[nuk3m]

Hi Holy Grail,

Used to do a lot of that as a kid, roaming through the forests and around old bunkers and the like near where I grew up. Never found anything, though. Probably for the best. My dad was luckier in that regard, if you can call it lucky. He was nine years old in 1945. After the war, his dad (my grandfather) took him to the forest to search for abandond Panzerfaeuste (hand held anti tank weapons). My granpa had been trained in the Volkssturm and knew how to fire those things, but not how to disable them without firing. However, he needed the long tubes or barrels of these weapons to put them together to make a table for a table saw. With a table saw, he could cut wood for other people in exchange for food during those lean years, as there was a lot of construction going on, but not much to eat.
So, my dad and his dad used to collect panzerfaeuste and used them to knock down trees. "Quite exciting," my dad used to say.
Earlier, just after the Americans had captured his hometown, my father had an even more exciting adventure. Playing in the forest on a high hill with his friends, the boys found a quadruple 20 mm anti aircraft gun. With the three seats on this thing and the swivel mount, it looked just like a caroussell or a merry-go-round. So they all enthusiastically sat on those seats and started spinning the gun around. All was fun and games, until one of them found this strange pedal, not knowing that it was the trigger of the gun. The kid pressed it (don't if it was my dad, or another kid) and the whole thing went "thunck," "thunck," "thunck," thunck," "thunck." The ikds were all scared out of their wits and shortly after, a bunch of jeeps and halftracks full of US soldiers showed up, fully expecting having to take out one of the last fanatical holdouts. Finding only a few scared little kids with wet pants, they distributed rounds of chocolate, took the kids back home, and blew up the AA gun. End of story.

So, I guess the moral of this long rant is, be careful what you wish for. There is still plenty of unexploded munitons around in areas of Europe. Who knows what you might find.

Regards,

RB

U are so right cuz were i live there is hill full of trenches from ww1 in romania and i remember that my father told me that some friends oh him gone there to take some metal to sold them cuz in romania the metal has a good price so these guys here found some bombs one of them put it on his shoulder but he drop it and 2 og them died and one of them even now has no leg...
It is very dangerous...i've gone there personaly but beyng very cautios that place there wasn't cleared like u said by the soldiers but left abbandoned so u can find there everything! i've gone after a storm and near the road there was this black powder..i think it was a mine or something benith that coroded in time but i didn't got close..and then thousends of small balls of heavy metal that i found there were in the bombs like shrapnles. but the most interisting thing that i found there was a german knife i don't have the photo now i will post it i think it was from a general or something cuz it was with symbols and stuff...but a very dangerous place! near my city 20 years ago were making a building when they found a huge bunker of bombs they took them like 3 days to clear them!
Be carefull if u don't have a metal detector or u don't know what device is don't try to dig...!

[HolyGrail]

Hi bohr-r
that was a wonderful story , I wish I have seen that on my own eyes , people also
used to have much better attitude bettween each other than these modern days .
I always believed I would be more useful back in those times , than now
I grew up in Czechoslovakia and was born in 1969 , there used to be a lot of metal
scrap yards around all over the place with huge pile ups of various metal stuff and
too often there were many German helmets with emblems on it in mint condition ,
with bullets holes in it or without , many incomplete German pistols and a lot of other
various stuff that was still around even thou that many years after war was over as
some people got rid of it at latter time as they didn't seen any value in it back then .
We just love it going through pile ups of metal scrap yards looking for any WWII items .
I don't even know where that all stuff we found end up but these modern days to find
anything is indeed almost impossible .
There is pretty big chance someone else was already looking there before :lol:
Bunkers in Czechoslovakia did left in me wonderful memories , it was so creepy going
underground through those dark huge concrete bunkers , I always couldn't imagine there
were actually German soldiers before me and was trying to piece things together
what likely happened there by looking on the destruction from shells hit on some of
those bunkers hock:
I believe there is a little Indiana Jones in each of us trying to find something not found before
Unbelievably some bunkers were not long time ago for sale and no matter how hard I try ,
I can't find any contact on any of the seller of some of these bunkers that might be still for sale
Would like to try to negotiate something to save at least one bunker from being lost forever .
So far living in the U.S. now for almost 15 years but have plans to go back to visit those
bunkers once again and want to do something about it .
I remember watching news just few years ago when some people got back their land
that once used to be theirs and guess what , those bunkers were in many locations right
on their land so they were selling their land with WWII bunkers
I want one of those !! :lol:
Thankfully , I did served in Czechoslovakian military in 1988 to 1990 and had pleasure to
go also through live grenade training exercises and have the utmost respect for these things
and will be always careful better not touch it especially old ammunition .
Holy moly I need to stop typing :lol:

bohr-r , thank you again for sharing your story , I love reading those stories and memories .

@ nuk3m ,
thank you for sharing memories

S! HG

[bohr-r]

Hi Nuk3m, hi Holy Grail,

Thanks for your responses. Obviously, I had no idea about your background, or where you grew up. The internet can be a strangely personal/impersonal place. I wrote it mainly, because the first thing that came to mind, were my mom's stories about her work as a nurse and social worker during and after WWII. Like any little boy, I used to like to play with fire crackers and the like However, my mother told me a lot about kids she had treated, or whose families she had to visit, who had body parts blown off, etc., just as Nuk3m described.
One New year's Eve, my friends and I were playing with fire crackers just after midnight. I held four or five of the big ones (about the size of a really big highlighter felt pen) in my hand, trying to light the fuse of just one of them with a lighter. I did, and as I waited for the fuse to catch and as I was getting ready to throw the thing, suddenly the other firecrackers in my hand went off, because the flame must have caught more than one fuse. It nearly scared the living s..t out of me! :o
I had held so many firecrackers in my hand, I couldn't close my fingers around them. That's probably what saved me, because I didn't get a scratch. But that was the last time, I played with them for fun. :oops:
Anyway, just wanted to let you know, I have yet to make it to Romania, but I have been to the Czech Republic and to Prague (beautiful place!) and we have a few Romanian and Czech friends.

Take care,

RB

[dorkfish]

Thankfully , I did served in Czechoslovakian military in 1988 to 1990 and had pleasure to go also through live grenade training exercises and have the utmost respect for these things
and will be always careful better not touch it especially old ammunition .
Holy moly I need to stop typing :lol:

We were Cold War neighbors. (1st AD - Vilseck. mid '88 to mid '90.)

[nuk3m]

If u go to romania i can give u the adress of the place but is stuff from ww1 and i don't know if u are interessted...it's on a hill this summer i will go again is a cool place even for picnic...if u don't sit oin a mine...or something...the place is called Oituz i thik there is somthing on internet and was the last defensive line of the romanians there is a phrase that said " Not 1m backward!" from a romanian general infact the germans didn't managed to broke it! there are still the trenches...like in France ..at Somme

[wurzel]

I've saw them on internet there was a site i can't find anymore the link but i've saved the immages then i've looked for some documentation about this finding,..and i've found it on a russian site i understand a little so there was a russian guy that is an expert in symbols of ww2 and like u said he was from medical personal and on the postcard it was writed for her mother..but he didn't send it...

The reciver of the postcard is the soldier. His rank was "Oberzahlmeister" or "Master Paymaster(?)".