The quixotic hunt for buried warplanes in Myanmar
What do a British farmer, a Belarusian online gaming giant, scientists and a war veteran have in common? They are all in Myanmar in search of buried Spitfires. Stuart Heaver is standing by for answers to a 68-year-old mystery
An international team comprising scientists, archaeologists, a filmmaker, an online-gaming executive, a war veteran and an amateur avi-ation fanatic from Lincolnshire, England, make up the unlikely assembly gathered near Yangon International Airport. The project in which they are engaged is one that has captured imaginations around the world.
Operation Spitfire aims to locate and recover 36 Mk 14 Spitfire planes still in their original timber shipping crates from the site of a second-world-war airbase at Mingaladon, outside the former capital of Myanmar, and thus solve the so-called "mystery of Mingaladon".
Possibly the most famous aircraft in the history of aviation, there is something undeniably special about the Spitfire that sends the otherwise restrained British (men, in particular) all a-quiver with emotion and national pride.
Until now there were only 51 of the aircraft left in the world and any commemorative fly past over an English town still causes people to gawp skyward in awe and reverence.
No surprise then that the story has attracted attention from the world's media. The recovery project has even had British Prime Minister David Cameron cheering it on.
The adventure is being funded by Belarusian online gaming corporation Wargaming: it is picking up the bill for rooms at the plush Park Royal Hotel in Yangon for the 21-strong team, their expenses for at least three weeks, their air fares and an air freight bill for more than 1,300 pounds of hi-tech equipment.
The budget is rumoured to be US$1 million but, whatever the final sum, it is clear that Operation Spitfire is not being done on the cheap.