WW2 Fighter Graveyard – 6AD Oakey

Final Inspection

At War’s end in mid August 1945, the Oakey Depot entered a transitional period when ever increasing streams of fighters touched down on the runways and, after servicing, were never to return to the skies. No 6AD’s operations had rapidly decreased by the first week of November 1945, and upon disbandment in February 1946 redundant machinery was sent to 3 AD Amberley. Within two months an astounding range of 554 aircraft were tied down on the hot Oakey plains, now the liability of the Care and Maintenance Unit. The majority wore the camouflage, nose art and attrition of battles fought; the others, “are devoid of any war paint and gleam like giant silver moths among lesser things”, one newspaper lamented. After four years hastened by the demands of war, the Depot site had become a vast and deserted holding ground for the deteriorating fighters, their fate in the hands of the politicians. Would ‘conventionally’ propelled surplus warplanes – some of prewar design – be deployed in the postwar era after the potential of jet fighters and bombers had been proven as the new spearheads of aerial warfare? A negative decision plus the high financial costs of restoring already rusting fighters to airworthiness spelt doom for the Oakey fighters. ‘A very sad sight. Spitfires stripped of their Merlins and other useable components await their fate at Oakey, circa March 1946. In the foreground is A58-48, a Spitfire F.VC, wearing the code letters SH of 85 Squadron. (V Hamilton) 40 Australian Aviation December 1995. In the foreground of this 1946 shot are two P-51K Mustangs that had served briefly with 86 Squadron from July 1945. Behind them are Boomerangs, Kittyhawks, Spitfires and Wirraways. All serviceable spares, including altimeters, ASIs, compasses, armaments and non corroded wing spars were consigned to either operational Bases or RAAF Stores Depots. Various components of the ‘tropicalised’ (distinguishable by the Aero Vee carburettor air intake under the nose) RR Merlins, mainly the 46, 50 and 55 series, were similarly dealt with.

Scrapping

On February 13 1947 all 554 aircraft were offered up at a public auction. A reserve price of £5 was fixed on any aircraft with the proviso that six aircraft had to be purchased as a single lot, but none were sold. The Commission then held a ‘clearance sale’ with prices set at: complete Spitfire, Kittyhawk or Mustang – £15 less wheels; CAC Boomerang – £15 less wheels; and one Beaufighter for £20. Main wheels were £4.10, and tail wheels £2.10. Some offers were made, but curtly rejected by the Commission, so again, no fighters were sold. Mindful of the climate of postwar austerity, continuation of rationing, and a prevailing desire to efface tangible reminders of the appalling human cost of war, the lack of public interest is understandable, (though one aero club considered buying two Kittyhawks as trainers!) A Sydney firm, Austral Brass, paid £10,000 for the entire inventory by way of tender for disposal in March, 1947, and a massive open air furnace was rapidly constructed just south of the NW-SE runway. The scrappers systematically dismantled, cut or smashed the fighters into pieces for the melt down process. Non flammable material, mainly magnesium, was withheld from the furnace and trucked away in bulk. Other parts rescued from the scrapheap were a now unknown number of ex Boomerang Pratt & Whitney 14 cylinder radial engines (R-1830-S3C4-G Twin Wasps) and Hamilton Standard propellers sold by negotiation to interested parties, among them an enterprising airline owner named Reginald Ansett for his DC-3s. A public road ran close to the disposal site, drawing curious onlookers to the bewildering spectacle. Les Arthur, of Toowoomba, today an eminent aircraft collector/restorer and acknowledged authority on the Oakey disposals, regularly motorcycled to the site and was permitted access to what was officially a prohibited area. Vandals haunted the rows of aircraft, Les recalls with disgust, and told the author about countless instrument panels bearing the impact signs of axes or sledgehammer. RAAF disposition lists give us an image of the sheer scale and efficiency of the Oakey scrapping; in November 1948 for example, a staggering sum of 220 Spitfires and 251 Kittyhawks were struck off charge, amongst these Spitfire A58-27, No 6 AD’s very first arrival four years earlier. After nearly two years, the disposals were completed in September 1949, with a substantial amount of the molten residue recycled into pots, pans and other amorphous applications. An intriguing aspect here is remembrance of the English people’s cast-offs being converted into weaponry, Spits included, in the early WW2 years – and then by the reverse process re-emerging in Australian kitchens ten years later!

Raiders of the Lost Marks

The disposal gangs at Oakey were bound by a contractual deadline that led to an as yet undetermined quantity of aircraft pieces thrown into disused coal mine shafts or nearby rubbish tips. In 1974 a group of local aviation enthusiasts sank a 19m (62ft) vertical shaft parallel to a pithead at Kingsthorpe 11km east of the Oakey airfield, and recovered Spitfire oleos and engine cradles. Water to a depth of 1.5m lay beneath these, and from this ooze emerged hundreds of grease proofed Allison exhaust valves as well as RAAF insignia and medicine bottles. Newspaper reports of these finds led to fanciful rumours that five intact Mk XIVs lay cleverly concealed in another mine, (ignoring the inconvenient fact that only Mk V and VIII Spitfires were ever at Oakey) and from the “legend” grew, in some minds, dreams of a “fabulous $10 million warplane bonanza” under the earth. The “legend”

periodically surfaces in the print media, but never so outrageously far fetched as when, in August, 1980 a popular national magazine declared that “a huge wartime souveniring escapade has been kept secret in a country town for 30 years.” The culprits are still at large – in fact they are living around the town under which their spoils are hidden. “Any day now… a three man search team expects to hit the jackpot.” Mr [X] gained the confidence of the plane raiders five years ago… ‘the plane gang took a friend of mine, blindfolded, down the shafts … then showed him the planes, still in their crates… he was stunned.’ (‘Mr X’ used for discretionary reasons). ‘X’ and his zealous group subsequently featured in a continuing series of updates by the magazine, which obligingly, reported X’s extraordinary theories verbatim. Equally startling theories followed, with the latter day treasure hunters excavating wide pits adjacent to the disused coal mines where the crated Spitfires were alleged to have been entombed. This author has been informed by more authoritative sources that the pit heads were never large enough to allow such crates nor substantial airframes to be dropped; one local warbird owner pithily summed up the entire affair as “complete bull!”. The final bizarre episode in the affair, so far, occurred when a man was found roaming the Oakey drive-in cinema wielding a piece of gelignite on a wire, which, he explained, was a water-diviner adapted to detonate the aviation fuel “buried below … in the alleged aircraft.”

Rotation

The establishment of the Army Aviation Corps at Oakey in 1970 brought new life to the aerodrome. Today the Army Aviation Centre is home to the Headquarters Army Aviation Centre, the School of Army Aviation, Oakey Logistics Battalion, and the Aircraft Maintenance School. The wartime NW-SE runway has been extensively rebuilt, and over 900 personnel serve at this impressive and still expanding facility, a far cry from No 6 Aircraft Depot’s prefabricated simplicity. Green camouflaged Kiowa, Iroquois and Black Hawk helicopters cast swift shadows over the pastures of grain and grazing cattle. Within the base one of Australia’s finest collections of aviation memorabilia is presented in the Museum of Australian Army Flying, with immaculately maintained aircraft including a CA-25 Winjeel, replicas of the classic Bristol Boxkite, and a scarlet Fokker F.VIIB, to name just three. The Museum’s charter is to preserve and restore items significant to the history of Australian Army Aviation, and that of No 6 AD. Evidence of the WW2 are few at Oakey nowadays. Apart from the CO’s former residence and other converted buildings, only at the Museum can one find remnants of the fighters. Other discarded pieces from the time of the scrapping instrument panels, engine components now treasured for their historic and practical worth, have been either installed or used as templates for a number of Australian warbirds. In recent years the Oakey Base has hosted airshows with displays of modern military airpower – and warbirds. Returning again to the Oakey skies, the crackle and roar of the RR masterpiece recalling those dangerous years in the nation’s history when stouthearted airmen and aircraft held fast in the face of great peril, and a fitting salute to the warplanes lain waste on the plain at Oakey.