"I'm gunna do it tomorrow"

[Woody]

I just love the "When we were kids/teens" thread, I just wish we had a decent camera and taken a heap of photos back then.
Sometimes my minister for home affairs likes to call me "gunna", especially when pointing out a few jobs around home that I haven't quite got around to. Saw this pic on our local MRA site and it got me thinking. Guys, post us your pics of those backyard jobs that you were "gunna" get around to.
cheers
Woody

[Wombat]

Ha!! we've all seen trees grow over and around things - but a motorcycle?!

[yzhilly]

Brad will have keep an eye on his ones make sure they dont grow up like that.

[Quicksilver]

Heres some pure waste. These are laying in prox 30 meters of water. Not exactly project abandoned but just abandoned for the hell of it. Also note these are laying in the back of trucks..

[Rosco400]

Gee you really know how to hunt an old bike down quicky, what was the story with these :'(

[firko]

Truk Lagoon???

[mainline]

Looks like an army job to me. Quicker and cheaper (all things considered) to dump them than sell them. Like all the old warbirds that went for scrap or over the side of a carrier into the drink.

[Wombat]

Or Central Qld - still waiting for the floods to subside?

[Quicksilver]

All this gear is on the Thistlegorm. You will find her on the large reef system with Sha'ab Ali on the one side and the Sinai coastline on the other inbetween lies a stretch of sea 8 kms long with average depths of 30 meters. The Thistlegorm had just completed its journey around Africa, loaded with military equipment of all kinds for the British troop in North Africa. On the 6th of October 1941 at 1.30 a.m. she entered the calm zone alongside Sha'ab Ali, cast anchor, and lay in waiting observing all the necessary stealth drills. The Thistlegorm was discovered by a long-range German bomber based in Crete. The bomber attacked with two of it's bombs landed precisely on target sinking the Thistlegorm.

The ship and all her spoils are still their. Anyone fancy a diving trip.

[Doc]

There's a bit of this military stuff out in Moreton Bay. The US after WW2 decided logistics just wasn't practicle to take some of their military stuff home so it was either dumped in Moreton Bay or sealed in mine shafts. 1 such shaft is only a couple of miles from where I live and very few people even realized it's existance. An old guy I used to cut grass for told me this..he was stationed at Shaw Pk/General MacArthur's Brisbane HQ. I found the mine entrance along the side of Kedron Brook sealed with a monolithic rock as he told me and also the vetilation/lift shaft still exists in aged nursing home grounds though it's been capped with concrete also. The rest of the stuff is where the mined coal seam ended it's a place called 14 Mile Reef in Moreton Bay. Bigger and better reserves were discovered at Swanbank and the Nundah mines ceased about 20 years before the war so they were well and truly vacant when they filled them with this surplus stuff..I do sometimes wonder..apparently only this guy and 1 other know exactly what went in there, but both these guys are now departed. Another place we used to ride as kids was called the 'cattle bridge' or 'Dinah's Island' during the war there was a munitions/army dump on the edge of this tidal mudflat tucked in the mangroves behind Nudgee Beach. It was nothing to find live rounds and rusted pistols, cutlery, plates, bowls and all sorts of army related stuff..all quite rusty and by then no doubt very unstable..in hindsight maybe I should have collected some but then something told me at the time best to leave well and good enough alone and keep riding I must get down there again one day and have a scout around..it's now part of Boondall Wetlands Reserve so I guess I won't be taking the RM this time around  

[Wombat]

On the buried Military 'treasure' stuff, I've heard similar stories about two other Military stores areas.
Meeandah in Brissie and Wallangarra on the Qld/NSW border are rumoured to have deep water-filled pits and sealed up tunnels respectively.
Stories of Willy's Jeeps and Spitfires still in their crates (and coated with grease) are two I've heard.
Each story has a "some old bloke reckons; and he was there" as a basis for the truth of the story.

I really don't know what to believe, but why would these pits/tunnels remain hidden/buried if there's any truth to the matter?
What possible reason could there be for NOT retrieving these relics (supposedly in pristine factory condition)?
And if they exist be assured there would be a record somewhere; the Army has a fit if you don't return a compass or a set of binoculars to the Q store.
"Nobody leaves here until it's found - you won't be going home this weekend until these items....!!!
So yeah, crates and crates of Jeeps will be duly noted.

I'm not a fan of Journos but maybe some should put their snooping skills to some good use and chase some of these myths.
If a bedroomed 490 Maico can fetch 120K how much would the Vintage Spitfire crowd cough up for new Spit' in a box?   

[brent j]

As I understand it, most of this military stuff was dumped to protect the economy. Imagine if hundreds of jeeps or trucks were dumped on the public? What would happen to the local auto industries.

I believe that any equipment that leaves the US is written off for this reason. (stand to be corrected here)

As for dumping in abandond mines etc, well there's a hole to start with so no need (or expense) to dig and it's easy to cover over.

There are also a lot of stories about US gear dumped in and around Mckays crossing in NZ.

Brent

[Doc]

Wombat the old guy that told me all this stuff was quite well known and quite a shady fella that you wouldn't want to cross in his early years. He was in big with the Bjelke Petersen government and the QLD Police but somehow he was imume from prosecution during the inquiries into such. Others knew of these mine shafts and dumpings but it was 'Big Johns' job to keep track of every item and make sure none was available to fossickers or the likes. The mine shafts have been flooded bigtime at least 2 times so any chance of nice stuff still sealed in grease wrap just wouldn't happen. I never heard of planes going in there, it was mainly, generators and camp equipment but there were some bikes, some artillery and some jeeps. The whole of Nundah hill here is a maze of underground shafts. When the govt. decided a tunnel was needed through Nundah they discovered all these 'voids' and had to sink footings down at 150metres before solid footing were found. They were worried the entire hill shopping centre could cave into these shafts and it was Big John who was called in to draw a map of all he could remember before the sealing of the mine took place. Back in the 20's there was not a lot documentation to map these mines and by the mid 40's any info on such was lost and today this story is passed off as myth but I can tell you, I researched and every little detail this old guy told me held true, it also surprised some historians who had heard of such incidents but never knew the truth, the truth died with these 2 old blokes. No doubt there maybe records in the US but for what would be left I doubt it would be of any use.

[firko]

During WW2 they made bombers and small training planes in the Chullora Boiler Shop railway workshop in Sydney. I did my Boilermaker apprenticeship there and we were always finding old aeroplane parts in the long grass out the back of the shop or boxes of parts hidden under old benches and in old lockers. This was the mid sixties and WW2 had only been over 20 odd years so a lot of the stuff still existed. I'm actually using some aircraft nuts and bolts from then on my Ducati project!
The big rumour at the time was the rumoured existence of an air raid shelter that had been blocked off after the war. By coincidence a tradesman workmate of mine (Where are you today, Billy Cooper ?) found the blocked off entrance under an old disused toilet block. It didn't take long to oxy cut the steel plate away to find a set of about 40 concrete stairs that led down to a big room about the size of a tennis court that had been filled with old filing cabinets and office furniture. Further investigation uncovered another tunnel that headed in a northerly direction under Rookwood cemetry for about a kilometre to hook up with another tennis court sized concrete room that I assume was the air raid shelter for Cemetry workers and the small factories that lined Rookwood road at the time.

It was a few months before management found out about the tunnel and welded a new 1" boiler plate over the entrance.
Before they did they removed the filing cabinets and old office furniture from the shelter. In the files were all of the blueprints and paperwork for the 'planes they had built during the war. Thy were going to burn it all but for a bloke named
Jim Murray who pleaded with management that the paperwork go to the War Museum in Canberra. Luckily for our war history they lisened to him and I sttill remember the grey trucks with Commonwealth plates picking the stuff up. The furniture was distributed amongst the staff and what wasn't taken was burned. I'm sitting at the desk I scooped as I write this! Two bentwood swivel desk chairs are still in operation at mt Auntys place! I often wonder what important wartime decisions were made at this desk during the war! I also wonder if the shelters and tunnel are still there today. When the tunnels were blocked off, there was still tons of stuff in there.

[mx250]

Wow, great story Firko.

Its amazing what was built and how quickly it was built when it came to 'the cost is no object to war aims'.  And they say that controlled economies don't work  .

I've been told that the development costs out at the old Dunheved ADI site has gone up $80mil due to them bumping into uncharted bunkers full of WW2 ammo. Apparently they would build bunkers expediously without records/plans been made (or keep, lost or destoryed).

You never know, they may one day find that bomb crater filled in with complete surplus WLA's. Where was it now, Moorebank, Townsville, Darwin, Albury ?