Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Digging Hill 80 - Seventh Report

Another day of sunny skies, the predicted rain never arrived.

My morning was not very exciting.  Sometimes you just have to dig the trenches you are assigned.  One was all natural clay and rock.  Another was noteworthy only for the large pile of shrapnel that came out of it.  In fact it was probably a shell hole instead of a trench, or a trench that got hit by a shell.


Early in the day, before the mist had burned off, some Belgian army guys pulled up in this truck.  We figured they were there to haul away the 8 inch shell still parked in the middle of the dig site.  But they were just a couple of jolly middle aged reservists whose job it was to take some photos.  They seemed to particularly enjoy chatting with the ladies on the excavation team.



Later in the day a couple of much fitter and more serious looking guys from the Army demolition team turned up and hauled our pet explosive device away to be dealt with.

My afternoon trench was quite a bit more interesting but unfortunately this is the kind of stuff I can't show you.  Suffice it to say that we are hoping to do our small part for Individual 65.  We won't likely know his name but from artifacts and such can perhaps at least get him into the correct national cemetery....

But I feel I should show you something interesting.  Have a look at this and see if you can figure out its purpose.




2 comments:

Miguel GFZ said...

It reminds me of part of an anchoring kit

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/931886/ameristep-tripod-treestand-and-box-blind-anchor-kit

Tacitus said...

Barbed wire anchor it is. Early versions were just stakes to hammer in. Obviously this was done under cover of darkness but the sound could attract unwelcome attention. These you just screwed into the ground.

TW