AFTER a week of digging, archaeologists said yesterday that the departing British may not, after all, have buried 124 unwanted Spitfire planes in the jungle of Burma at the end of the Second World War.

But historian David Cundall, who has spent 17 years trying to locate the planes, said he believes the archaeologists were digging in the wrong place, and that his search will continue. He believes the planes were buried in crates in pristine condition, and his dream is that one day they could fly again.

It is a fascinating story which raises the question: could there be buried wartime treasure closer to home?

Rumours have long abounded about what went on in Egglescliffe, at the Ministry of Aircraft Production’s Metal Produce Recovery Depot, next to the original Stockton and Darlington Railway.

We’ve been discussing those rumours recently with John Foster on BBC Radio Tees (Echo Memories is on at 1.20pm every Wednesday).

His listeners reported seeing pits 120ft deep filled with old bits.

Bob Harbron, writing from Norton, adds fuel to the rumours.

“I remember on trips to Darlington in 1943 that the railway sidings held dozens of wrecked aircraft – British, American, German – ready for stripping down and melting, and of engines and components crated up to be returned to the maintenance units,” he says.

“For more than 50 years, the story of the burial of dozens or even hundreds of aircraft engines – Merlins, Hercules, Wright-Cyclones – has been around. Is it true?”

The recovery depot commenced work on an old brickworks at Urlay Nook in 1940. Wrecked planes – including Spitfires which were powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines – were brought by rail to be melted down in three electric furnaces. The aluminium in their airframes dripped out and was salvaged as ingots.

Anything else re-useable was stripped off and the remains, including a lot of steel, were dumped in the brickworks’ old pits.

“There must have been a vast sea of aircraft parts,”

says Steve Barker, of Prism Planning, who had archaeologists on the site last year in preparation for redevelopment. “The crashed aircraft were really mangled, and some still had ammunition inside them. As they were heated in the furnaces, the ammunition burst alight, and so they had to dig a series of fire-fighting ponds to put out the explosions.”

Those rainwater-fed ponds are now home to rare greatcrested newts.

During the 1950s and 1960s, there was a lot more salvage work as the war remains were sifted through and the deep craters were dug out.

Then the site became the Royal Naval Store Depot. It closed in 1997, and Mr Barker’s company now has planning permission to build 846 homes there.

“We’ve heard stories of Merlin engines buried in crates, but it is anecdotal and not based on hard evidence,”

he says. The people who worked there signed the Official Secrets Act, and there were no records.

“We simply don’t know, and until the site is developed, nothing will come to light. We are aware of the possibility and we will make sure everybody who digs on the site is aware, but I think it is unlikely that there is buried treasure.”

Work is due to start later this year… If you have any further information, please let us know. Perhaps next week we should return to this corner of the world to look at its railway history.