North Norway 2008

[Simon O.]

A few photos from this year's efforts in the arctic.

Our biggest most impressive find happened about an hour into the trip, as usual a rubbish pit but a meter down we hit what can only be where a waffenmeister had dumped all his spare parts at the end of the war. Most was in excellent condition as there had been a vehicle fender thrown in above that protected the hoard from the worst of the damp.

See how much you can identify, we had to hit the books big time for this lot.

[Simon O.]

A gas mask, we find a fair few gas mask tins but time has taken its toll and only rarely are any worth keeping.



Sometimes books and fragments of newspapers survive but the tend to fall apart as soon as you brings them out.



Whilst the days of finding whole vehicles are gone, parts remain, like this one.

[Simon O.]

The first of 3 Kar.98b shows up. The woodwork's almost all eaten away unfortunately.



and underneath the first, the other two appear.




Of course finding a lid or two never gets boring



On the left and M40 and on the right an SD M42. The M40 seemed to show traces of winter camo overpainted again in green ready for summer.

[Simon O.]

The lids weren't alone either. The drum is full and complete with starter tab.




The box was full too, so we opened it up. To our surprise a newspaper had been used to reduce the noise of the rounds clanking in the can.



As you can see it was in pretty bad condition.



Enough of the front page remained to identify the paper, it's a copy of the 'Polar Kurier' newspaper of the German forces in the far North. The date was destroyed on the front page but an article quoted the 13th April and talked of a stadtkommandant installed in Hannover by the allies, that meant it was likely from the thirs week in April '45.



That wasn't the only paper in there though, tucked down the side was this packing label, thankfully written in pencil. We couldn't read it at first but scanning it in hi-res revealed all. The top line reads 300 smk l,*** (i guess l,spur or tracer) indicating the box held 300 rounds of ball and tracer ammo, the ratio is actually 5 to 1.
The second line has a word then the date of packing...20 April '45. Adolf's birthday no less.
The bottom line i've yet to decipher bu i can make out a II and perhaps a signature.

[Simon O.]

Other finds included 2 fighting knives, one in its scabbard and both with bakelite handles so pretty well preserved. 2 dog tags, both in pretty poor condition as they'd been in a fire along with a pile of clothes, one from 8./GAR 112 and one from stellungs artillerie abteilung 118, both units used to form the unit who's positions we were investigating, IV./GAR 118
5 belt buckles, mauser ammo pouches, a nice vehicle fire extinguisher about 70 or 80 coins including some weird ones that have me thinking a coin collector must have been there. Also the usual collection of marked and unmarked china.

all in all a good week

[jiipee76]

Damn awesome looking items there Simon.Let me know when you take next searching trip.One thing i would like to find one day are those relic shape helmets,one of those would be like "crown" to my collection.

I will definetly take trip to Ivalo within two months as i left so much of some interesting looking items there.And now i will take metaldetector with me(as well as reference books for various ammunition).

[Simon O.]

We'll see if anything interesting turns up at the weekend

The helmets were found on a hunch that turned out to be a good one. There was a zig-zag air raid protection trench just 5 meters away from a normal rubbish pit, so i theorized that the first thing they'd use to throw stuff away would be a hole they had already and weren't going to use again as the war had ended..like a trench. Sure enough, we found helmets and ammo. The rubbish pit 5 meters away was clearly from later on as the belt buckles i was pulling out were de-nazified indicating a later date, into the summer of '45.

[jotuntroll]

Fantastic Simon!
I really enjoy your trips. Keep us informed

thanks..

[Theodor]

GREAT finbds!!! So much blueing remaining on the gun parts - some WD40 or even ordinary Diesel will remove much of the rust and make these even better! Please, if you have, show us more photos!

[DonC]

Simon, as always, I am envious of your summer vacations!

Don

[Jean-Loup]

Very interesting photos, thanks for posting. The most surprsing discovery has to be all those weapons parts.

JL

[History]

WOW! That is awsome Simon, Thanks for sharing.

[IanC]

Superb thread Simon, That ammo box with the newspaper was a superb find.

Regards

Ian

[Simon O.]

Very interesting photos, thanks for posting. The most surprsing discovery has to be all those weapons parts.

JL

We know the site was occupied by stabs kompanie of GJR 143 as well as the I Btl. the irony is, i have a document grouping to an oberfeldwebel waffenmeister with the stabs Kp. of 143

Here's one of the nicest finds from that lot, it's a rarely if ever seen auxilliary sight for the rifle grenade launcher, there's a diagram of one and instructions to units on how to make them in several books, like 'Backbone of the Wehrmacht' but has anyone ever seen one?

[fischer]

Awesome find...You have the best Summer Vacations!

Regards, fischer