Strike 2!

Towards the end of last year I blogged about two "digs" - one I hoped would be successful and the other I hoped would not.

The latter dig was looking for the body of missing toddler Ben Needham in Greece. There were suggestions that he might have strayed and been trapped and buried under building rubble. While I am sure his parents would like closure on this story, I feared that confirmation that the child died after being buried alive might be too much for the family.

Thankfully(?) that dig did not locate a body so the mystery of what happened to Ben remains.

The second "dig" was the planned search for a large number of Spitfire aircraft that were rumoured to buried around airfields in Burma at the end of WWII. To find a number of these planes that were thought likely to be in good condition after being greased and buried would have been fantatstic to anyone who enjoys the throb of thir engine and the silhouette of their wings.

This dig got under way in early January. By late January the news did not seem good and now the serach has been abandoned empty handed. There is now doubt that ANY Spitfires were ever delivered, let alone buried.

I confess that this is something of a let down, but there is a candle still glimmering at the end of the proverbial tunnel. All the publicity around the search in Burma flushed out stories that there are in fact aircraft buried near the factory where the were built in Castle Bromwich.

After the success of finding the body of Richard III, I will keep my fingers crossed that there are planes that can be located and unearthed in this country. So I guess this is "Strike 2" with one play to go.