Last Thursday I was visiting a local village "Brocante" sale here, in France.
I was surprised to see a 1944 dated Wehrmacht 200 litre fuel drum forsale. It was in very good condition, and I suspect it may have originated from Chateaudun air base; which is a few kilometers away.
I did not buy it, as I'm more interested in the Allied equipment. The asking price was 200Euro, which seems a bit steep for a village brocante.
Something that one wouldn't expect to have lasted in the open like this.
Sort of similar with my "original" German Jerry can which was "sourced" from a West African market in mid 1980's and is now part of my Jerry can collection. A relative was working out there and decided to drive back to the UK when his contract ended. He needed an additional Jerry can to the cans that he already had but didn't have time to go to the market himself where they were sold, some distance away, and so got a local colleague to go but asked him to be sure to buy a fairly new Jerry can. The chap came back with just about the oldest Jerry can that it was humanly possible to buy.
The only issue with it was a very slight leap/leak on the rubber seal on the cap.
Interestingly one of my other Jerry cans in my collection, an early post war British can, appears to be made by the same German maker.
Last edited by Flying10uk; 06-02-2025 at 08:27 PM.
Here is the post war British Jerry can made the same German maker as the WW2 German can, Brose & Co, Coburg. Interestingly the company appears to be still going strong today.
Last Thursday I was visiting a local village "Brocante" sale here, in France.
I was surprised to see a 1944 dated Wehrmacht 200 litre fuel drum forsale. It was in very good condition, and I suspect it may have originated from Chateaudun air base; which is a few kilometers away.
I did not buy it, as I'm more interested in the Allied equipment. The asking price was 200Euro, which seems a bit steep for a village brocante. Attachment 139583
There's a lot of those drums and perhaps jerry cans as well on some island in the northwest Pacific. Evidence of long range German flights to Japan during the war. I forget which island, but photos were posted on the Net years ago.
I wouldn't put it past the Germans to have established their own bases somewhere in Siberia; it is a vast area and in those days as isolated as anywhere on the planet. For example communities of "Old Believers" who fled there before WWII lived undiscovered until overflights in the 1950s.
Last edited by Surpmil; Yesterday at 11:29 AM.
“There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.”
I wouldn't put it past the Germans to have established their own bases somewhere in Siberia; it is a vast area and in those days as isolated as anywhere on the planet.
Almost as isolated as Northern Labrador where the Germans installed a remote automatic weather station in an effort to reduce the advantage the Allies had due to advance knowledge of the weather. They called the weather station "Kurt".
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PM
Originally Posted by 
