battlefields

[Logan Hartke]

Now that sounds neat.

Logan Hartke

[Simon H]

Another member said just where was he, over there they walked over to a clump of trees with some ground covering old fox holes cleared the debris away and there was a pair of boots sticking up. The Lt had been shot, fell back in the hole and they found him 50 years later. True story

I've not heard this particular story, but in recent years about 6 former MIA's of the 99th Infantry have been found in this area.

Boots do survive, a former US dressing station in the Ardennes was located a year or so back - boots were still strewn all over the ground beneath the trees. Remember - in such areas, even with active forestry such items do not get exposed to the elements as harshly as in an open area.

Even today there are areas that have been left largely as they were in 1944, complete with remains of wooden boxes for 30cal ammo, signal cable, mess kits etc.

[Erich]

You guys may be surprised what can turn up in very good condition at an aviation a/c dig......ask our friend here Erik from Norway. Also check my Czech friend Jan Zdiarsky's site in the Erzgebirge:

http://www.lf.czu.cz/museum119

E

[JG5_WrangleWolf]

hi again,

to Annelie

Do you really believe that?
After fifty years boots were still intact!

you don't believe that? take a look at this website, is in russian language but at the bottom you can find a link to translate the entire page. There you will see a lot of stuff that rest where the germans/soviets lost it (look for the MG42 with medical kits around it). You will be surprised...

http://www.klad.hobby.ru/english.htm


wwolf

[paddywhack]

also take a look at the fw 190 that looks like it could just fly right away!!!

[Zygmunt]

Unfortunately the answer to the question 'who cleaned up the battlefields?' was, and is all too often, 'nobody'. Libya may have benefitted from some scrap metal dealing, but not all of what was left behind was harmless. There are believed to be some 23 million landmines in Egypt, and most of them aren't from Arab-Israeli battles, but were laid by British forces in preparation for the battle of El Alamain. Egyptians get killed by British landmines right up to the present day. Other types of ordnance can certainly turn up in dangerous - if not mint - condition, depending on the climate of the region and how deeply it was buried; Egypt's hot, dry climate means that steel mines don't rust quickly. An example from the other end of the spectrum would be belts of .50 cal Browning ammunition recovered from the crash site of a B-17 by archaeologists (Time team, if anyone knows the British TV programme). It had been a couple of metres down in a marshy area, and the low oxygen in the soil/water meant that it hadn't corroded at all. The brass was still shiny, after 55 years!