From;
expressandstar.com
Hidden treasures that graced skies
By Anna Jones
Feb 27, 2006
It's nothing special from the outside; a plain, ordinary RAF building blending into the dullish surroundings of No 6 Site, the sort of place you would drive past without a second glance.
It makes what's inside all the more fascinating.
Aeroplanes that once thundered through our skies, flying into battle during the First and Second World Wars are now stored silent and still in this quiet corner of RAF Stafford.
The remains of one of the Spitfires housed
at No 6 Site - the RAF Museum's
Reserve Collection at Stafford
There are shelves upon shelves filled with remnants of the past - weapons, machinery, gadgets, uniforms, medals, mascots, badges, pipes, matchboxes. Anything that isn't on show in the RAF museums at Cosford or Hendon is stored here.
There are three Spitfires. The wings have been taken off and the fuselages are smaller than I imagined. They would need some restoration before they are fit to go on display but even in this echoey room they look impressive. The red, white and blue RAF roundel, familiar from so many war movies, gives them a timeless fascination and a chill runs down my spine as I look into the cockpit of a real Spitfire.
"If you spent a million pounds you could probably get that flying," says deputy keeper Ken Hunter.
He joined the Royal Air Force Museum in 1972 and has worked at the Stafford site since the collection moved from Cardington just over five years ago. "Most of my 34 years has been working with documents, books and drawings and then I came into this side of the business in 1991," he said.
It is about preserving the history, knowing what the exhibits have been through and meeting the people from the period. Everything has got a story."
We're standing next to the empty casing of an American nuclear bomb of the 1960s, a few feet away is a German artillery rocket and, next to that, the remains of two Russian aircraft which collided in mid-air at Fairford in 1993. There are rows of wooden propellers from the Great War. Compared to modern aircraft they look more like canoe paddles than part of an aeroplane.
"Many of the First World War wing bits have come from farms and fields. At the end of the war thousands of aeroplanes were broken up and consumed by the populace. Wings and fuselages were used for fences and sheds and they are still out there," says Ken. "Very few of the items have been on show before. We are collecting things all the time. There may not be a big flood of it but there is always a trickle of new stuff."
There are around 100,000 items here and Ken has been cataloguing them for three years.
So what's the Holy Grail? The one item that could come through the door and make his day?
"It would be an aircraft that does not exist anymore," he nods, "like the Stirling. A complete one of those would be lovely. They were the first four-engine bomber in the Second World War, they came before the Halifaxes and Lancasters. There is no complete one anywhere in the world."
The Reserve Collection already has a wreckage that was recovered from Micklefell in North Yorkshire where it crashed in 1944. More than likely it was on a training flight; Ken says many planes were lost that way during the Second World War.
Ken says: "At the end of the war it was scrap metal. Aircraft like the Stirling were melted down and turned into cookers, saucepans, houseshold goods."
There are a few famous faces in the collection too. There's a candelabra and a home-made Christmas card belonging to Barnes Wallace, the man who designed the Wellington bomber, invented the bouncing bomb, and was immortalised in the film The Dambusters. On the same shelf are the gramophone records belonging to TE Lawrence, perhaps better known as Lawrence of Arabia.
These incredible exhibits find all sorts of ways to the reserve collection whether they are donated by RAF units, families, private collections or bought at auction. Sadly, it is not open to the public although Ken will arrange special appointments if someone has a particular interest.
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Sure would like to go exploring in there.
Robbie
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