The Fantastic Elsham Wolds Story
Title
The Fantastic Elsham Wolds Story
Description
A story of how five or six Lancasters were buried in a crater at Elsham Wolds.
Creator
Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
Four printed sheets
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-290001, MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-290002, MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-290003, MAnkersonR[Ser#-DoB]-180129-290004
Transcription
[underlined] THE ROYAL AIR FORCES EX-PRISONER OF WAR ASSOCIATION [/underlined]
[underlined] THE FANTASTIC ELSHAM WOLDS STORY (an exclusive scoop!!!!) [/underlined]
A report in the 'Scunthorpe Target' on the 24th. October claimed that one of the most important 'Digs' in aviation history was postponed by MoD order because of the troubles in the Gulf. A search had been about to begin for a Hamilcar Glider and six Lancasters said to have been buried on the fringe of Elsham Wolds 45 years ago. There is much scepticism. Ted Dodd, a local journalist working in the area for over 40 years and one of the last airmen to leave Elsham says that as a newspaperman he finds it difficult to accept that he should miss such a story. He says, "For the sake of Lancaster enthusiasts I would like to be proved wrong but it is my belief they won't find anything." But now read on. Member Geoff Parnell suggested to an architect friend that he might supply your Ed. with a possible reason, or theory, for the buried aircraft. The MoD got to know that we were about to publish and after a tussle with those in authority the much stamped but now declassified Elsham File has fallen into our hands. Our architect informant declares it to be no theory but the absolute truth. Mr. Cottam's tongue may be firmly stuck in his cheek and his fingers are perhaps tightly crossed as his covering letter plainly shows but is there more than a grain of truth here or is it all just clever fantasy? Here are the main points of his letter:-
Dear Vic,
Further to my previous letter . . . . it appears the possibility of my 'story' being published in your next Newsletter issue. . . . has been leaked to the Mod. Following a discreet phone call I made a furtive rendezvous with Civil Servant 'X' in a little side street off Whitehall. Despite his heavy disguise, I soon detected the traditional bowler, pinstripe etc. . . . Apparently a very, very senior official in the MoD had been most disconcerted to learn that my story would soon be public knowledge . . . . Accordingly his Dept., disturbed at the release of a "loosely worded document that was both inaccurate and exaggerated," were blatantly seeking to have their own version made public through your Newsletter. I pointed out that such a report couched in rigid, stereotyped jargon would obviously be seen to have come from a bureaucratic source. . . .
I pleaded to be allowed to present their official version written in a more acceptable literary style. . . . after several lengthy calls to 'Y' in the MoD and 'Z', a C*B*N*T M*N*ST*R I was given the go ahead . . . . with warning of being sent to a certain M.E. front should the accepted criteria be departed from . . . . I now convinced my telephone and fax tapped. . . . computer bugged. . . . more sinister influence at work. . . . milkman. . . . postman . . . . window cleaner . . . . refuse collectors. . . . and even little old lady exercising dog daily . . . . all MoD agents keeping surveillance. . . . I enclose for future publication the original, unabridged version of what I am only permitted to call THE ELSHAM FILE, which I hope you can present to your members, for their eyes only.
Yours (in hiding, somewhere in England), P.F.C.
[page break]
Here, verbatim is:-
[underlined] THE ELSHAM FILE [/underlined] P.2.
On D-Day 1944 a Halifax Bomber towing a Hamilcar glider made a forced landing at RAF Elsham. The troops were subdequently collected by the Army, the Halifax repaired and flown off the station and the glider parked at the edge of the airfield. After standing in the open for some months the Hamilcar was partially dismantled and stored in one of the main hangars. The following April a Lancaster bomber returned from a night raid with a Tallboy bomb stuck in its racks. The bomb was released by the station armourers, but due to the special fusing system the bomb had to be taken to a nearby field where it was detonated. As the Corporal in charge of the armourers told his mate, a Flight Sergeant airframe rigger, the resulting crater was big enough to drop a Lanc in. After the cessation of the Pacific war in August that year, the station's Lancaster bombers were taken off strength and dismantled for transportation to the breakers yard. The station airframe riggers assisted an MU team brought in to carry out the dismantling work. A caring Station Commander, anxious not to upset the morale of his aircrews seeing their beloved machine dismembered for scrap, decreed the 'Queen Mary' transporters were to operate at night only with their cargo covered with tarpaulins. Every two days a Lancaster was dismantled and transported from the camp. Following a shortage of tarpaulins, the parts were subsequently wrapped in hessian sacking before being loaded onto the trailers. Whilst dismantling a machine towards the end of October, the Slight Sergeant rigger an engineering estimator in prewar days had an idea. A Lancaster bomber cost about £25,000, so if a single bomber could be 'diverted' and stored somewhere for a number of years, it would fetch even more when put on the open market as a collector's item. The problem was, if you could get hold of one, where could you safely store such a large aircraft out of sight? In a flash of rare brilliance, the Flight Sergeant recalled his mate's description of the bomb crater made months earlier in a nearby field. It was still there while the local farmer haggled with the authorities over compensation. The Flight Sergeant held a meeting with his team of riggers and they all agreed to make sure a dismantled Lancaster was 'diverted' and buried in the crater one dark night. A few years after demob they could get together, excavate and assemble the bomber and make a financial killing and the profits shared equally. Several 'Queen Mary' drivers were then suitably induced to deliver one dismantled Lanc to the crater later in the week. However the best laid plans of mice and men can go astray. Unknown to the conspirators, a higher authority determined the rate of dismantling was too slow. So a further MU team showed up and by the week-end, six machines were in pieces upon a fleet of trailers. Because of the number of drivers needed for the 'Queen Marys', they were briefed to follow the lead vehicle when it left the camp and unload their trailers as ordered. After supper on Friday, as the bribed drivers headed out to the crater, they were unknowingly followed by a long procession of similarly loaded trailers.
[page break]
P.3.
At the crater the group of riggers found to their consternation and secret delight that there were six Lancs to unload instead of just one. But despite careful placing all the pieces could not be buried in the huge hole. The frantic riggers then had an amazing piece of luck. One of them remembered that there was another large hole a few miles away. This was a very deep excavation made for the foundations of a new concrete water tank, on which work had ceased upon the outbreak of war in 1939. The convoy then proceeded to the second hole and working frantically through the night, the precious contents were carefully buried. The Flight Sergeant assured the other drivers that these were legitimate disposal venues for their cargoes and, as a bonus, gave each man 200 Capstan cigarettes. The exhausted men finally arrived back at camp in time for breakfast. In the weeks that followed all the remaining planes on the station were broken up and taken away. No one ever really knew what happened to the dismantled Hamilcar glider, although it is possible in the confusion of that fateful evening it may have been taken and buried with the Lancasters.
The farmer who owned the field got his compensation in due course and relieved to find the hole on his field filled in, bought new farm machinery and ploughed up the land for growing wheat. The county council never built the water tower after the war as the council surveyors couldn't find the site. After their demob one rigger emigrated to Australia, where he now runs an aviation scrapyard. One got run over by a bus in Barnsley, another had a nervous breakdown and became a recluse, while another took religious orders and entered a monastery. The ex-Flight Sergeant whose idea it was, lost his memory after mistaking turps for Tizer, during a drunken binge in a seedy pub in Walthamstow. The drivers of the 'Queen Marys' quickly forgot their work that night when their demob, the result of a Ministry foul-up, released most of them a year earlier than expected. One of them at parties would laughingly refer to 'things that went dump in the night', but no one knew what he meant, for an overdose of Capstan tobacco had eroded part of his brain. But a young, newly called-up 'erk' driver stayed in the Service, rose through the ranks to become a 'brass hat' and is now a very, very senior official at the Ministry of Defence. He is extremely well known for his life long hatred of cigarettes and smoking. Since that time local rumours of some aeroplanes being buried at Elsham have abounded. It is said that if you stand at the top of Elsham hill around midnight on the last day of October, with the wind in the right direction, you might hear the revving of lorry engines, whining gears, the rumble of over-sized tyres, together with the creaking and rattling of heavy laden trailers, jolting over the misty fields. The local gamekeeper swore that on many occasions he had seen a long procession of hooded lights winding through the trees beside the road leading from the old airfield. Since the construction of the M18 motorway over the line of the main runway, motorway police patrols have reported this phenomenon, but it has never been confirmed officially.
[page break]
P.4.
So the secret is out at last – or it will be, if they should find those Lancs. Just to prove the authenticity of this story, the people digging should look for ten packets of 20 Capstan Full Strength that a certain young 'erk' driver threw away forty five years ago. They should be somewhere under one of the wing sections.
How have I managed to acquire all this knowledge? Well, I have a distant cousin who is a very, very senior official at the Ministry of Defence . . . .
Peter Cottam.
Hm? As Mr. Cottam removes the tongue from his cheek and uncrosses his fingers your Ed. asks what [underlined] YOU [/underlined] think. Is there a grain of truth in the above entertaining pages or is it all a clever fantasy. I suppose it all depends if the Lancs are there. Can any explanation of their presence be anything less than fantastic? Any further additions to this quite libellous tale will be printed in future issues. The whole story is so engrossing that I want to grab a metal detector and spade and hare off to Lincolnshire.
[underlined] A MUCH MORE SERIOUS AND SINISTER THEORY [/underlined]
However, comes from Tony Lewis who hopes that his theory is untrue for the sake of those concerned with the excavation. "They must know that they are not digging up toys." he writes. "It is well known, and a published fact, that, at a certain time during the bombing campaign, serious consideration was being given to resorting to Chemical (or Biological? Ed.) Weapons on German targets and how near it came to it could well be revealed. My theory," Tony continues, "is only a guess but the one and only explanation I can think of for the reason for the aircraft being buried, under secret conditions, is that they were either bombed up or contaminated with chemicals such as anthrax, one of the most, if not the most persistent chemicals known to this day, the spores of which are known to last indefinitely."
Press on regardless fellows, I'll stick to the non-biological please. Have changed my mind about the metal detector and spade lark. Ed.
[underlined] OUR QUARRY IN A QUARRY? [/underlined]
Well, it could be. Ken Goodchild has been in correspondence with an old Kriegie pal in Canada who was asked to make enquiries among RCAFA Club friends. Here is a portion of the letter Ken received in reply,
"On Nov. 11th. I was at the R.C.A.F.A. Club and a former R.A.F. Sgt. Fitter told me this story. After demob he went to work at an Avro plant near Leeds where there was a large quantity of Lancs and Ansons in the dispersal area, as the factory was building Yorks he and others were detailed to strip the aircraft of wings and tailplanes and they took them to a disused quarry and buried them. In view of what you had written I asked him where this was. He said he was not at liberty to say as they had taken an oath under the Official Secrets act 1939 of silence."
Well, as Ken Goodchild so rightly observed, the plot thickens. It may be tbat [sic] it congeals, but there does seem to be just a chance of more than a soupçon of truth in this last note. Ken wonders if there are yet more Kites somewhere and if enough are found that maybe a Squadron could be formed and we could all be on the way to the Middle East and show them how it's done! The investigation is proceeding and to quote another well known authority, certain persons are assisting us with our enquiries. Any news in our next.
[underlined] THE FANTASTIC ELSHAM WOLDS STORY (an exclusive scoop!!!!) [/underlined]
A report in the 'Scunthorpe Target' on the 24th. October claimed that one of the most important 'Digs' in aviation history was postponed by MoD order because of the troubles in the Gulf. A search had been about to begin for a Hamilcar Glider and six Lancasters said to have been buried on the fringe of Elsham Wolds 45 years ago. There is much scepticism. Ted Dodd, a local journalist working in the area for over 40 years and one of the last airmen to leave Elsham says that as a newspaperman he finds it difficult to accept that he should miss such a story. He says, "For the sake of Lancaster enthusiasts I would like to be proved wrong but it is my belief they won't find anything." But now read on. Member Geoff Parnell suggested to an architect friend that he might supply your Ed. with a possible reason, or theory, for the buried aircraft. The MoD got to know that we were about to publish and after a tussle with those in authority the much stamped but now declassified Elsham File has fallen into our hands. Our architect informant declares it to be no theory but the absolute truth. Mr. Cottam's tongue may be firmly stuck in his cheek and his fingers are perhaps tightly crossed as his covering letter plainly shows but is there more than a grain of truth here or is it all just clever fantasy? Here are the main points of his letter:-
Dear Vic,
Further to my previous letter . . . . it appears the possibility of my 'story' being published in your next Newsletter issue. . . . has been leaked to the Mod. Following a discreet phone call I made a furtive rendezvous with Civil Servant 'X' in a little side street off Whitehall. Despite his heavy disguise, I soon detected the traditional bowler, pinstripe etc. . . . Apparently a very, very senior official in the MoD had been most disconcerted to learn that my story would soon be public knowledge . . . . Accordingly his Dept., disturbed at the release of a "loosely worded document that was both inaccurate and exaggerated," were blatantly seeking to have their own version made public through your Newsletter. I pointed out that such a report couched in rigid, stereotyped jargon would obviously be seen to have come from a bureaucratic source. . . .
I pleaded to be allowed to present their official version written in a more acceptable literary style. . . . after several lengthy calls to 'Y' in the MoD and 'Z', a C*B*N*T M*N*ST*R I was given the go ahead . . . . with warning of being sent to a certain M.E. front should the accepted criteria be departed from . . . . I now convinced my telephone and fax tapped. . . . computer bugged. . . . more sinister influence at work. . . . milkman. . . . postman . . . . window cleaner . . . . refuse collectors. . . . and even little old lady exercising dog daily . . . . all MoD agents keeping surveillance. . . . I enclose for future publication the original, unabridged version of what I am only permitted to call THE ELSHAM FILE, which I hope you can present to your members, for their eyes only.
Yours (in hiding, somewhere in England), P.F.C.
[page break]
Here, verbatim is:-
[underlined] THE ELSHAM FILE [/underlined] P.2.
On D-Day 1944 a Halifax Bomber towing a Hamilcar glider made a forced landing at RAF Elsham. The troops were subdequently collected by the Army, the Halifax repaired and flown off the station and the glider parked at the edge of the airfield. After standing in the open for some months the Hamilcar was partially dismantled and stored in one of the main hangars. The following April a Lancaster bomber returned from a night raid with a Tallboy bomb stuck in its racks. The bomb was released by the station armourers, but due to the special fusing system the bomb had to be taken to a nearby field where it was detonated. As the Corporal in charge of the armourers told his mate, a Flight Sergeant airframe rigger, the resulting crater was big enough to drop a Lanc in. After the cessation of the Pacific war in August that year, the station's Lancaster bombers were taken off strength and dismantled for transportation to the breakers yard. The station airframe riggers assisted an MU team brought in to carry out the dismantling work. A caring Station Commander, anxious not to upset the morale of his aircrews seeing their beloved machine dismembered for scrap, decreed the 'Queen Mary' transporters were to operate at night only with their cargo covered with tarpaulins. Every two days a Lancaster was dismantled and transported from the camp. Following a shortage of tarpaulins, the parts were subsequently wrapped in hessian sacking before being loaded onto the trailers. Whilst dismantling a machine towards the end of October, the Slight Sergeant rigger an engineering estimator in prewar days had an idea. A Lancaster bomber cost about £25,000, so if a single bomber could be 'diverted' and stored somewhere for a number of years, it would fetch even more when put on the open market as a collector's item. The problem was, if you could get hold of one, where could you safely store such a large aircraft out of sight? In a flash of rare brilliance, the Flight Sergeant recalled his mate's description of the bomb crater made months earlier in a nearby field. It was still there while the local farmer haggled with the authorities over compensation. The Flight Sergeant held a meeting with his team of riggers and they all agreed to make sure a dismantled Lancaster was 'diverted' and buried in the crater one dark night. A few years after demob they could get together, excavate and assemble the bomber and make a financial killing and the profits shared equally. Several 'Queen Mary' drivers were then suitably induced to deliver one dismantled Lanc to the crater later in the week. However the best laid plans of mice and men can go astray. Unknown to the conspirators, a higher authority determined the rate of dismantling was too slow. So a further MU team showed up and by the week-end, six machines were in pieces upon a fleet of trailers. Because of the number of drivers needed for the 'Queen Marys', they were briefed to follow the lead vehicle when it left the camp and unload their trailers as ordered. After supper on Friday, as the bribed drivers headed out to the crater, they were unknowingly followed by a long procession of similarly loaded trailers.
[page break]
P.3.
At the crater the group of riggers found to their consternation and secret delight that there were six Lancs to unload instead of just one. But despite careful placing all the pieces could not be buried in the huge hole. The frantic riggers then had an amazing piece of luck. One of them remembered that there was another large hole a few miles away. This was a very deep excavation made for the foundations of a new concrete water tank, on which work had ceased upon the outbreak of war in 1939. The convoy then proceeded to the second hole and working frantically through the night, the precious contents were carefully buried. The Flight Sergeant assured the other drivers that these were legitimate disposal venues for their cargoes and, as a bonus, gave each man 200 Capstan cigarettes. The exhausted men finally arrived back at camp in time for breakfast. In the weeks that followed all the remaining planes on the station were broken up and taken away. No one ever really knew what happened to the dismantled Hamilcar glider, although it is possible in the confusion of that fateful evening it may have been taken and buried with the Lancasters.
The farmer who owned the field got his compensation in due course and relieved to find the hole on his field filled in, bought new farm machinery and ploughed up the land for growing wheat. The county council never built the water tower after the war as the council surveyors couldn't find the site. After their demob one rigger emigrated to Australia, where he now runs an aviation scrapyard. One got run over by a bus in Barnsley, another had a nervous breakdown and became a recluse, while another took religious orders and entered a monastery. The ex-Flight Sergeant whose idea it was, lost his memory after mistaking turps for Tizer, during a drunken binge in a seedy pub in Walthamstow. The drivers of the 'Queen Marys' quickly forgot their work that night when their demob, the result of a Ministry foul-up, released most of them a year earlier than expected. One of them at parties would laughingly refer to 'things that went dump in the night', but no one knew what he meant, for an overdose of Capstan tobacco had eroded part of his brain. But a young, newly called-up 'erk' driver stayed in the Service, rose through the ranks to become a 'brass hat' and is now a very, very senior official at the Ministry of Defence. He is extremely well known for his life long hatred of cigarettes and smoking. Since that time local rumours of some aeroplanes being buried at Elsham have abounded. It is said that if you stand at the top of Elsham hill around midnight on the last day of October, with the wind in the right direction, you might hear the revving of lorry engines, whining gears, the rumble of over-sized tyres, together with the creaking and rattling of heavy laden trailers, jolting over the misty fields. The local gamekeeper swore that on many occasions he had seen a long procession of hooded lights winding through the trees beside the road leading from the old airfield. Since the construction of the M18 motorway over the line of the main runway, motorway police patrols have reported this phenomenon, but it has never been confirmed officially.
[page break]
P.4.
So the secret is out at last – or it will be, if they should find those Lancs. Just to prove the authenticity of this story, the people digging should look for ten packets of 20 Capstan Full Strength that a certain young 'erk' driver threw away forty five years ago. They should be somewhere under one of the wing sections.
How have I managed to acquire all this knowledge? Well, I have a distant cousin who is a very, very senior official at the Ministry of Defence . . . .
Peter Cottam.
Hm? As Mr. Cottam removes the tongue from his cheek and uncrosses his fingers your Ed. asks what [underlined] YOU [/underlined] think. Is there a grain of truth in the above entertaining pages or is it all a clever fantasy. I suppose it all depends if the Lancs are there. Can any explanation of their presence be anything less than fantastic? Any further additions to this quite libellous tale will be printed in future issues. The whole story is so engrossing that I want to grab a metal detector and spade and hare off to Lincolnshire.
[underlined] A MUCH MORE SERIOUS AND SINISTER THEORY [/underlined]
However, comes from Tony Lewis who hopes that his theory is untrue for the sake of those concerned with the excavation. "They must know that they are not digging up toys." he writes. "It is well known, and a published fact, that, at a certain time during the bombing campaign, serious consideration was being given to resorting to Chemical (or Biological? Ed.) Weapons on German targets and how near it came to it could well be revealed. My theory," Tony continues, "is only a guess but the one and only explanation I can think of for the reason for the aircraft being buried, under secret conditions, is that they were either bombed up or contaminated with chemicals such as anthrax, one of the most, if not the most persistent chemicals known to this day, the spores of which are known to last indefinitely."
Press on regardless fellows, I'll stick to the non-biological please. Have changed my mind about the metal detector and spade lark. Ed.
[underlined] OUR QUARRY IN A QUARRY? [/underlined]
Well, it could be. Ken Goodchild has been in correspondence with an old Kriegie pal in Canada who was asked to make enquiries among RCAFA Club friends. Here is a portion of the letter Ken received in reply,
"On Nov. 11th. I was at the R.C.A.F.A. Club and a former R.A.F. Sgt. Fitter told me this story. After demob he went to work at an Avro plant near Leeds where there was a large quantity of Lancs and Ansons in the dispersal area, as the factory was building Yorks he and others were detailed to strip the aircraft of wings and tailplanes and they took them to a disused quarry and buried them. In view of what you had written I asked him where this was. He said he was not at liberty to say as they had taken an oath under the Official Secrets act 1939 of silence."
Well, as Ken Goodchild so rightly observed, the plot thickens. It may be tbat [sic] it congeals, but there does seem to be just a chance of more than a soupçon of truth in this last note. Ken wonders if there are yet more Kites somewhere and if enough are found that maybe a Squadron could be formed and we could all be on the way to the Middle East and show them how it's done! The investigation is proceeding and to quote another well known authority, certain persons are assisting us with our enquiries. Any news in our next.
Citation
Peter Cottam, “The Fantastic Elsham Wolds Story,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed February 10, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/40364.
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