. Apparently the tunnels had flooded and been abandoned in the latter stages of WW2 - due to bombing - and were thus presumed to be full of the hospitals and AA defence stores that had been there. One or two "expeditions" from various British barracks did report that the initial parts of the tunnels were full of rusting scrap - bunk beds, etc. The network was off limits to all civil and military personnnel during BAOR days. At some point in the 1980s or 1990s, the remains of a german soldier and his equipment were found in ne of the mess gardens - thought to be a bomb victim. When the camp was returned to the Germans, (post 2000 ?) a survey found that a section of the attic in the officers' mess was walled up - concealing the mess silver and mess records of the Luftwaffe mess that had been there - so secrets do exist on the site! The most persistent WW2 story was that the entrance to large underground bunkers had been bulldozed over. It was thought that these bunkers held either munitions, and/or aircraft parts.
When they built a large Waitrose in Salisbury at the site of the old cattle market I was working for an elderly gentleman who told me "they're gonna get a shock digging there" Apparently he remembered the Americans burying tons of equipment there after the war. Nothing ever came out in the local news,and maybe he mis-remembered the site But i bet its not too far away from there Jeeps,bikes and all sorts of stuff went in. They couldn't take it back,and didn't want to leave it intact? Maybe someone will find it oneday!
Buried aircraft are not so uncommon. In and around the old Ahlhorn aerodrome alone I know at least two large caches with remains of several aircraft up to Ju-88 nightfighters and He-111 bombers But these planes were already destroyed when found by the Allies in 1945: Most German airfields were littered with wrecks of all kind and some of these were simply pushed in the numerous craters around, the craters filled and bulldozed. This "wrecked wreckage" then lies squeezed and unprotected meters deep for nearly 70 years - you may imagine the actual state of these parts. After all we must recognize that many stories today are hearsay in the third or fourth stage and what once was wreckage buried in a crater became - following the principles of "Chinese whispers" - a whole squadron well preserved in a hidden sub-terran shelter
In the early 1950's one of my uncles did his RAF National Service clearing old USAF airfields in East Anglia. They dug up tons of unexploded ordnance, vehicles and rubbish that the Americans had left behind. He tells of using American motorcycles that they had dug up and got going, but their officers wouldn't allow them to be kept. All this rubbish was loaded into boats and sunk in the North Sea. Stephen.
