I've been at it again ! WW2 airfield. 1st visit of 2009

[Steve T]

Hi All

Well the snow finally melted and the weather turned warmer so I decided to get out to the WW2 airfield I have been going to.

Not as good a day as when i found the Merlin exhaust ports, but a good day none the less.

I need help with a couple of items below, especially the 303 cartridge and the aircraft part.

Here we go !!

Here's everything i found prior to cleaning.



....And then after the obligatory 3 hours of poking, scraping, rubbing and scrubbing....



First up is BUTTONS !! Anyone identify them as army issue on shirts ?



You shouldn't go anywhere without your Brylcream !



Nor should you go anywhere without the appropriate toothpaste !



But if you do leave home without either, this probably would have come in handy



Some chunks of stuff i have yet to identify (apart from the 'O' ring). Can anyone help with the other 2 ? (for a scale, the 'o' ring is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter)



This thing is about 3 inches tall and about 1.5 inches in diameter. One end has a slider, the other has what appears to be a lens and a mounting for a bulb. Anyone any clue ?





This next item is a bit of a puzzler.....Why oh WHY did someone firstly have a grenade on an airfield and secondly, why did they remove the base nut ? (I have plenty of base nuts and it is obviously a Mills grenade No36 and the nut has been removed, not left in situ when the grenade was thrown and subsequently blasted form the main body of the grenade)



Now a very nice piece....something i'd never found before until today ! A cap off a 20mm projectile

Also in this pic are a .45cal bullet (far right) and a .30 cal M1 Carbine bullet (middle).



Some small arms cartridges. Mainly 303 apart from the one bottom left which is the remains of a 30cal.



Now here's where i need help as well......the 303 second from the right, bottom row. There is no percussion cap in the base of the cartridge and the cartridge itself has 4 regular and very deliberate 'scores' in it. Can someone tell me what type of cartridge this is ? (It's an ICI (Kynoch) made cartridge, made in 1940 and with an additional stamp of W1)



A load of 50 cal cartridges and bullets.



A complete 20mm cartridge and one that's been cut through.



And last but not least an aircraft part. I am not sure which aircraft it is from but the serial number stamp on it is of an identical style to piece of P-51D i found a while back. That piece was prefixed by '109'. This piece is prefixed by '104'. Anyone tell me which make/model of aircraft this denotes ?

The object is very light and about 4 inches tall. It's a precision bit of kit !







And that's the results of todays search.

I daren't tell the wife I am gonna need ANOTHER display cabinet very VERY soon

Steve T

[85ronnies]

Steve i am pretty sure the two things in the pic with o ring are, a lever out of a sash lock and a cable crimp to fasten a cable end to a bolt of some sort hope this helps a little

cheer's Ronnie

[Steve T]

Excellent !

Thanks 85

That is the third lever out of a sash lock i've found now. (i can say that now i know what the item is thanks to you )

[85ronnies]

you only need two more and you will have yourself a nice insurance grade 5 lever sash lock

[LUCKYSTRIKE]

Another great day and interesting finds thanks for posting.
The third picture down, top row middle button is another odd find its a standard WW2 German pebble button. It really makes me think that my theory following your find of the quarter German dog tag is correct in that the airfield was also used as a POW camp or at least a holding camp for prisoners recently flown over from Europe may well be true.
As always looking forward to your next visit. Good Luck.
LUCKYSTRIKE

[SteveR]

Brylcream was a hair oil used till the 70's when hair oil went out of fashion.

[Steve T]

Brylcream was a hair oil used till the 70's when hair oil went out of fashion.

You can still get it ! In fact it came back into vogue back when i was at secondary school ( late 70's early 80's) and i distinctly remember walking down a school corridor trying not to slip on the Brylcream 'splats' on the floor. The school ended up banning it

The tube i found is of the correct 'style' for the 1940's.

Steve T

[Steve T]

Ewwwwwwwwwww !!!

[gremlin]

Its always great to see another posting from this site ... I was really impressed by the Ipana and Barbasol tubes you found last time ... I'm currently working on a USAAF dump and hope to post some pics soon.
Anyway, the P-51 component you've located looks very much like a piece of the spent ammunition ejection system not for the spend cartridges but for the spent links - the piece of metal that protrudes from the rear bottom section helps to deflect spent links away from the underside of the wing as they get caught by the slipstream ...

ps. I think you should get back to this site as soon as possible ... and post pictures of your finds asap ... keeps me going until my next expedition!!

[gremlin]

Hi ... just another quick post ... Just checked on a US warbirds parts website ... and there is a right-hand P-51 links chute for sale with a serial number very similar to the one you found :

P51

Have a look at item L-243 (no picture unfortunately)