Spewing bad blood, mistrust

London: This is a story of buried treasure, a map with X marking the spot and the race to recover untold riches. The treasure in this case is of the winged variety, some 60 Spitfires, maybe more, quite possibly in pristine condition, never flown in anger, interred in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) at the end of the Second World War.

There are only three dozen Spits in flying condition around the world, commanding prices of £1.5 million (Dh8.91 million) or more. So this is big money. And as with all tales of treasure-seeking, there is mistrust, manoeuvring and bad blood.

The story begins in August 1945 as the irradiated ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still smouldered. The war against the Japanese in Myanmar, always something of a strategic sideshow, was suddenly truncated, leaving the British with vast quantities of war material too expensive to ship home.

What to do, then, with some of the latest versions of the Spitfire, Griffon-engined Mark XIVs, recently delivered and still in their crates? Wary of leaving high-performance aircraft in a country with an uncertain future, Britain's South-East Asia command decided to bury them.

Accumulating in value

As many as 120 Spitfires, original cost about £12,000, may have been disposed of in this way. There they have lain for 67 years, protected by tar seals and grease, steadily accumulating in value, just waiting for someone to find them and dig them up.

"Spitfires were ten a penny in 1945," says David Cundall. "You have to remember that we built more than 20,000 of them, and by the end of the war they were nearing obsolescence, thanks to the advent of jets."

Cundall, 62, a farmer and aviation enthusiast from Lincolnshire, has devoted much of the past 16 years and a lot of money ("I stopped counting after £130,000") to unearthing the Spitfires and restoring them to flying condition. The project has involved hundreds of hours of research and interviews and repeated visits to Myanmar, until very recently a pariah state run by a corrupt and very dangerous military regime.

"I had an AK47 pointed at me once," says Cundall, who has endured mosquitoes and jungle heat in his search for the aeroplanes, many of which were buried around the old British airfields at Myitkyina and Mingaladon. "There were also six non-crated Mark VIIIs," says Cundall. "They are very rare and I believe they were buried in a quarry."

Struck gold

Then, in February, he finally struck gold. Geophysical returns combined with eyewitness testimony narrowed the search to specific points. But to get the aircraft out Cundall needs money, about half a million pounds.

That is where Steve Boultbee Brooks came in. Boultbee Brooks, 47, is a self-confessed Spitfire lover and owner of a trainer version of the fighter. He is also very rich, the result of a career in property investing.

In need of a backer, Cundall approached Paul Beaver, a former defence journalist, now in public relations, who suggested Boultbee Brooks. There was a meeting, an agreement in principle to proceed and a fairly rapid falling-out.

Cundall was presented with a "memorandum of understanding", which effectively placed his activities in Myanmar under the control of Boultbee Brooks's company, Spitfire Display Limited. Boultbee Brooks then took off for Myanmar to lobby support from Prime Minister David Cameron, who was making a landmark visit to the country as part of its slow reintroduction into the international community.

The Spitfire story provided Number 10 with a stirring example of future Anglo-Burmese co-operation. Cameron met with Boultbee Brooks and duly climbed on the bandwagon, waxing lyrical about Spitfires gracing the skies.

The millionaire was also allowed a ride home on the prime ministerial jet. Cundall says he knew nothing of the trip until contacted by Boultbee Brooks from Myanmar. He was also appalled at the terms of the memorandum, calling them an insult.

‘Some great lengths'

"I had an hour with him [Boultbee Brooks]. He didn't say yes, he didn't say no. He had all the information he wanted to make up his mind. People tell me he was on television making claims that it is his project.

Boultbee Brooks says he did inform Cundall of the Myanmar visit in advance and that the memorandum did not represent a contract.

"I see that the letter could be misunderstood. We have therefore gone to some great lengths to explain that to him.

"We have got nothing against Mr Cundall. We do not want to push him off this team. We would love to be working with him, and we cannot understand how this wonderful situation is turning into such a ridiculous situation. It's very sad."

Cundall has already moved on, however. He has secured new backing from an anonymous investor, who wants to buy all the Spitfires recovered from Myanmar. Under the deal, Cundall and the Myanmar government each net 40 per cent of the sale proceeds, while Cundall's agent in the country gets 20 per cent. "He [the backer] wants to buy all the aeroplanes," says Cundall.

Own project

Undeterred, Boultbee Brooks is proceeding with his own recovery project.

The race is on. Time is running out. The monsoon breaks at the beginning of June and the ground in Myanmar will be so waterlogged as to be unworkable until the end of the year. A temporary holiday on sanctions against Myanmar means the recovery work should soon be deemed lawful.

Cundall is counting on his ties with the Myanmarese, cultivated over many years, to see him through. But Boultbee Brooks is obviously not a man to back down at the first fence. "The Brits had a real chance here to get ahead," he laments.

"The Americans are really keen. The Israelis are really keen. There is talk of an Australian team that is very keen. What a terrible day this is when the prime minister has gone out and got a British team, we put a British team together, and then we squabble so much that we allow other nations to walk in and take the Spitfires from under our noses. We're absolutely nuts, aren't we?"

But then, the lure of treasure has always driven men mad.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2012