London, Jan 18 (IANS) A British team of archaeologists on a trip to Myanmar to dig out Spitfire planes reportedly buried during World War II have hit a blank after digging for almost two weeks.
The team led by David Cundall has concluded that there was no evidence that as many as 124 Spitfires were buried at the end of World War II, the Telegraph reported.
However, Cundall still believes the dig is still alive and says the archaeologists are looking in the wrong place.
The company providing financial backing for the dig, wargaming.net, also said there are no planes.
A retired geology professor Soe Thein, who is involved in the dig, earlier claimed that the survey team located wooden crates under the ground at the Yangon airport that could contain the planes but they were being hindered by cables and water pipes.
Cundall has campaigned for 17 years to launch his quest to find the buried planes.
He said eight witnesses have said the planes were packed in crates and then buried on the orders of Lord Mountbatten in 1945.
At a second excavation site in Myitkyina in northern Kachin state, researchers found a buried crate full of muddy water, which they said would take weeks to pump out.
Before the dig began Jan 7, ground penetrating radar found a mass of metal under the site which gave weight to the theory that there were 36 planes buried there.
The aircraft are believed to have been wrapped in tar paper, put in crates and transported from a factory in Castle Bromwich, West Midlands, to then Burma in August 1945.
When the war against the Japanese ended, they are thought to have been buried to ensure they could not be used by Burmese independence fighters.
--indo-Asian News Service
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