British army camp - Mine fuzes, 40mm Bofors and some rare cartridges!

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Hi all

Had a great dig on Sunday with some group members. Site is a location we had dug last year, so we knew what to expect from the site. The army blew the crap out of all the ammunition stored at the location at the end of the war. They dug a big pit, piled stuff in it, then blew it up......once a day, every day, for two weeks!

Had some great finds from the dig, with some items being quite common for this site, (mine fuzes and 40mm bases), but others less so. In fact, I added some rather rare cartridges to my collection this weekend!

Video of the dig.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8AMSpxyixc

And now the pics.................

Everything before cleaning.





And now after cleaning......



No 152 safety cap, No 17 transport caps, 2 inch mortar transport cap, plus one I can't track down. Most interesting in this picture is the PIAT fuze holder, which is of the smaller type I had not got an example of. I have now!



Nicely marked No 17 transport cap



WD arrow and 1941 dated fork



Bottom sections from 40mm Bofors shells, all nicely marked and WW2 dated.




No 3 fuzes for the British Mk V anti-tank mine.




Nicely marked and dated......






Bottom left the tip of a nose fuze, probably from a 40mm along with two wingnuts off 50cal ammo crates. 50cal bullet on right and then 50cal cartridges. But WAIT! The two far left are very slightly different to the rest....slightly narrower and the shoulder begins too low down for it to be a standard 50cal......





They are only bloody 50cal VICKERS cartridges !!!! AWESOME!! Never found one before, not got one in the collection, now have 2#



Left to right......30cal die-cast drill round, made by Triang. 303 drill, (no percussion cap and no flash holes either). Next German 1940 dated 7.92mm and lastly American 30cal.



Headstamp of German cartridge.....



Head of 303 showing lack of percussion cap and flash holes.



20mm Oerlikon cartridges.....or at least what's left of them.









It was a great day.......



Hope you like the finds



Steve T
 
Thanks for showing this to us! I wonder why there was so much destruction of supplies after WWII ? There seems to have been a policy
by the Americans especially to destroy or bury rather than sell as surplus or simply walk away from it.:confused:
 
Thanks guys :)

This site was an old British army camp on a country estate. The army treated the country manor house so badly it had to be demolished at the end of the war. As I said in my original post, they used one corner of one field on the estate to 'dispose' of ordnance from the ammo dumps dotted around the countryside near to the site. Quite a bit of what we recover from this site is very unusual, particularly the mine fuzes and 50cal Vickers. The site is some distance from the nearest airbase and the Americans were never stationed here so all this destruction is down to the British!
 
plinker 777 said:
.50 caliber Vickers would have been something to see!? Is this place an air force camp? Guns like that would not be anti-personnel type of small arm. I would imagine several of them either snuggled into the wings or nose of a 'tank killer' type air frame.
Click to expand...

when not on RN ships as light AA guns, the .50 vickers was mostly used in tanks early in the war. see the british light tank mk i though vi
 
Looks like the ammo was mostly burned before burial. From the way the cases are blown apart the Bofors rounds must have gone off with quite a bang!
 
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