I haven't been able to find the time to do much detecting (or flying the Mavic) during this trip, but did have an interesting find at an old WWW2 airfield site on a place where I was doing some vollie work. I had been mainly playing around near where there were the concrete slabs of their quarters buildings, only finding a few old bottles and some other bits and pieces, but an I heard that an old bloke that I knew was doing some "fossicking" in the area with a back-end loader, not the use of a detector, pick or the like for him. He was looking for the remains of where he hoped that there were some old underground aircraft workshops or the like, under some sand dunes. Note that the site is not a classified site and no mining related issues.
So the day before I left the place I went down to have a look at where he was and if he was finding anything. Bottom line he had dug about 8-10 dirty big holes in the side of the dune about 3 metres apart and hadn't found anything. Just to pass the time I fished out the 7000, did a bit of swinging and soon started to find very heavy lumps of steel/iron, that turned out to be bomb fragments. I then decided to have a quick look near where he had started digging but about 500mm above where he had dug with his digger and straight away got a very solid signal. After about 300mm of digging in very soft sand, out came a very live 50cal machine gun round, with a blue tip still clearly visible. Then came several rusty chunks of a 50 cal feed belt and then another two empty 50 cal shell casings, but both still had an UN-fired primer.
When I showed the bloke with the digger, he immediately came back and started digging further into the sand dune at that point, but nothing else showed up in that hole or his others that I checked with the 7000. I did find some more shell fragments further up the hill, but no more ammo or the like. Well that was it for him, he had to go back to the station for the night where he was working and had 5 days solid work in front of him, so I drove back to the old quarters are to see what I else I could find. A few bits and pieces, such as coke bottle, stacks of beer bottles, 44 gal drum lids, etc.
Although I didn't say so to the old bloke, I have a feeling the the bomb fragments could indicate that they blew the joint up rather than leave it for folk like us to find and the ammo bits that I have found were likely from a machine gun post guarding the post, so was outside the immediate blast area.
Most of the 50cal rusty ammo belt bits have not survived the recent corrugated roads well that I have been on, I seem to have also lost a couple of bits, and I gave some of the bits to the old bloke with the digger, including an empty 50 cal shell.
So my question are -
- Should I place a photo of the live ammo on the site
- What in the heck should I do with it as it could go "bang".
o - I have wrapped it up in tissues, etc to try and stop that from happening, but am still a bit iffy about what to do with it.
Following are some of the bits, minus the live ammo, misplaced stuff and some other bottles.
Rob P
So the day before I left the place I went down to have a look at where he was and if he was finding anything. Bottom line he had dug about 8-10 dirty big holes in the side of the dune about 3 metres apart and hadn't found anything. Just to pass the time I fished out the 7000, did a bit of swinging and soon started to find very heavy lumps of steel/iron, that turned out to be bomb fragments. I then decided to have a quick look near where he had started digging but about 500mm above where he had dug with his digger and straight away got a very solid signal. After about 300mm of digging in very soft sand, out came a very live 50cal machine gun round, with a blue tip still clearly visible. Then came several rusty chunks of a 50 cal feed belt and then another two empty 50 cal shell casings, but both still had an UN-fired primer.
When I showed the bloke with the digger, he immediately came back and started digging further into the sand dune at that point, but nothing else showed up in that hole or his others that I checked with the 7000. I did find some more shell fragments further up the hill, but no more ammo or the like. Well that was it for him, he had to go back to the station for the night where he was working and had 5 days solid work in front of him, so I drove back to the old quarters are to see what I else I could find. A few bits and pieces, such as coke bottle, stacks of beer bottles, 44 gal drum lids, etc.
Although I didn't say so to the old bloke, I have a feeling the the bomb fragments could indicate that they blew the joint up rather than leave it for folk like us to find and the ammo bits that I have found were likely from a machine gun post guarding the post, so was outside the immediate blast area.
Most of the 50cal rusty ammo belt bits have not survived the recent corrugated roads well that I have been on, I seem to have also lost a couple of bits, and I gave some of the bits to the old bloke with the digger, including an empty 50 cal shell.
So my question are -
- Should I place a photo of the live ammo on the site
- What in the heck should I do with it as it could go "bang".
o - I have wrapped it up in tissues, etc to try and stop that from happening, but am still a bit iffy about what to do with it.
Following are some of the bits, minus the live ammo, misplaced stuff and some other bottles.
Rob P
