Normandy D-day Battlefield Relics
By Nigel Hay (©Milweb Ltd 2008)
The debris of war - 29th Infantry - Hill 108, Normandy 1944
65 years on, relics of the Normandy invasion and the 80 days of fighting before the Germans were finally pushed back east of the River Siene, still turn up.
Whilst all the major treasure, like the scrapyard of German armour at Trun, is long gone, collectors are finding battlefield relics on a daily basis, actually in the ground or in Depot Ventes and Brocantes. These are junk shops, the depot vente being a junk shop where people leave items to be sold on a sale or return.
The author, MILWEB's publisher, lives in Normandy, right
in the heart of Operation Bluecoat – the British Breakout.
Elements of 9th SS occupied the nearby village of Viessoix during Early
August 1944 and the fighting was bitter as the British 11th Armoured
pushed through from Le Beny Bocage to capture the Vire -Vassy road.
This spring, 3 German bodies were discovered at nearby Burcy and interred
at the German cemetery at La Cambe.
Having discovered live Mauser K98 and MG34 ammunition plus plenty of
shrapnel in the garden and a conversation with the veteran who drove
the Sherman (commanded by by Peter Carrington, later to become Lord
Carrington) and took the hill top 300 meters along the lane, it is evident
that there was fighting in the grounds of the farm property which was
used as a defensive position by the Germans.
Recently a digger was in use opposite the drive. Just a few feet down up came this German helmet, with two distinct shrapnel exit holes in the top, suggesting the wearer wouldn’t have survived. On showing this to the farmer who used to own the property and was born in the farmhouse before the war, he gave a Gallic shrug and said that some Germans were buried just where the new terrace was built this year. He casually said 10 years ago a few remains of another German were found in the field behind the office and they left them in the ground.
The new years project is to locate any remains of the Churchill ( or it may be a Comet) that was destroyed about 500m from the house....
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Utah beach still reveals its secrets (left).
On the left hand side is a scrunched up section of a rubberised raincoat
and the shoulder loop with button, three parachute buckles one with
spring clip, toothbrush, small bottle for water purification tablets.
Small buckles and clips off webbing. A silver foil coffee sachet,
and a piece of shaped wood possibly from a ship or landing craft.
The spring at the bottom is similar to the return spring of a Jeep
carburettor.
Omaha beach (right) revealed a surprise. You wouldn't expect
to find over five hundred rounds of British 303 ammunition..... Also
the side from a telephone wire reel, in the centre a metal handle
off a canteen cup, a small round tin of pear jam this was in excellent
condition full paintwork ingredients no corrosion. A large chain possibly
used for lowering DUKW's and landing craft into the water from ships.
The large metal object opened like a banana skin we had no idea but
found about twenty or so of them, all identical it was a tube there
was no base in it.
Thanks to Ken Lewis for photographs of the finds.
please submit your pictures and details here