Bosnian villager ‘finds’ crashed WWII Spitfire
(AFP)

15 February 2008


SARAJEVO - An elderly Bosnian villager says he had redicovered a World War II Spitfire aircraft that he saw shot down by pro-Nazi Croat forces some 65 years ago.
‘I knew it was there all these years, because I saw when Ustashe soldiers shot it down in 1943,’ Cazim Dautbegovic, 74-year-old resident of Sarvani village in central Bosnia, told AFP.
‘The pilot parachuted out of the plane and was rescued by Partisans,’ he added in reference to the communist-led Yugoslav forces who fought Germans and their local allies.
Dautbegovic said that in 1943, villagers went to the plane to retrieve tyres which they used to make shoes.
The fighter aircraft descended into a wetland area and had since been forgotten about, as it sank below the surface.
However, it is unclear what remains of the plane.
Dautbegovic said he recently told the story to a friend, who located it and proceeded to sell off parts of it as scrap metal.
‘At the location, we found a part of the airplane radio and in the scrap metal market a piece of metal with some numbers and word ’Spitfire’ inscribed,’ Osman Mesan, a journalist of the local Bugojno television station, told AFP.
‘I have issued a public call to protect the wreckage, because I am sure that it is of historic value,’ he said.

Khaleej Times Online - Bosnian villager ‘finds’ crashed WWII Spitfire=

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman

Cool story. I wish I had a pair of Spitfire shoes.

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Work Harder ! Millions on welfare are depending on you.

Yeah, great story, thanx JC!

Ten years back when I was in Bosnia some Finns tried to get local interpreters to take them to the little villages where someone had seen old WW2 period nazi BMW motorcycle(s). However, the interpreters were too afraid to go "deep in to the jungle" and they never found out about the motor cycles. So there could be alot more to find there...

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Man cool story; Ill bet there are lots more things like this all over the world that nobody has found yet.

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"Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts." - Cicero

Im always amazed at what gets found all around the world. Things are always turning up whether small or large. In the ground and water.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman