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**Jan B** · 02-05-2004, 12:29 PM

Yep, Junior, all these things were found in barns, on attics and in the ground in Belgium, mainly Flanders. Like I said, the jerrycans came from a local scrap-yard. The ww1 lid together with the bayo was found by myself in the early 90's in a barn from a farm in the Ieper-area. Much of the small stuff ( ammo) came from the "Zonien-forest" near Brussels too...

No, I'm not a member of a club, I just take my metal-detector and visit some less known battle areas from both world wars...

ps : I found some more stuff in my garage...will post it overhere asap!

Cheers

Jan

**Jean-Loup** · 02-05-2004, 02:08 PM

Hey Bob
I think that tree on the very left of pic n°3 is 'Mountgomories tree". Apparently it used to be the only tree in Alamein back in 42, and when Monty came to visit after the war, he was glad to find the tree alive and well. I should have taken a few leaves of of it... Nice helmet. If you ever get to post a closser pic, please do.
JL

**Chap15** · 02-05-2004, 06:13 PM

JL,
What would you like a closer pic of??? The sign at the train station I believe is the same sign that was there during the war. There is a picture of a allied soldier writing "heaven" under the sign. It was very tempting not to take the sign. I also have a pocket full of shapnel from the part of the battlefield called Snipe. It was still all over the place.
Bob.

**Jean-Loup** · 02-05-2004, 07:40 PM

Can we have a close view of the helmet inside and out. I like seing what condition helmets can be found in depending where they were kept. It can be very interesting, and also suprising.
I dont think the sign is from the war. In that pic with an australian soldier writting 'hell', the name Alamein is painted on a wall; its not a sign.
JL

**Chap15** · 02-06-2004, 10:29 AM

To be honest...the inside of the helmet was a birds nest. I removed the contents of the inside. It is just a shell now. The metal loops for the chin strap were still there and very strong. The helmet still pings when you tap it.
Regarding Belgium, I had a Battalion XO who wrote a book on Piepers initial assault at Loshiemgraben at the Bulge. While walking the ground he found a dead German soldier who had walked off the road and "rested" next to a tree. Brush had covered him for all these years. The authorities were notified. The family of the German sent my XO some of his items.

**JensF.** · 02-09-2004, 04:12 PM

Jan, the two "large rounds" in your first pic are german rifle grenades for the 98k. I hope for you that these are empty because they are really dangerous!
In the pic below the fuse to the far right looks like it has still got the initiating charge (the small iron tube on it), I hope this is emtpy too, because they mostly used picric acid for it and you shouldn't drop it or it still could make "BOOM"! Left of it is a something which looks like a german LKZ or EKZ 16 from WWI (the zinky thing) which also has got the charge below it. With the two big ones standing I am not sure, but also hope that they are empty. Whats their caliber?

**Jan B** · 02-09-2004, 04:21 PM

Hello Jens, Yep...I know that the 2 smaller rounds are rifle grenades for the 98k...They are indeed empty ( they have several small holes due to rust). You're correct, it is indeed not very wise to keep these, although the bakelite tubes have been removed, not by me though, but by a friend who was with me at the time of discovery. I'm fairly confident on these.

About the 2 large rounds, they are very heavy, but I can't make out any markings, I'm sorry but I know almost zero about ww2 ammunition.

Thanks for your replie so far

Cheers

Jan

**JensF.** · 02-09-2004, 04:23 PM

Could the two large ones be something like 57 mm ammo for a tank from WWI?

**Jan B** · 02-09-2004, 04:37 PM

Could be Jens. They were found by me in the Zoniënforest near Brussels. Maybe I should post these in the fire-arms or Panzer section.

I must note here, that when I discovered most of the ammo shown, I was in company of a friend who was familiar with these dangerous sleepers ( I know : it could happen to anyone). I didn't take these directly home with me. Back then my friend first " de-actived " them, how? I don't know...but I can say that the ammo I still have are all "innocent" at this moment.

Here's another one, which is also de-activated and cleaned by him...I have it around 6 years now. I believe this is a german mortar-grenate, right?

Cheers

Jan

**Jan B** · 02-09-2004, 04:41 PM

On the second picture I posted on page 2 , you see (just beside the two rounds that are standing up) also the tail of one of these...

**JensF.** · 02-09-2004, 04:42 PM

Yep. WWII. Whats its caliber? 8 or 5 cm (difficult to see in the pic).

**Jan B** · 02-09-2004, 04:55 PM

Here are some more things I found. If I remember well, the metal mortar-container and gasmaskcanister came from a scrapyard. The wooden ammo-box is again not strictly a relic, as it was also found in a barn and not out of the ground.

Cheers

Jan

**Jan B** · 02-09-2004, 04:57 PM

Again, very difficult to read..I dunno even were to look for the caliber!

There are some markings on the tail, GF..9...but that's all I can make out of it, sorry

**Værlien** · 05-05-2004, 11:21 AM

Saker

Originally posted by Lasse L

Hello.

Jeg har masse saker som jeg gravde opp selv utenfor Volgograd.Hvis du går til saiten Stalingrad battlefield infomation og klikker på guests in Stalingrad finnes det masse bilder av meg i aksjon...

**fordgpw** · 05-06-2004, 01:08 AM

My Greatest Find

While serving my US Army enlistment I had the opportunity of spending a year in the Republic of Korea. This was in 1969 and I knew I was still going to see a little more of Asia in the future. Anyway they assigned me to the 2d Inf Div, who to this day still patrols the DMZ. I had a critical MOS[job class} and they could not find a suitible opening for me right away, so being a Sgt they put me with a Texan contractor that had a job of laying lead cable for the Army , along the 38th, from the East to the West of the DMZ and north of the injim river. The ditch the cable had to be placed had to be 3ft or deeper because of the harsh temperatures in the winter.
My job as I mentioned was to keep the 110 man Korean task force secure from the North. I had 4 men under me and even though we were armed {M-14s-Colt 1911s] we knew the north could come down on us fast. In fact 2 weeks earlier we had 6 men killed close to the barrier fence. These men were unarmed except for the Sgt who had a 45.At that time it was customary to have a gun jeep forward and aft of any patrol on the barrier.Anyway back to my story of my great find. One day while watching the men I had the greatest need to use the toilet, so I ran up on a hill and over into a small sandy revine. After I had finished and was getting ready to leave I saw something sticking out of the ground.I started removing the sand from it and pulled out a Browning Auto Rifle.I shook it to remove the sand and the wood just fell off of it, but there it was a complete BAR from the very early 50s. I thought to myself there may be more goodies laying around and sure enough I found a Marines ID card broken in half and then I realized the place I was standing may have been hollow ground. It never occured to me to tell anyone about it, because of all the stress and watching for mines and such, which the following week I found a anti tank mine in the road about 1klick from the entrance to Pamujon. I called demo and they blew it it place. It was about 4ft round and 2ft thick. What got me is this was the primary road and to think of all the vehicles that had drove on it for 20 years or so.Then one day one of the Korean laborers came running to tell me they had hit a water line. A water line on the DMZ, I don,t think so. Went to where the men were digging and this one cat was taking a pick and hitting this round object and I told him to stop right then. Comes to find out it was one of our 105s from 1950 and back to demo we went.
All in all I consider myself lucky ,but I still had to watch the Korean laborers from taking land mines to clay mores in their lunch boxes before they went home. I only wish I had reported the Marine thing, because we have like 7 or 8 thousand men that are still missing from that dam war. I could tell you more of my finds but I,ve already tied up to much thread. Maybe some other time. Thanks for listening to an old disabled vet. DRB

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