Some odds and sods from half-an-hour's fieldwalking behind the plough at Deenethorpe:



Bomb fuse well covers and fin locking rings:


Fahenstock clips, lead safety wire seals and some fuze safety bars:


A pair of odd cut-down and distorted 20mm cases:


And to confirm they are 20mm and not .50 BMG:


All the best,
PB

Nice one Paul,

still fancy that guided tour you mentioned to me and Pappy, we spent Christmas Day there last year, great walk in the cool crisp air !!

Need to chat about a couple of things too when you get five.

Cheers Dave

A couple of images showing the safety seals and bars in position:





And after this weekend I don't think I'm going to be short of arming wires for some time:







Not from Deenethorpe though.

TTFN,
PB

Have you been out digging & camping with the 'Outcasts' on the 490th Bomb Dump...watching slideshows on a desolate windswept airfield late in the evening followed by tea & cakes warming by the blazing campfire?

Ahhh damn, i missed tea and cakes!.

How's Sunday go then?

Sunday the Digger went sick, it's less than a year old & we had to have the engineer out to get it running, so we lost 90 mins of digging time. We began breaking down the camp-site during that time as the weather forecast looked bleak for the rest of the day.

We finished looking in the last corner once the digger was repaired but this didn't reveal much except a concentration of Carbine magazines, spent 50 cal cases & more arming wire so once we found the edge of the pond the digging stopped & the site was reinstated.

Saturday night was interesting, the camp shower was put up, I tested it, very good to have hot shower after a days digging, Malc & I went shopping for supplies & a fish & chip supper for the dozen diggers who were staying, Bob Collis set-up the projector & at 10pm we were treated to a slide show of all our best digs from the 1980's, 90's right up to (Place name edited see note below) last year. This was followed by us stoking up the camp wood burner & spending another couple of hours huddled around it drinking, smoking, eating & generally being merry in the cold NW wind that swept the site throughout the whole weekend we were there.

The worst weather hit Sunday lunchtime after we were loading up to leave, this developed into heavy rain & gusty wind, fortunately we had taken all the tents down & were ready to leave.

In summary a disappointing dig & cleary we had made a much better job of cleaning the pond back in 1984 than we had first thought although we did find some very interesting items but the quantity was small with exception to the trailer load of brass arming wire.

It is the nature of this strange hobby we pursue & have to take the rough with the smooth, however I had a great time just camping & enjoying the evenings festivities as much as the digging & look forward to the next dig in a few weeks time.

It was good to see the Chief, Station 128, Tank Barrel, Cletrac Man & B-17Man from the forum make an appearance & hope they too enjoyed the weekend.

A meagre smattering of finds:





Detail of the plastic 1.5" flare cartridge dated December 1942.
The AN/M3x series were "Signals, Aircraft, Double Star", the M31 being coloured Red and Yellow.


Drem A3 Outer Circle and Approach Funnel Lights. Rare as a rare thing.


Two bulb holders, so the light would stay visible if one bulb failed:


The only markings found during cleaning, N4031 P2:


PB

Knew you'd take them away for cleaning mate how excited you were lol.

As Simon says great time despite the low haul, wish i could have stayed sat night but thourghly enjoyed myself on my first dig in 20 years! Look forward to the next.

Chief

Hi All,

Yes finds were limited but a great weekend ! But we now know the Departing Americans did throw Ammo, .50 Tracking and Gun parts into the Pond from the edge of the roadway including an amount of Bomb Fusing wire, landing lights and insulators and .50 cleaning rods, much of which was picked over by locals, an earlier dig revealed Gun Parts but trees prevented a full excavation, with the trees now removed we now proved nothing was pushed in from the ajacent side of the Pond during the War, just post War concrete dumped pressumably from the Base including vehicle and Farm machinary remains from an ajacent farm, all mettalic objects were retained for recycling with all profits going to our next Dig...

Geofizz Malc..