Like a Relic Advent Calendar
- Inka
- Dec 4, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 12
Yesterday morning began with me checking the dumping pit I located just when it got too dark to dig anymore the day before. It was full of trash from some modern army exercise, food wrappers mostly.
I continued to dig signals in the slope but I did not have much luck. For the most part I dug out bolts, food tins, rifle casings and the usual junk one finds in an old German camp. A couple of the finds saved the day though.
First I found the second bayonet scabbard from this place, one more karbid lamp spare parts holder and another sight mounting block for the Granatwerfer 34, a really nice little find actually.
Then I found a small dumping pit, but except a toothbrush, a fork, a few meter of film negatives and some kind of smashed radio reciever it was only wires in it. I found the lid from a mess kit, some kind of plier and an axe head. And again, just as it got too dark to see what one was digging I moved into an area with a high concentration of signals and another dumping pit which I could dig for about ten minutes before it really didn`t make any sense to continue. But it was a promising pit, I managed to pull out a bucket, several bottles and a broken porcelain plate.
This morning the temperatures had dropped to a few degrees below zero, but I could not get the dumping pit out of my mind and for all I know this is the real onset of winter so there was only one thing to do, get ready for digging. Girlfriend had the day off so she was happy to join me, it is always nice to have company from her in the forest and some help to carry all the rust back home :)
So we got to the site and I cleared up the pit from yesterdays backfilling and continued the work. Not even a handfull of minutes into it I started to see that it was not another bucket I was clearing sand from as I first thought.
The familiar shape of the brim of a German helmet drew a nice line in the wet sand holding it in a firm grip. I freed it from the ground and was super happy holding my 22nd or 23rd helmet of the season. I also found a red enamel cup and a green glass electrical insulator, but the rest of the pit was all rust and buckets, and a few broken bottles so I continued searching along the slope.
Tons of wires, bolts and food tins later we sat down and enjoyed a hot tea and followed the travel of Mr.Squirrel through the tree tops, what little ninjas those creatures are, it was really funny and amazing watching him fly in the air from branch to branch.
The next couple of hours we could feel it was getting colder, and soon the dusk began to creep in around us, but before it got too dark I managed to get a few more finds. Thanks to the good signal of a food tin I found a small trash pit holding the bakelite chassis of a Volksempfänger, more precisely the Deutscher Kleinempfänger (DKE 38) I really always wanted to find one of these so even if all the internals were gone I was chuffed!!
The little pit also contained a broken K98 ammo pouch and the relic gods really outdid themselves by placing two leather bayonet frogs there, so now I have two complete bayonets from this place!!!
Cold and happy we loaded up the backpack and we strolled back to the car. When we got home we saw on the thermometer that it was a cool 7 Celsius below zero so this might really be it my friends, I think the season is over now, even if there can be some mild days ahead the "daylight" is rapidly disappearing and with soon just an hour or so of enough light there is really no point continuing, and I could have asked for a better season ending than this. Now it is time for sorting and cleaning a couple of boxes of finds, making some miniature dioramas and cleaning up the digging gear so it is ready for spring.
Thanks to all of you who follow my expedition reports, who have helped identify finds and supported me!! :)
Have a nice winter!! :)
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