Re stories of memories of/post WWII ( ...the guns of Tomingley)

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

Hello

Here is more re what I replied to Ian on peoples' memories I've collected on the Tomingley (McPhail) guns story.

I've collected locals' memories plus those of a man who says that when he was a boy he  and another got down and saw both guns and ammunition separately stacked up and waterproofed, memories of a mining engineer who says a Commonwealth party (commonwealth police and some soldiers to do the digging) took him there as advisor on a fruitless effort to regain entry.

Why did they want to do that?   Well, he said that they said a firearm seized from the IRA had a number that traced back to Tomingley disposal .. and there was fear criminals were getting at the arms.  The theory is that a contractor meant to tip them all  down the main shaft to a watery grave actually neatly cached, and waterproofed, the best in another minor tunnel (entrance later concreted). 

This mine was at a place named McPhail ..... which village is so TOTALLY disappeared that even archaeologist today I'm pretty sure would find virtually none of it.     Rather amazing how much the ?demand for old building materials was that everything got so completely carted away ??   (....  or was some burned on site?).     People looking with metal detectors have relocated what is presumably  the minor workings that the kids went down long ago ... but nobody in recent times has even attempted return to in there so far as I know.

Cheers, John

 

~~~ Previously noted ~~~~

 

Appended is  an old photo of the place (McPhail-1.jpg).

McPhail was supported financially solely by the mine there, the Myall United gold mine.  This ceased mining in 1910.

I first became intested in the region in the late 1970s and 1980s and then began hearing stories of guns and munitions found there.

Anecdotes collected so far include about a kid bringing a bren gun home on his billycart (perhaps re a Tomingley local?); about proably the "best-armed" kid in Narromine having a machine gun he mounted on a tripod in the back yard (which gun came from McPhail), and so forth.  In one case the finders are said to have laid out their finds on the ground and photographed them but so far I have not seen any photos of anything found at McPhail.

Besides simple disposal of unwanted WWII material some of the anecdotes relate to storage rather than disposal - e.g. about a tunnel in which there were stacked ammunition cases, magazines and gun parts (some in waterproof wrappings).   It is stated that the stacked ammunition boxes were in regularly spaced recesses seen along both sides of the tunnel.

There are stories like this no doubt in many places worldwide.   For example "Fact or Fable: Spitfires Down an Australian Mine?" ( http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=3842 ), re Oakey in Queensland where there has been lots of discussion, and lots of searching apparently (but no little or confirmation or anything?).

John , Woodside Services, PO Box 121, Burwood 1805