Spitfires, the British Empire, and Burmese Independence

The Supermarine Spitfire is a single propeller-driven, single-seat fighter plane. It began to be produced in the 1930s and was developed and deployed through the Second World War. There are many variants to the aircraft, indicated according to their Mark, or “Mk”, followed by a number. The aircraft is most famously associated with the Battle of Britain (July to October, 1940), in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) engaged with Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe; even though other RAF fighter aircraft were more numerous, it was the performance and symbolic association of the Spitfire that won it particular renown (Min Myat San Reference Min Myat San2013: 132).

In 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill included these words in a speech to the House of Commons on 20 August regarding the RAF, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so fewFootnote ¹”. It was because of this phrase that the RAF pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain later came to be known as “The Few”, and a poster of RAF pilots was graced with the quotation, “Never was so much owed by so many to so few”. A film made in 1942, The First of the FewFootnote ², dramatised the story of R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire (Howard Reference Howard1942).

Popular culture and patriotism further indelibly fused the role of the Spitfire to ideologies of British empire, battle mythology, and the protection of England from Nazi invasion. As the most famous British fighter aircraft, the Spitfire “… in all its power and beauty has come to represent the spirit that saved the country in those desperate days when Britain stood alone” (AP Archive 2015; Saunders Reference Saunders2018). A former Spitfire pilot, Mary Ellis called the aircraft, “a symbol of freedom” (BBC 2018).

Although the mythological aura of the Spitfire is associated with the Battle of Britain, the aircraft was used by the RAF in various other theatres during the war, including Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Following the end of the war, technological advances in aircraft design, particularly the advent of the jet engine, led to the Spitfire falling out of production. Arguably, this retirement of the aircraft helped to seal its legendary link to the Battle of Britain in 1940. In total, over 22,500 Spitfire aircraft were manufactured; by 1954 they were retired from service with the RAF (Saunders Reference Saunders2018). Although no longer in use in Britain, many Spitfires continued to see action in other countries for decades after the war, including in Burma.

After a brief return to British rule following the end of World War Two, The Union of Burma achieved independence in 1948. At the time of the Burma Air Force's formation in December 1947, they already had three Spitfires in their fleet of 63 aircraft (Maung Aung Myoe Reference Maung Aung Myoe1998: 28). Four Supermarine Spitfires were acquired by the national air force following the Second World War (Selth Reference Selth1997: 2). It was during these initial years of independence, known as the Parliamentary Democracy period, that the new government had to contend with an armed Communist insurrection, the Kuomintang incursion, as well as with ethnic separatist armies that were dissatisfied with their Burman-dominant rule. As such, it was during this period, predicated on these conflicts, that the Tatmadaw (or army) expanded rapidly (Callahan Reference Callahan2003). The Burmese military bought Spitfires to be used against the various insurgencies.

In 1950, at the World Jewish Congress, Baghdadis from Burma, as well as a significant Israeli diplomatic presence in Rangoon, helped set the stage for the Israeli purchase of Burmese products, as well as for future development and trade deals (Cernea Reference Cernea2007: 106). The ties between Israel and Burma in the 1950s are considered to have been a tremendous diplomatic success for Israel, in that Israel was able to gain a strong connection with mainland Southeast Asia. In October 1959, Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi visited Rangoon. Two years later, David Ben-Gurion travelled to Burma on what has been described as a “pilgrimage”, to meet U Nu and to learn more about Buddhism.

Returning to the Spitfires, Burma and Israel established official diplomatic ties in 1953, and in August 1954 a Burmese military mission visited Israel (Beit-Hallahmi Reference Beit-Hallahmi1988: 25). Not long thereafter, in December 1954, the Burmese government arranged for the purchase of thirty Spitfires,Footnote ³ which had been acquired by the Israelis from Czechoslovakia; the planes had been used in the 1948-1949 Arab-Israeli wars (Min Myat San Reference Min Myat San2013: 177). The Israeli military sold the aircraft because they were more interested in modern jet fighters, and were able to obtain a good price for the old Spitfires from the Union of Burma. Furthermore, the Cold War agenda of using the planes to fight communism ideologically facilitated the deal (Linebarger Reference Linebarger1955: 109). The sale included other weaponry, such as machine gun ammunition, bombs, rockets and spare parts. The Israeli Air Forces (IAF) trained six Burmese pilots on the Spitfires; in addition, other Burmese Army officers received training in Israel (Beit-Hallahmi Reference Beit-Hallahmi1988: 25; Lintner Reference Lintner1994: 126; Selth Reference Selth2000: 48).

Because of the nature of the Cold War, and the regional sentiments towards the Israeli military, it would not have been possible for Spitfires with Israeli tail numbers to be ferried to Burma by Israeli pilots. Therefore, IAF pilots (in civilian attire) ferried the planes to Cyprus, and the planes were then given Burmese insignia. In Cyprus, the planes were met by a team of British pilots, including Jackie Moggridge, a pilot who had ferried Spitfires between factory airfields and military bases during the Second World War. Their route was set to be Cyprus-Habbaniya-Bahrain-Sharya-Karachi-Johdpur-Cawnpore-Calcutta-Rangoon. Ferrying pilots were instructed to feign ignorance of the planes’ Israeli origins if they were asked along the way (Moggridge Reference Moggridge2014: loc 2278).

According to a U.S. Department of State memo, dated 13 December 1954, the planes were stopped in Baghdad, Iraq, whereupon the pilots were ordered to return to Cyprus. The registry of the aircraft came into question, as did whether the issue should be turned over to the Burmese government (Ass't Secretary Foreign Affairs 1954). They later encountered diplomatic trouble in Lebanon. The British government protested on behalf of the Burmese government, arguing that the planes were the lawful property of the Burmese Air Force and should not be hindered on their journey East. However, as detailed by Moggridge in her autobiography, when the Iraqi and Lebanese diplomatic authorities originally gave clearance for the Burmese-owned aircraft, they were not made aware that the planes vendor was Israel (Moggridge Reference Moggridge2014: loc. 2601). During the aircraft's hold-up in Lebanon, the authorities sought a “clarification of their precise title and an examination of the military value to Israel of such a sale” (Linebarger Reference Linebarger1955: 109). Eventually the aircraft reached their Southeast Asian destination.

It is evident that in Burma, Spitfires were indeed active and were used for decades after the end of the Second World War including in missions against the Kuomintang in Shan State, as well as against the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO) (Min Myat San Reference Min Myat San2013: 178; Smith Reference Smith1999: 138).

However, the legend of the crated, intact Spitfires almost wilfully ignores these other histories of Spitfire action in Southeast Asia; the teams of excavators in 2013 were not interested in the Spitfires used in Burma by the Burmese Air Force. Rather, they were fixated on finding the brand new, virgin, unassembled Spitfires that were buried deep in Burmese soil by the Allied soldiers in 1945, and therefore unsullied by local use in the intervening seven decades. Like the most valuable of vintage toys, these Spitfires were still in their original packaging.

Finding Buried Treasure or Spitfiring into the Wind?

Although the process of actually digging for the Spitfires began in 2013, the team got its inspiration nearly two decades previously. It was in 1996 that David Cundall learned of the legend from an aviation archaeologist, Jim Pearce. The latter, in turn, claimed he had heard the story decades earlier, but only confirmed it in Florida in 1974 in a conversation with an American Combat Battalion veteran. This veteran claimed he was involved in a project to bury crated Spitfires at the end of the runway at Rangoon's Mingaladon Airfield (Maung Tha Reference Maung Tha2016; Brockman et al. Reference Brockman, Brown, Scott and Spaight2015: 30). Other burial sites, as the story went, were located at Meiktila and Myitkyina, and the three burials took place at different points in the concluding months of the war and subsequent withdrawal: August and December 1945, and March-June 1946 (Brockman et al. Reference Brockman, Brown, Scott and Spaight2015: 20-21). It was Pearce's information that inspired Cundall to seek out more accounts of the story, and to collect corroborating evidence.

Another man from the British midlands, Andrew Johnson, claimed that his grandfather, who had served in the RAF during the Second World War, assisted in the burial of the crated planes. As Johnson said: “I can pretty much guarantee they were buried there. My grandfather was Flight Sergeant with 96 squadron and details from his Squadron were sent to bury them” (Winston Reference Winston2017). Cundall began to travel to Myanmar, hoping to acquire more information and potentially dig for the aircraft. In the subsequent fifteen years, he would make sixteen visits to Myanmar, and spend a total of £ 135,000 of his own money on the Spitfire project (Clark Reference Clark2015; Maung Tha Reference Maung Tha2016).

One of the earlier connections Cundall made in Myanmar was with Keith Win, the founder of the Myanmar-British Business Association. This occurred in 1999, when Myanmar was still ruled by the SPDC government. Win was able to arrange a meeting with the (then) Secretary – 1, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, who – according to Win – thought the Spitfire project had the backing of the British government. In any case, the members at the meeting comprised Keith Win, Khin Nyunt, the Foreign Minister, the Burmese Ambassador to London and local journalists (Popham Reference Popham2013).

In 2004, Cundall sponsored a geophysical survey that he hoped would corroborate his witness testimonies regarding when and where the planes were buried. These geophysical surveys were carried out by Dr Adam Booth from Imperial College, London. By this time Cundall had acquired additional assistance from Australian and Singaporean enthusiasts (Brockman et al. Reference Brockman, Brown, Scott and Spaight2015: 22). Surveys at one of the sites demonstrated significant areas containing metal objects, located approximately ten metres underground. Electromagnetic survey imagery showed large pieces of electrically conductive material (Jones 2012). With UK sanctions expressly forbidding the movement of war materiel in or out of the country, Cundall was not able to commence his search.

Cundall later said, “There was a low point, in 2007, when unfortunately some monks were shot dead in the street and I gave the project up. I didn't really want to be associated with Myanmar, and my agents told me in 2009 that they were becoming democratically elected, and well, I thought, right, well I'll try again” (Forces TV 2012). With renewed interest in the project, by 2012 Cundall announced that he had pinpointed three locations where the aircraft were buried: Mingaladon, Meiktila and Myitkyina. He had in his portfolio eight eyewitnesses, including Burmese, Americans and British, all of whom he had met personally. On 19 February 2012, at the Park Royal Hotel, Yangon, Cundall and his Burmese partner company Shwe Taung Paw held a media conference about their plans to follow through with the dig. Cundall reaffirmed his motivations for the project:

In another interview, Cundall promised that he would bring one of the planes back to Birmingham “to honour the descendants of the people who made them” (Winston Reference Winston2017). The year 2012 also coincided with the first visit of a British Prime Minister to Burma since 1955. During his visit, PM David Cameron expressed interest in the excavation of the Spitfires (Min Myat San Reference Min Myat San2013: 179). Cameron even brought up the issue with the Myanmar government in April 2012, when he visited the country as part of a business delegation. A spokesperson said: “Following the agreement discussed with President Thein Sein, we hope this will be an opportunity to work with the reforming Burmese government to uncover, restore and display these fighter planes and have them grace the skies of Britain once again” (Bodenham Reference Bodenham2012). Although Cundall had been working to get a contract to excavate for two years prior, undoubtedly the push of the Prime Minister was key to the Myanmar government's approval of the project. The approval was eventually signed by the Chief of the Department of Civil Aviation, Tin Naing Tun, and Htoo Htoo Zaw, the CEO of Cundall's Myanmar partner company Shwe Taung Paw.

According to the contract's terms, Cundall and his team would have permission to dig at Yangon International Airport for two years, so long as they did not interfere with airport operations. In exchange for this permission to dig, the Myanmar government would be allowed 50 per cent of the profits from the eventual sale of the aircraft. Furthermore, 20 per cent would go to Shwe Taung Paw, and the remaining 30 percent would go to Cundall's organisation (Clark Reference Clark2015). Cundall also suggested the possibility of selling the fleet to American or Israeli investors (Bodenham Reference Bodenham2012).

With approval to dig, as well as the backing of the UK Prime Minister, Cundall's project received a flurry of attention from the international media. It was also at this point that the Wargaming.net corporation found out about the project, and contacted Cundall regarding both the idea of a sponsorship and making a documentary of the excavation (Brockman et al. Reference Brockman, Brown, Scott and Spaight2015: 23). Wargaming.net is one of the most popular publishers of historic military simulator games, operating World of Tanks and World of Warships. These games are free to play on-line; all one needs to do is register, and there are over 150 million registered players. The operation makes its profits by selling premium recreations of historic military hardware. For example, a 1930s Leningrad-class Soviet destroyer costs US$ 25.99 to access. Before taking an interest in the Spitfire project, the company had also contributed funds to the recovery of the last Dornier Do 17 light bomber aircraft, and to the restoration of the last Panzer VIII Maus super-heavy tank. Wargaming.net also sponsors events at military museums as a way to reach out to its fan base (Baker Reference Baker2016).

Thus, the interest of the Wargaming.net CEO in the Spitfire excavation would hardly come as a surprise. The company produces online video fantasy games predicated on battle simulation; they create these simulations through historical research and the reconstruction of historical battle specifications. As the company's CEO Victor Kislyi explained: “For our most loyal players, who are so evangelical about the game and who spread the word, historical accuracy is all-important. This way, the guys can see that we don't just talk about historical accuracy, we act on it” (Senior Reference Senior2012). It was only after meeting with Cundall and reviewing his file of accumulated evidence, which included shipping manifests, photos, letters and scans of the site, that Wargamers.net agreed to join the project (Brockman et al. Reference Brockman, Brown, Scott and Spaight2015: 8). Their new game, World of Warplanes, was set to be released within the same year as Cundall's first dig; therefore, sponsoring (a successful) excavation would no doubt have created good press for the game.

On 9 January 2013, Cundall, along with the consulting expert U Soe Thein, a retired Professor of Geology from Yangon University, held another press conference at the Yangon Park Royal Hotel. They announced that they had discovered visual evidence of the Spitfires under the ground in Mingaladon. According to the article, during the Second World War there were 134 Spitfires buried, and over thirty of them were buried in the vicinity of Mingaladon (DVB 2013). It was in January that the team began to dig in earnest. Stanley Coombe, a 91-year old British war veteran and one of Cundall's witnesses, travelled to Yangon to visit the search and excavation process. He told media that nobody had believed his story about the Spitfires until he met David Cundall; Coombe claimed to have witnessed the burial of six Spitfire aircraft (Popham Reference Popham2013).

In an interview with Burmese television on 22 January 2013, Professor U Soe Thein answered questions about the project, particularly in relation to the international teams having given up on digging at Mingaladon:

However, according to local employees of the Myanmar Department of Civil Aviation, the foreign excavation teams were making a mess, and the foreign teams seemed to act as though their quest was more important than the country's use of an active runway. In the excavation team's own report, they conceded that they had dug “large trenches in Myanmar's equivalent of Heathrow” (Brockman et al. Reference Brockman, Brown, Scott and Spaight2015: 19). The team was seen by some as interfering with the airport, thus acting in breach of one of the clauses of their agreement. At one point, the dig struck some underground cables that were connected to the airport (Maung Tha Reference Maung Tha2016; Winston Reference Winston2017). The team did unearth a wooden crate in Myitkyina, Kachin State, but it was so flooded that they could not see what was inside it until the water had been pumped out. To the diggers’ dismay, the crate contained nothing but old fencing material (Maung Tha Reference Maung Tha2016).

Moreover, evidence of any actual Spitfires was not forthcoming. When digging near Mingaladon Airport, Andy Brockman, the lead archaeologist for the Burma Spitfires project, noted:

Following the disappointment of the digs not having found any of the precious aircraft, the naysayers’ narratives began to get more press attention. The lack of evidence lent less credence to the story of how the Spitfires would be buried in Burma. Indeed, it instead pointed toward arguments as to why there would not be any such crated aircraft deep in Burmese soil:

Despite the excavations performed at three separate sites, no crated Spitfires were found. Furthermore, participants in the project started to bring to light other dissenting information that they had learned along the way. Keith Win, the early partner of David Cundall, had been the original liaison with Secretary - 1, Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt. He detailed some of his experiences collecting background data for the project:

Rather than conceding defeat, Cundall suggested that perhaps the crews simply had not been digging in the correct places. In 2016, he acquired permission from the Myanmar government to commence digging anew (Halifax Reference Halifax2016). As of August 2019, however, not a single crated Spitfire has been unearthed in Myanmar.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Aircraft

Historical understandings of the legend of these buried aircraft, together with projections about the intervening years, and the contemporary context in Myanmar, crucially framed the context of the excavation project, both materially and ideologically. To start, various international news reports referred to the supposed location of the aircraft as the “Burmese jungles” (Drury Reference Drury2013). Yangon International Airport is hardly a tropical jungle, but a fully operational airport with runways, aprons, and glass, concrete and steel tower and terminal buildings.

Western explorers ‘discovering’ valuable objects trapped in Southeast Asian jungles is a familiar trope, spurred by ideologies of colonial-era orientalism. French missionary propaganda of the nineteenth century, for example, would portray the Vietnamese emperor Minh-mang as being closed off from outside influences. Ample historical evidence demonstrates that this was hardly the case (Owen Reference Owen2005: 114). In discussing the nineteenth-century French naturalist Henri Mouhot's expedition to Siem Reap, historian Penny Edwards articulates this ideology. Edwards describes how the wonder of this contemporary (colonial) discovery is contrasted with projected years of local neglect and abandonment. As she writes: “Angkor would no doubt remain in his (Mouhot's) imagination as it became in European conceptions and as it first appeared to him in that moment of awed discovery: as the fantastic, picturesque burial ground of a ‘dead’ civilisation” (Edwards Reference Edwards2007: 20). Although the Spitfires are hardly examples of indigenous civilization, there is a strong undercurrent to the story of the masculine hero, in this case the aviation enthusiast, with his quest to rescue the buried Spitfire and return her home for her maiden flight.

Numerous international interviewees about the project invoked the figure of Indiana Jones, the adventurous archaeologist of Hollywood fame. The figure was initially mobilised as a positive descriptor for the project. According to Victor Kislyi, “If you think about this, it's probably one of the last, greatest adventure's we're looking at. It sounds like Indiana Jones to me. So, if this quest is fruitful, we hope we will see a squadron of Spitfires flying over London one more time” (Forces TV 2012).

However, once the project was deemed a failure, and frustrations mounted, the figure of Indiana Jones was invoked again, this time to disparage the project leader's supposed lack of due diligence and research before digging. As Keith Win, from the Myanmar-British Business association, said: “David seems a little bit erratic: he runs from pillar to post, promising things to many different people. He's a dreamer – he wants to make himself out to be a bit of an Indiana Jones. Myself, I'm very, very sceptical of the story” (Popham Reference Popham2013).

A later report framed the value of the project, not just in terms of the potential to recover the aircraft, but also as being equivalent to a …

However, it was noted in the archaeological report of the project that there were differing expectations and appreciations of methodological approaches. Wargaming.net, for example, had pushed for the incorporation of professional archaeologists for the purposes of accuracy and scientific validity. As Martin Brown noted:

As Cundall himself had said in an interview:

This suggestion that the Spitfires are even separate from “the archaeology” suggests that Cundall's appreciation of the craft is tied to its iconic presence, not its material context. He wants to ‘just dig’ rather than employ what the archaeologists would see as due diligence and verifiable scientific methodologies. The latter, as it seemed to Cundall, un-necessarily slowed the process down.

Returning to the iconic meaning of the Spitfires, the excavators are not looking for local art, or the ruins of an ancient indigenous civilisation, but rather the remnants of a foreign military presence. For the British aviation enthusiasts, Burma was but a backdrop, a theatre of war for the sorties of their own imperial history. As David Cundall once said: “Spitfires are beautiful aeroplanes and should not be rotting away in a foreign land. They saved our neck in the Battle of Britain and they should be preserved” (Drury Reference Drury2013). As such, Cundall identifies strongly with his British nationality, and sees the aircraft as iconic of it, regardless of the fact that the aircraft could rightly be seen as an instrument of imperialism, seeking to extend colonial power and dominate other places. The very location of the planes in Burma, according to Cundall, implies that they need rescuing. In his view, they belong in the air, and furthermore only in the air over Britain.

Although the impetus and the arc of the project, its intrigue and its international funding fall squarely over an aviation-enthused masculinity and war nostalgia, this story of abandoned war materiel did not fall on deaf ears in Myanmar. Even during the excavations, when I was in Myanmar, numerous interlocutors were optimistic at the prospect that the team of international aviation archaeologists would find the planes they were after. Myo Min, the manager of a restaurant in downtown Yangon, himself a history enthusiast, told me during a conversation on the topic back in 2012 that: “Sure, they will find something. That's the way the Japanese left weaponry when they departed an area”.

Throughout Southeast Asia, where Japanese soldiers were stationed, there remain a pantheon of narratives involving valuable weapons, as well as chests of gold, hidden by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War. Although legends and popular fiction will have certain changes in narrative and outcome involving the treasure, they all contain the main premise: that there is hidden treasure that was left behind by the Japanese. In both Thailand and Myanmar, there exist popular fiction and films that include stories of gold hidden by the Japanese during the war.

Popular culture representations thus serve to perpetuate these legends. One example is the Burmese film Kyunkale Baw Hma Hnit Yauk Te () “Two of us on an Island”, directed by Sein Pay Tin. In its introduction, a shipwrecked man comes across a wild island. After fleeing from its nature (a bear, then an alligator), he then witnessing a Japanese navy ship coming to the island. The Japanese military men take a large crate and, on a tender, move it to the island and deposit it in a cave. The shipwrecked man witnesses the Japanese soldiers mapping and later hiding the box, following which they murder their Burmese porters, ostensibly so that they would not know the location of the treasure. After the Japanese soldiers leave, the protagonist digs up the chest to discover it full of gold.

In Thailand there also exist legends of Japanese treasure, very much like the stories in circulation in Burma. There have been multiple major searches for Japanese war gold in recent decades. Along the path of the Thai-Burma Railway, it is argued, the Japanese Imperial Army's trains delivered shipments of gold, which were then later hidden by soldiers. The Thai government was convinced enough of its presence to engage in a two-month search, starting in December 1995. Though a great deal of old war materiel was found, no valuable treasure chests of gold were uncovered (Brooke Reference Brooke1999). In Thai popular media, this is referred to as Tong Kobori (ทองโกโบริ), ‘Kobori's Gold’, named after the Japanese soldier protagonist from a popular historical fiction romance novel/soap drama, set on the Thai-Burma railway during the Second World War. The story Ku Kam (คู่กรรม). ‘Fated Couple’, was first published as a novel in 1968 (Wimon Reference Wimon1968). The story depicts a romance between a lieutenant in the Japanese navy and his Thai lover, Angsumalin. The tensions in the plot revolve around feelings of nationalism, and later a love triangle, which begins when Angsumalin's Thai lover returns after his studies overseas. The story has been remade for television dramas in Thailand multiple times over the years. Thus, the popular drama moniker Kobori has been associated with war history through this popular series.

Another relatively famous story of the Japanese hiding assets in caves is known as Yamashita's Gold. This legend details the planned spiriting away of Japan's vast wealth, accumulated from 12 other Asian countries, in caves in the mountainous area of Luzon, in the Philippines (Seagrave and Seagrave Reference Seagrave and Peggy2003: 1). The legend has inspired both novels and Hollywood movies, and has spurred countless treasure hunts.

In addition to the legends themselves, there are historical and cultural meanings in studying the contexts in which these legends are acted upon. Inevitably, there are members of society who believe in such legends, and conversely there will be naysayers, but for the mobilisation of resources to act on one of these legends, there must be a firm commitment among the believers, and others must be willing to invest in the story. There have to be certain circumstances that will spur one to act upon a legend, and these circumstances, as we will see, can sometimes influence one's adherence to the narrative as well.

For example: on 25 June 1954, a group of soldiers from the separatist KNDO hijacked a Union of Burma Airways DC-3 Dakota scheduled passenger aircraft. Their objective was to commandeer the flight over the Dawna mountain range, and to land it near a cache of heavy weapons that had supposedly been abandoned by retreating Japanese forces during the Second World War. This cache of war materiel purportedly included 40 weapons, including 10 bazookas. The mission to retrieve the weaponry was ultimately unsuccessful; those in the plane were unable to connect with the KNDO operatives on the ground, and when they discovered that the plane carried with it 700,000 Kyat in cash, destined for the Kyaukpyu Treasury, the hijackers decided to take the money instead (Hla Thaung Reference Hla Thaung2012: 1, 60). The point, however, is that the elaborate and dangerous mission was sparked by the belief that there would be a cache of abandoned World War Two weapons, which would make the whole operation worthwhile.