WW II German shell fragments

It's been a rainy day today and am stuck inside. Thought that I would share some pictures of shell fragments that I found metal detecting in W. Germany when stationed there back in the late 70's. Found hundreds of pounds of the stuff, but only brought back a few pieces. I have given away a lot of it over the past 30 years.

Lots of what I found was live and un-exploded. You name it...mortar and artillery rounds, land mines, hand grenades, anti-aircraft rounds, rifle and machine gun rounds, both German and American. Everything pictured here is German. The larger fragment with the driving band still intact is close to 100mm in diameter. You can still make out the waffenamt on the base. The aluminum fuses are waffenamt'd as well. Mike

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You have the same affliction I have. I always had a hard time crossing live fire ranges because I was always looking down. This was especially bad in the US because you don't touch anything forward of the safety line. Two inches or ten yards, it stays. In Canada we clear it immediately. Overseas it was downright dangerous, in the middle east in the 70's there was all sorts of stuff dating back to WW2 and forward. Everything from helmets to webbing, weapons parts and frag.

What you see pictured here is only a drop in the ocean compared to what I pulled out of the earth. It seems that I found everything else but a rifle, pistol, bayonet or machine gun. The only personal items amounted to a German hobb-nail boot. I did find a US "pineapple" hand grenade after I stepped on it and it rolled under my foot. The area I seached in was a large stretch of woods between Bausendorf and Urzig on the Moselle River.

Research years later told me that elements of the 90th Inf Div came thru in early 1945. Talking with people from Bausendorf, they told me that American tanks advanced down the road thru the woods and 2 were knocked out by artillery fire. The Americans then retreated and shelled the town for a couple days. After the shelling, they advanced and took the town to find some wounded soldiers left behind. The areas where the shelling occured is where I searched. I could not believe the amount of shrapnel and unexploded ordnance in the ground. I found several German S-mines still in the ground at the spot as well. I think that was a standard tactic to have a pre-determined spot to deliver artillery fire and force the enemy to take cover in the woods only to find mines.

One of my buddies did not believe that I was finding all of this stuff and wanted to go along the next time. Needless to say, he was shocked. We uncovered something near the road that could only be described as an IED. It was one mine, place on top of 3 mines place on top of the largest artillery projectile I had un-buried. It was so large, it took both of us to pull it out of the hole.

Aside from everything else I found, one of the neatest finds were that of US .50 caliber machine gun casings. I found 3 of them total over a large area and each one was firmly planted base first in the ground with neck pointing up. That told me that they had been fired by an aircraft. I could only imagine that it was a P-51 or P-47. Only have one left tho : ).

One of the other spots I searched on the other side of Bausendorf was actually a small German ammo dump complete with defensive postitions. One of my German friends told me the GI's blew it up after capturing it. I believed it because there were un-fired 20 mm cannon rounds and mortar rounds EVERYWHERE! They littered the ground for a hundred yards in the woods. Those were easy pickings. I found several live 8 mm rounds in the fox holes and trenches, but still no weapons! Mike

One of my most interesting explorations was on the island of Cyprus in 1980. One of our areas to patrol was an old radio station just short of the Nicosia airport, which is occupied by the Brits. I was just below the radio station in a gravel pit and just off the end of the Turkish line. ( I probably wasn't supposed to be there) I found a quantity of canvas bits and upon further examination I found them to be from a US cartridge belt. Everything was there on the surface because the war was only 6 years past and the area is mostly dry except the rainy season which is short. Of course there was shrapnell and it looked like a man had taken a direct hit with arty or mortar. The cartridge belt was completely destroyed and the ammo from it was widley scattered. The M1 clips were everything from almost untouched(those I brought home and have one here today) to blown wide open or broken. The ammo was everything from as new to blown in peices from heat. Primers popped, twisted casings and loose bullets in place. I picked up everything that would still work or could be fixed and brought it home. I should have kept a complete clip for time but the only thing remaining is the one clip. The whole city is littered with ordnance or was then. I think it mostly has been shovelled under now.

Here are a couple more. The 2cm round pictured is one of literally hundreds that littered the ground. Most of what I found were 2cm projectiles seperated from the shell casing by the explosion. There were tons more that stayed together, but I thought it too risky to bring back. Notice the intact primer on the 2cm casing and how the neck is deformed.

Nomenclature on the 2cm round fuse can be seen. "1943 waffenamt 2cm", while the the manufacturer code and what type can be seen on the reverse. The same is true on the shell casing's base. The other casing is that of the .50 cal. Mike

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Lovely marking on the projectile. Looks like the 20mm was live until you wiggled it apart. That would have been nice to have live. The .50 case is Denver if you didn't know.

Hi Jim,

I didn't wiggle the 2cm round apart. That is the way that I found it. Perhaps someone else? There were bunches more just like it. I kept the one in the best shape. The projectile is one of hundreds that I un-earthed and it was found seperately of the casing. I even found several of the small 2cm fuses seperate of the round just laying around. Mike

I knew a man, a national German, that was 16 years old at war's end. One of the stories he told me was of he and his friends going through the fields near his home(I forget where) and the mass of STUFF that was lying about. Everything. These boys took ammo and removed propellant and put it in a 45 gal drum until it was full. They then rolled it down into the stream and lit the upper end hole in the barrel. He said it whistled like a siren for a few seconds and then went off like a bomb. I wonder if that's what happened to the contents of these rounds? Something similar.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

The .50 case is Denver if you didn't know.

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Jim,

Is there a difference in markings on .50 and .30 cases ? All my WWII .30 are marked "DEN" for Denver. I was under the impression that DM would have been Dominican.

Thanks,

Emri

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Emri

Jim,

Is there a difference in markings on .50 and .30 cases ? All my WWII .30 are marked "DEN" for Denver. I was under the impression that DM would have been Dominican.

Thanks,

Emri

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Emri, I believe DM is for Des Moines Ordnance in Des Moines, Iowa. Mike

My mistake. I think Tinbender's right, Des Moines it is. Dominican? As in Dominican Republic?