The Helmet Ditch

The Girlfriend is gone for work so I figured I would spend the day in the forest, it would be a quiet day, but I brought the detector so at least there would be some sounds besides the buzz from the hordes of mosquitos.

After a few days of rain the sun had dried up the forest so it was perfect conditions for some searching. I began by checking a couple of what looked like dumping pits we had found the last time we were here, but it was only rubbish in them, so I strolled further into the forest checking the different signals the Fisher gave. It must have been a stable in this camp because I found several horseshoes, a horse comb and a few horseshoe ice cleats as well. I dug up a couple of gasmask cannisters and a nice little axe head, and several food tins of the aluminum type, and of course the usual nails in all sizes. Quite a few of the annoying barrel bands found their way to the surface, as did a couple of smashed zinc buckets.

I began checking near one of the barracks and had a strong signal, not too different from a barrel band so prehaps it was two of them this time.

I removed the upper layer of the forest floor and quickly found the root of the signal, and it did not look like a barrel band, but more like the rim of not one, but three helmets!!

Finding three helmets at once was pretty awesome and they were in good condition, one of them having winter camo even, and all of them the liners. As I had gotten them out from the soil I saw a chinstrap and while trying to get it out without breaking it I discovered it was four more helmets down there!!

And then more,and more and more!! I could not believe what was happening, but I continued digging the ditch and the helmets just popped out like zits on a teenager. Helmet number 15 or 16 had a little surprise inside it, a M39 egg hand grenade, but luckily it was quite rotted so it presented no immediate danger, still, I dug a little slower after that.

I cleared the corner of the ditch and had 20 helmets piled up on the edge and began realizing that getting all of these treasures back to the car would take me a couple of trips and it was quite far back to the road.

Most of the helmets had the liners intact and near all of them looked like they might clean up well and some of them were really good looking. I closed up the ditch and initiated the "bring-them-home" project, and an hour or so, and two liters of sweat later I had them all safely in my car and sped homewards to prepare an oxalic bath for us all:)

This was truly a dream come true, and I am worried I`ll be waking up soon, sweaty and pissed off it was all a dream :D

Guess what I ll be doing tomorrow,,yep,I will be back there to check the rest of that ditch :D

Stay muddy my friends:)

German gasmask canister.

Rims of two or three helmets sticking out from the sand.

Carefully digging them out.

Three helmets out of the ground, but there were more..

The leather liner was intact on many of the helmets.

I kept digging out helmets and feared I would wake up any moment.

One of the helmets had a M39 egg grenade inside.

The pile kept growing.

Many of the helmets had remains of winter camo.

This was one of those Dream-come-True days.