Whilst I didn't recover these with a metal detector, I thought I'd share the finds I made with two visits to an army dump that one of our members discovered a year or so ago. This dump was used by the army at the end of the war to dispose of large numbers of weapons and weapon parts, along with a huge variation of military stuff, from gasmasks to armoury equipment. Hopefully these pictures will add to everyone's knowledge of WW2 relics and help ID stuff for people in the future.
Here we go........
1st dig, before anything was cleaned.
Lee-Enfield bolt, No.1 barrel end, 303 drill round, Browning MG belt starter tab.
Bits off a sten gun. Spring covers and end caps.
A 'pig sticker' bayonet and a small pull through for a revolver.
A 1907 pattern bayonet. This little beauty still has the remains of the wooden handle. It is about 30 inches long
The No. 1 barrel end cleaned up nicely......
Also found this whistle. Badly burnt but recognisable as a military whistle.
One of the butt plates and the drill round cleaned. Soaked in vinegar for 24 hrs then scrubbed with a brillo pad
Front end of a British gas mask
Second visit......
On this trip I stumbled on a 'seam' of MG belt starter tabs. Literally thousands of them. In amongst them were lots of butt plates and sten gun bits
A small selection of MG belt starter tabs. I left about 1000 behind
Gasmask bits and various buckles.
Butt plates. Enfield-Snider being the oldest (circa 1860), with others from a 'Long' Lee and standard Lee-Enfield rifles.
The 'tongues' on the older plates were marked with which unit they were from
And the find(s) of the day ?
These
I know.....unrecognisable to most but I had kittens when the first one popped out the ground.
Still not recognise it ?
Ok......I'll tell you.
It is the remains of a Mk 5 Sten stock, minus the wooden part which was burnt off to 'destroy' the stock.
So there you go. I've been out recovering relics, just not with my MD hence why I didn't initially post my finds here. Now realise some of these bits may well help you guys
RRPG
