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  • Unearthing pieces of NZ's WWII history

    War planes buried - national | Stuff.co.nz

    Unearthing pieces of NZ's WWII history | Stuff.co.nz
    read the full story here

    In the far corner of a Hamilton lifestyle block, an 18-year-old amateur archaeologist is digging up parts of New Zealand's abandoned World War II history - piece by rusting piece.

    Tony Stevenson is unearthing what remains of 474 Corsairs, Kittyhawks, Avengers, Venturas and Hudson bombers planes destroyed by the New Zealand Air Force at the end of World War II.

    Today marks the 70th anniversary of the declaration of World War II.

    The planes were given to New Zealand on a lend-lease deal with the United States to provide support in the Pacific. At the end of the war they could not be sold, so the air force dismantled them for reuse or scrap.

    Whatever was salvageable was taken off - the planes aluminium was turned into kitchenware, magnetic compasses were scooped up by mariners, and farmers took the wheels and tyres for farm trailers.

    What was left was dumped down a gully at the edge of the Rukahia airfield at Mystery Creek and lost to history, until the amateur archaeologist and his family found them half a century later.

    Mr Stevenson said he had been fossicking and unearthing parts of the old planes since he was six.

    Although he sometimes takes friends and family along to help, more often he works alone, surrounded by native bush and wrapped round by a sense of history.

    The whump, whump of air force Iroquois helicopters which still fly overhead from the air strip added to the atmosphere.

    "I don't really keep track of the time. When you start digging you just get stuck into it and time just flies."

    He has lovingly polished parts dug from the ground to display in a glass case - his "pride and joy" - which dominates his bedroom.

    Other parts he has given to collectors, visitors or people who restore planes.

    Mr Stevenson, a Te Wananga computer student, researched on the internet every part he found, or sought help from fellow historic aircraft enthusiasts.

    Among his most prized trophies are the air intake for a Ventura bomber, Corsair machine gun tubes and Kittyhawk engine tags. A switch ominously marked "Destruction" is one piece he has failed to identify.

    His dream is to find an intact aircraft - local rumour has it that one still lies in the gully.

    His salvage operation hit a "heartbreaking" setback in March this year when several truckloads of sand were dumped by a local business over the bank, in the exact place where Mr Stevenson had been digging.

    "The heart sort of sank. It wasn't a very good day when that happened," he said.

    But undeterred, he is now scraping away through the sand.
    Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.

  • #2
    very stupid idea. i used to do the same thing when i was a kid, until some kids dug up unexploded ordinance, and blew up. that just made me so uninterested to dig up old rusted stuff anymore.
    there were quite a few tragedies like this, in my city alone. all over ussr, prbly thousands, if not more.
    "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" B. Franklin

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    • #3
      Originally posted by omon View Post
      very stupid idea. i used to do the same thing when i was a kid, until some kids dug up unexploded ordinance, and blew up. that just made me so uninterested to dig up old rusted stuff anymore.
      there were quite a few tragedies like this, in my city alone. all over ussr, prbly thousands, if not more.
      We didn't dumb unexploded ordinance in gullies, we have a very large deep ocean for that.
      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

      Leibniz

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