Finding a Gebirgsjäger Anorak

It is Sunday and good weather so normally I would be roaming around in a forest looking for treasures. But not today. Last night Jimmys 50th birthday was celebrated with mosquitoes and an outdoor concert. Wine was consumed, and only the thought of toiling in a warm forest exhausts me, so today is hammock-day.

I completed a previously opened dumping ditch early in the week.

A few bakelite bits, a vehicle searchlight and an unmarked coffee mug were some of the few items having escaped deterioration. When detecting the area around the ditch I found a mess kit lid, gebirgsjäger ice-/rock cleats, and to my surprise a British Mills exercise hand grenade. Another funny find was a revolver lost by a tiny sheriff probably sometime in the 1990`s.

Perfume.

Unmarked mug.

Exercise Mills.

A small sheriff lost his revolver.

Towards the end of the week I got another day off from the old mill, and I decided to revisit a small part of a gebirgsjäger camp. It had housed a signal unit and they had built a handful of round huts.

I don`t think they had stayed there very long coz the signals picked up with the metal detector were few and far apart.

The walk up to the site took on a bit of a nightmarish form. The lush birch forest were inhabited by about a billion inch worms, eating their way through the green canopy. These centimeter long little fellows hung down from the branches and tree tops with their silkthreads, and had spun nets, similar to spiders, between bushes and trees.

Soon I was covered with them.

The tiny larvas had spun big nets.

After a little while I realized I just had to leave- or ignore them, if not I would loose my mind. They crawled up and down my neck and face, measuring me, and at all times three or four swung in their strings from the brim of my cap. Crawling, up and down my arms.

On place the first good signal I picked up was a small pile of relics directly outside of one of the hut foundations. I dug up a shoe, a helmet liner band, an ashtray, a nivea bottle and an ash scoop. Another signal was a blind for a Einheitslanterne.

The first signal was this lot.

Near one of the other huts I got signals directly from under a tree. Not the easiest place to dig, because of all the roots. Here they had dumped and burnt a lot of documents, some cloth, radio parts, food tins and gaming pieces.

A crushed oven and metal bits from one of the huts took some of my energy, but after a rest and some food the detector picked up a strong but deep signal. On ca 40 centimeter depth I found the reason. A full gasmask canister together with some chain and other unrecognizable metal trash. Together were also the leather hang for a field shovel and something that looks like a pouch for ammunition, and a smashed Einheitslanterne.

Piece of glass from a radio.

Gaming pieces that had survived the flames.

Pages of a burnt book.

Smashed Einheitslanterne.

Leather hang for entrenching tool.

Synthetic material mystery pouch.

I flicked away a couple of the Measurers, and went on to open up another interesting signal between two birch trees.

A crushed bottle, a few food tins, an ash scoop and an entrenching tool, and then I saw the side of a mess kit pressed down by a root. In front of the mess kit was a very nice göffel, and by its side was another mess kit and inside that one was a plier and a razor!

Then I found parts of a headset and a small bakelite morse key! That was a cool find. I would love to know what the last message typed with it was..

Excited I forgot about safety and I jabbed one of my fingers into a piece of the broken bottle. If I hadn`t gotten distracted by the orange butterdish sticking out next to the glass I would have cleaned up and bandaged the finger right away, but I ended up finishing the small trash pit instead and not tending to the finger before I was home. A Near-Gangrene encounter. The last bits out of the ground were a small vice, another entreching tool and a field torch.

Mess kit.

A nice Göffel.

Mess kit and the plier and razor that were inside.

Morse key.

The butterdish.

Field torch.

Small vice.

E-tools.

On my way back home I was going to check out a small- and half collapsed shed. This is always exciting, but I had absolutely no hopes of finding anything interesting, or intact for that matter as the shed looks like it might have one- or maybe two more winters left, and that the landowner had told it was nothing inside it.

I stuck my face where the side wall of the shed once stood, and I am stunned! In the corner, on the wall, under a half caved in roof was an anorak hanging. Green and nice. I saw immediately that it was Gebirgsjäger stuff. Incredible. I lift it off the nail in the wall and it looks to be in great condition, specially considering it is being found in a rotting chaos.

It is not much laying around, but in a small cabinet is a pile of four or five dinner plates. I check them one by one. I turn the last plate over, and the bottom has German markings. Kriegsmarine 1940. Wow!!

On top of the cabinet is what at first looks like a flat and dusty old squirrel.

It is a woolen cap. Not sure if it is of Swedish-, Finnish- or Russian origin, but it looks military and I can swear I have seen photos of a german officer wearing one.

What a crazy ending of a good day in the forest. Just goes to show that there is still stuff out there.

Thanks for reading. Keep Smiling ;)

This amazing lot had survived a collapsing shed.

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