Searching a Pioneer Camp

Inka

1 day ago

3 min read

The woods were very busy with hunters this week. On every other parking place they were standing with their binoculars scouting for moose, or preparing to trek into the forests. But it is day seven of the hunting season today and many of the teams will have met their quota by now, so in the coming week it is going to be a bit calmer.

We have had many close-encounters with nature since last Sunday. Being out metal detecting in great weather, and meeting different animals.

The scariest moment was when the GirlfriendWife and I drove home from a city trip and a huge moose leaped across the highway. We were perhaps a hundred meters away when it happened, but the meeting car was only centimeters away from getting the animal through their windshield. Luck was with us all that day.

Another a bit crazy moment was a few mornings ago when a big Eurasian goshawk tried to catch a mouse or a squirrel between my car and the stairs. I have never seen a hawk up close like that before.

An Eurasian Goshawk on our stairs.
This one has taken out most of our squirrel army lately.
It all went so fast I had no time to fine tune the camera.

Early in the week Jimmy picked me up after work and we went searching for a few hours in a small patch of forest which is being destroyed to make room for some tourist nonsense. There were signals all over the place and several trenches which after some probing seems to be full of relics. I guess we`ll try to open a few of them this week as on this round we only ran around picking single signals and sort of mapping the area.

We didn`t have any amazing finds, but I grabbed with me some field gear like a gas mask canister, a soup bowl, some food tins and a cool little carrier rack for 5 cm shell casings.

The evenings are coming on quickly these autumn days, and soon it was too dark to really see anything so we just had to end the fun.

Gas mask canister.
M24 carrier rack and a 7.5 cm casing.
O.T barrack stove.

A day or so later I returned to an adjacent area to look around were a few barracks had stood. Here I found two small and strange dumping pits. One was filled with combat boots. All rotted, so nothing to save. The other pit had some scrap metal and remains of several uniforms. Also completely destroyed by time and mice. On the bottom was a container from a field kitchen, and inside it a box full of Sprengkapsels.

From the lidar map I had indications of more dumping pits, but didn`t manage to locate them. Instead I found a few 2cm casings made from brass, a heater for a vehicle, and I met a big otter.

He came running in my direction, not noticing the humanoid in front of him, so I said out loud - Hey! Mr. Otter!. He stopped instantly. Smelled the air and squinted a bit before he made an 180 degree turn and disappeared back into the undergrowth. A very funny moment.

A ditch full of boots.
A box with Sprengkapseln.

Yesterday I wanted to check another place where there had been some German activity. I spent two hours there but found nothing. Only a few rifle casings and some barbed wire. Returning to my car I noticed something as I trashed trough a shrubbery. A hunter was grinning towards me. He had been sure it was a moose. Luckily he was a sensible fellow and I am still alive.

I decided to leave so he could find his moose, and went to a gebirgsjäger pioneer camp not far away.

There I found some small bakelite boxes from Gebirgs Geschutz 36 guns laying on the surface, lots of bits from crates and grenade carriers, and lids from zunder boxes.

In one dugout was a single signal, not a very good one but I dug it anyway. It was a find that saved the whole week. A very nice shrapnel sleeve for a M24 stick grenade!

Then I discovered a whole bunch of S.Mi.35 adaptors. Also hiding under not so good signals. Most were in quite good condition and there were a good handful of rubber gaskets to go with the adaptors too.

Beautiful views.
German barbed wire pulled high up in the trees.
Luckily a very rare find.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4fef0f_1ca7641a04a74deca7d1e66615485799/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Buried M24 shrapnel sleeve.
It was in pretty good condition. The third one this season.

I was digging close to a forest road and shortly after I had heard a rifle shot nearby a whole motorcade of hunters thundered past me. They piled out of their cars together with their dogs. I understood it was going to become busy so I retreated back to the van and will have to return another day to collect the rest of the S.Mi. adaptors.

The adaptors were plentiful and spread across a big patch in the forest.
I also found rubber gaskets for the adaptors.
In all I dug up ca 30 of them before I left.

A great week but with very few finds. Crossing fingers for better results on the next trips, which is going to be wet and cold according to the weather guys.

Thanks for reading :)