My trips to the Hurtgen Forest 2006/2007

You did the right thing to look into the dump pit. The plates were specifically made for the Luftwaffe and are probably the most interesting items because you would not expect them to be found here. My guess is that they were taken by someone as a souvenir who then broke it in his rucksack and threw it away.

 

I know that in the area where i found the pieces of the plates, a Luftwaffe Fortress Battalion has fought.
There where still remnants of German earthbunkers visible.
That could also explain why they where found there, i also found pieces of cups, bowls and other plates in the same pit.
Everything is possible i guess, but we will never know the truth.

 

Here are some more items from the pit.
2 pieces of Luftwaffe porcelain, i got almost 2 plates complete:

























A button from a German canteencover:









A civil fork:









A Hautentgiftigungsstick with different dates on topcover and bottom:













Some leatherwork:





The remnants of a wristwatch found underneath a canteencup (witch i post later), no text on the backcover.

 

And a special item found near the pit.
A US canteencup in bad shape with the name of the owner on it.
Marion Hall.













I found the cup in an area where the 22nd Infantry Regiment of the 4th US Infantry Division had fought, so i thought he could be a member of that regiment.
I wrote an email to the veteran-organisation for help in finding the owner of the cup and to hear if he survived the war!
They brought me in contact with the writer/author of the book "Hell in Hürtgen Forest" by Robert Sterling Rush.
He wrote me the following:

Marion Hall was in the 22nd Infantry Regiment, joining them during the fight in the Hurtgen Forest.
Marion M Hall, PVT, 35632328, was assigned as a replacement to HHC 1/22
on 25 November. He was from Rowan Kentucky, and survived the war, in
fact reenlisting on 11 July 1946 in the MP Corps.
I looked at his military occupation specialty and found that he was a
light truck driver.

Becouse he is not a member of the veteran association they promised me to place an article of my find in the next issue of The Ivy Leaves, a magazine for the veterans of the 22nd regiment.
It will be March the issue appears, im exited what kind of info that will bring.
Ill keep you all updated!

 

It was common practice-once the mask had been discarded-to use the cannister for storage of food or personal items.

 

On an other trip i took a friend with me to dig up the rest of the dump pit, but the last visit of me there was the best, not much more came out of the pit.
But i kept returning there many times.
We decided to take a long hike trough the forest to see if we could find more foxholes and trenches witch we had from a old sitemap from the area.
In some dense piece of forest we found several foxholes but it looked like we where not the first to dig there!
In one of the holes de detector reacted and we started digging.
With this as result....



An leather bag with items for the MG42:




































This was afterall our lucky day!!!

 

Nice finds! Im a bit troubled about the item in the 8th photo. What is it? To me (though I am no munitions expert by any means) it looks like a shoe-mine, or is an anti-personnel mine or in the least, a wierd-looking oil can or water bottle?.

 

That's alot of fun checking out old Battle sites. Speaking of coins I was lucky at Walmart the other day , the clerk gave me a funny looking penny for change. I took it home and dropped it in some coke and voila 1943 steel penny. Great pics, thanks for sharing

 

The 8th picture (on page 2) is an oil-can, used for the MG42, it was included in de leather pouch/bag.
Together with the AA-sight and laufwechsel.
It is not an typical oilcan spec. for the MG42 tough!

 

Thanks, i will put more pics of finds in this topic in the upcoming days!

 

Thanks, i will be updating this thread in the upcoming days!

 

good work Ed

funny the Luftw plate by J. H. ~ Our fine China set is from Johann Havilland ....

 

I have recently seen a similar plate that was at Bricy Airfield . The plate looks similar but the initials are F.B + (Luftwaffe eagle) +U. V.
I believe the F = Fliegerhorst and B the place (Bricy )
so F G would be Fliegerhorst Gilze F l Fliegerhorst Leeuwarden etc.. I don't know all the codes.
The lats initials are the maker ( J . H = Johann Haviland etc..)

 

Here are some other finds from the Hurtgen Forest.

An US can of rifle bore cleaner with battledamage before cleaning:









And after some treatment:





And a US pickaxe from a foxhole.
Before cleaning:









After cleaning:

 

Hmmm, i thought Fl. ( ) U.V. stood for Flieger Unterkunft Verwaltung.
The marking on my plate has no dot between the F and the l.
But you could be right on the marking you saw at Bricy Airfield, if that had a dot between de F and the B.
Thanks again for the info!

 

some more interesting items and they are greatly cleaned and restored too!

 

I am not postive about all the Markings, I just noted that some are different according to the locations and marked with the initials of the Fliegerhorsten.
I only have two examples i saw "life" (Bricy and Leeuwarden) but considering these productions were confidential I think probably thousands of different markings should exist.

 

really cool finds;

Keep up the good work!!

 

A picture of the church in Grosshau in December 2007:





And a picture of the same church in 1944/1945:





Some pictures of the Hurtgen Forest i took during one of my trips:

















And some life ammo i found and after the picture burried deeper in the ground (US rifle-grenades):









German Pfeifpatrone for the flare-gun:

 

This is a jacket i found when i was climbing a steep hill in the middle of nowhere in the Hurtgen Forest.
It lookes US but i can't imagine that its WWII-related, maybe one of you can tell me!