The Keys to the Camp
- Inka
- Jun 17, 2023
- 4 min read
This week spring really bloomed into a full blown summer with warm rainy days, and some warm sunny days. I had to work a few days but there were also time for some playing in the woods. I was searching a bit in two different camps, a few short hours in a barbed wire pit, and a whole day in a SS pioneer camp that we discovered late last autumn.
The barbed wire pit I had already found a few years ago but never took time to check out. It looked like it was a big jumble of wire and rusted metal sheets, but having cut through the top layer of wire I managed to kinda fold away the sheets and wires and get to the trash underneath it.
Hoping for good trash I dived in and pulled out some flattened German jerry cans, a 10l triangular fuel can, a few vehicle lamps, a single boot and a destroyed speedometer. Some more modern army junk also began to appear, ammo cans, a vehicle tail light cover and some plastic exercise ammo, which made sense as parts of the camp was used by the Norwegian Army until the 90`s sometime.
I wonder if they had been harvesting fodder for their horses, because I also dug out 6 or 7 scythes.
When I was digging out the blades the day was cut short in the moment I tried to pull out one of the scythes from the pit and the still sharp blade just sliced both the glove and my finger open. Rather annoying :)
Two days later I had healed enough and brought the Girlfriend with me for a trip to the SS pioneer camp we had found in September. Here a small unit of pioneers, together with a small contigent of Soviet POWs, kept busy constructing roads and fighting positions in the mountains above. In the morning we had a cozy walk through a beautiful and lush forest before we reached the site.
We set up a small "camp" for the day and enjoyed a cup of tea before getting out the equipment. As the Girlfriend took out the insect net from her backpack, I discovered that I had lost my digging-bayonet in the barbed wire pit. That sucked, but luckily I had all my other stash.
The next three or four hours I roamed around looking for signals to dig. The first I got was a nice set of keys. It lay by the corner of a barrack, and I could just imagine the officer throwing them over his shoulder as he left the camp that last time in the spring of 1945.
In and around the barrack were a lot of nails, wires, building parts etc, but also some equipment such as parts from ski poles and hundreds of bolts for construction. The next barrack was similar, so I decided that these had been for storage.
On the oposite side of the camps "main street" were also two barrack foundations, and there more interesting items turned up. A very good signal was a piece of brass, that something had been cut from, possibly a piece of trench-art. Then a tooth cream tube from under a root. And a button. All good things pointing towards living quarters.
By the barracks entrance I dug up the find of the season so far. A fieldmade waymarker. An arrow cut from thin metal, a bolt fitted to its middle so it could be attached to something and it was in very good condition. Pouring some water on it I could see numbers on the arrow head, looks like it says "68" and some vague letters on the arrow. This is an awesome find and I cannot wait to sink it in a tub of oxalic acid :)
It was a lot of signals around. Rifle ammo, cutlery, buttons, coins, cream tubes, shovels, gas mask parts and bottles, plus rubbish metal. The day had gone in a whiff and suddenly the Girlfriend came and collected me, promising a new trip here very soon as I am certain that there is a medal hiding out there under a piece of moss.
Today we were going to find my lost digging bayonet but first we went on a little recco trip over to Finland, and took the opportunity to do some shopping. On the way home on a market we strolled into Jimothy the Digger, and we made plans for some Gebirgsjäger camp digging tomorrow so that ll be exciting. Hopefully I ll have a new report with good finds (or only rubbish) tomorrow evening or monday :)
Enjoy the rest of the weekend, guys and gals :)
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