Military Archaeology

Anyone heard of this one before? It's a new one to me..
Giant Flying Boat found
Martin,
You ever remember the name of that book you saw in London?

 

Ahhh - good old 'Grauniad', 'Marshall' was the name given to the individual aircraft which was actually a Martin Mars - not mentioned in the article. Until very recently, a couple of these gigantic 'planes were used for water-bombing forest fires ; they're now 'grounded' on a lake in Canada.

You can see lots more at ; -

http://www.vectorsite.net/avmars.html

 

Not quite military archaeology but...the Alcan aluminium plant at Falkirk in Scotland closed its doors this week.

So what ? you ask. According to local reports, the plant originally opened in the 1940s producing dural for Spitfires.....

 

Sure did, Martin.
It's about 10 miles down the road from me btw.
There were also a number of LAA sites around it, but these have all long gone unfortunately.
The factory is also about a mile and a half from the old airfield at Grangemouth, which had a practice AA camp on its NE perimeter. The airfield is now totally engulfed by the BP refinery.
After the war, U-Boats were broken up at the shipyard at nearby Bo'Ness.
I just found this: Flying Boat Museum
What's the new member rating gizmo, and how much is the bribe?

[ 21. December 2004, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

 

Of interest to those looking for good books on fortifications and such one worth getting is:

The Architecture of War by Keith Mallory and Arvid Ottar. Pantheon Books NY, NY 1973. isbn 0=394-48825-3 or 70997-7 (paperback version)

A considerable amount of the book covers British subjects like bomb shelters, the Army and Navy forts in the Thames Estuary and other such topics.

An alternate previous title to this book in the UK was Architecture of Aggression

 

Cheers TA!
I'll keep an eye out for both of them

 

just found out that an English friend with the help of local Dutch historians have found the a/c of Lt. Gerhard Karl. a Bf 109G of JG 26 and also a Ju 88G-6 lost on 31.12.44 of 7./NJG 2. One of the crewmen is still listed as missing so the hunt is on to find him.........more on all of this later in 2005....

 

Nice one, Erich!
Keep us posted of any more developments?

 

Just browsed into this one which is amazing - especially for anyone interested in the Pacific Theatre.

WARNING ! : Only click on the link if you've got plenty of time to spare.....

http://wrecks.fortin-home.com/

 

Seen this one Martin?
Found Bomber

 

I wish they could have told the type of bomber it was. If they knew six crew were in the wreck they should know the bomber type.

The story told more about the Spitfire than the bomber.

Oh well, thanks for posting it Gordon, maybe someday you can tell what type of bomber it was.

 

Yes - thanks for the link, Gordon. Ta's right - they're oddly coy about the aircraft type !

At a gues, if it was 1944, a crew of six, on a training flight from Oxfordshire, it may well have been a Wellington or another twin-engined type. The Oxfordshire airfields were mainly OTUs, not HCUs.

 

Yeah, they do seem incredibly reticent about the type, don't they?
I'll have a look in "Hell on High Ground" to see if there's any snippets in them...

 

One for Martin again...
De Havilland

 

I know this isn't archaeology, but it still came as a bit of a surprise when I read it.
Army Heritage to get New Home

 

There has been a load of controversy and trouble surrounding the only surviving Blackburn Beverley, which I believe was at the MAT and has been shifted to a sea-side museum.....

 

Another couple of pieces...
Tank Museum
Huntly Drill Hall
Another drill hall almost bites the dust....

 

This isn't WW2, but interesting nontheless:
Battlefields Resource Trust

 

Meant to post this a while back. I wanted to be on this survey, but missed it.
Inchkeith Fort, Firth of Forth

 

Ok guys time to bombard all of you with some interesting aviation archaeology.

Geez I have only been promising pics for how many years now ?? anyway hopefully this first of probably too many pictures shows a nice dug up (what is it?) from an air battle in December 1943. the German a/c was dug up some 20 feet in the earth and too the surprise of many this was one of the very intact pieces. Of course it took a good cleansing to make this a prime gold-mine piece of history. This item did belong to a Bf 110G-2 bomber killer of III./ZG 26.