A Deep Gasmask- & Helmet Pit

Inka
8 hours ago
4 min read

broken maskenbrille from the wehrmacht found in the ground

Today me and the GirlfriendWife got up early and took a nice and fresh stroll to the mountain. Our goal was berries. We just had to get our feet naked and wade across a freezing river first, but it was very nice and refreshing. I can almost understand the winter ice bathers now.

It was the red and juicy Lingonberry we hunted for this time, and just above the tree line the ground was covered with them. Crowberries too. Black and red everywhere.

In a short while we had picked a few kilos of the goodies which we can prepare and enjoy in the coming winter months.

We discovered gebirgsjäger positions as well. From the berry fields we spotted a cluster of stone bunkers up in the hillside across the valley, so we marked the spot and made a plan to have a look at them before winter.

Beautiful views.
Tasty Lingonberries.

This week I shifted a lot of rocks and sand, and was digging on many good signals.

Early one morning I found myself out in the woods, checking a signal which were two barrel bands. They were completly stuck between rocks. I didn`t want to dig them, but then I saw that they were on the edge of a quite large depression between some trees. The detector too was sure. We were in dumping pit waters.

I got away the top and began removing the pile of rocks the soldiers had dumped on to their trash pit.

Some relics came out together with the stones. A pair of Maskenbrillen, a primus, a rifle cleaning kit, a pair of tent pegs and a five kilo weight. Broken bits of porcelain plates and an intact, but sooted civillian tea cup hinted that better and more interesting stuff could have survived.

A little deeper underground I thought I found several TNT blocks. They had the same shape, size and color, but I spotted the logo of a well known Norwegian soap maker on one of them.

Bars of soap. Lilleborg Pluss — *Bars of soap.*

Tin can full of gebirgsjäger boot nails.
Mosin oiler.
7,7 cm brass casing from WW1.

I have rarely seen a dumping pit with such an amount of rocks and boulders, but in the end I could start to probe the bottom of the garbage dump. And by day three I could begin to speculate if all the work had been worth it, coz the pile of good finds was meager. The trash pile on the other hand was huge. Several stoves and their smoke stacks and tons of rusted food tins. Tools, axes, speakers, melted glass, and five or six packets of nails fused together with themselves. But not really any very interesting finds.

I got a decent amount of training and adrenalin though, and if I am lucky that sharp pain I have been feeling in my shoulder ever since refilling the pit with all the rust and rocks will prove to be a ligament inflamation. So I am landing on that it wasn`t a waste of time.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4fef0f_94a8803e87b34aaeb4ef9b7595429198/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

An unopened zunder box.

Rope.
Several coat hangers.
One of four axes I found.

The next time I went searching I had planned for a long day, but it somehow got cut short because of a exeptional find.

I was zig-zagging my way up through a section of the gebirgsjäger camp, finding some horseshoes, food tins and other boring stuff until a rather weak signal had me burrowing in under a tree root. There was a small pile of Finnish coins tucked away. They were mixed with some nails so it took a little while to get them all collected.

When I stood up again I noticed a circa meter long hole in the ground. Did I dare hope for a dumping pit? Indeed I did.

Full of dreams and hopes I strode through the yellowing undergrowth and got a full set of beeps from the detector as its coil swept across it.

A fence wire was stretched out next to the sunken ground. Annoyed I flung it away. The detector still screamed like a maniac.

finnish coins found under a root — *Finnish coins found under a root.*

I took away the moss and saw the grooved surface of a german gasmask canister. Waheey! As I cleared soil from the relic another canister appeared. And another one! But then another familiar shape came to light. The shape of a helmet! And below it, one more canister and a gas mask!

I was thrilled! And it seemed to be lots more in the little ditch, and for the next hour or so I pulled out almost twenty canisters.

Gas mask canister.
Canisters and a gas mask.

Buried german helmet. — *Familiar shapes in the soil.*

In the other end of the ditch I cleared soil away only to discover more helmets! At this point I began to worry that I would find a matching number to the canisters. It would already be hell to get the gas mask boxes out of the woods, but there were only three more helmets there.

What an intense beginning of a day! A large stack of gas mask boxes, and four very nice looking metal hats!

It was a challenge to get it all back to the car, but I managed it in one go. Just one foot in front of the other. Step by step. And I was soaked and exhausted so I let myself fall into the drivers seat and drove home to order some oxalic acid.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4fef0f_e9cb238de6e44c1094b294767e1f98ea/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

A lump of helmets.

The camera lense fogged over in all the excitement.
Three of the helmets had most of the leather intact.
A good pile.

After the most spectacular dumping pit ever, I was very inspired and was ready for another go the following morning. But I should damn well have known that the luck had been spent. Eight hours of searching yielded a pair of gebirgsjäger boots, a Klauenbeil and a regular Heer axe, an interesting metal bookmark and a göffel.

A bookmark. The decoration is a skating girl.
Göffel and a gaming piece.
Gebirgsjäger boots.

Hopefully the painful shoulder will heal up quickly because I am counting on little work, and lots of searching this week. Winter is coming and we need more rust, and maybe more berries too.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week :)

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4fef0f_c64240827fa74f3bb398d8c904dc6387/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

A proper stack of goodies.