More 8th airforce finds. you must look

[381st digger]

Due to being rained off work yesterday i decided to have a day of getting stung and bitten in an essex wood and boy was it worth it!!! Just look at this lot
Im not complaining but i seem to find loads of dog tags (all from the same area) Why is that? I would have thort that a GI would have been in deep s**t if he had lost them Ok some are miss prints so i can see why they would be there but most are fine.

The big green piece of metal is the back of the bomberdeers chair from a B17 and the blue piece of glass is a wing or tail light i think.

I think my best find of the day was the little stash of navigators equipment quite rare i would think. Just to think what has been seen throu the goggle lens

I hope all my pictures wont bore you. Let me know what you think

[Adrian Stevenson]

These are most certainly not boring! Great stuff

I think finding a dog tag must be a great thrill.

Cheers, Ade.

[Steve T]

Nice finds !

Nice US collar tab, a couple of dress uniform buttons and some lieutenants bars.......very nice.

Looks like you also got a ear piece from a flying helmet

Very nice dogtags as well. You should be able to track the Airman down quite easily with them !

Good site ! Get back there !

Steve T

[ian_]

Thanks for posting! always good to look at bits of 'plane. The long piece of thin stainless steel with the folded over ends is nice. It's part of the flexible feed for a .5 Browning, probably from a waist gun in a late war B17 Fortress although they were used in several other aircraft. Good game, as Brucie would say. Link here
http://www.maxrules.com/b17trip2.html

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Ian, I reckon you are right re the .50 cal feedway. It was designed by Howard Hughes I believe?

Cheers, Ade.

[ian_]

Well I didn't know that! There is something very medieval about that tracking, it all links together like armour. There are at least two different types, one from flat pressed sections, one with a wire bead around the edges. Always lots at Eighth and Ninth airforce crash sites.

[381st digger]

Hi all.
The airmen whos tags they were are really easy to find out about. When i find them i cant wate to get home and find out all about them. It makes them come to life when you know a little about the men who onened them!
Yep it is a small piece of traceing. A friend of mine found a piece in a ditch witch was just over 1m long (lucky sod) all iv got is one link. Thanks Ade i didnt know who they were designed bye (learn somthing new every day!)
Iv been informed that the light is a starboard (right) nav light lens. It is blue because the old light bulbs shone abit yellow. So yellow + blue make green. Green being the starboard light.

[gremlin]

Some really fantistic finds ... wish I could get bored digging up dog tags!! Were these finds made by metal detecting or simply by digging in the area of a dump ... ?

[381st digger]

Some really fantistic finds ... wish I could get bored digging up dog tags!! Were these finds made by metal detecting or simply by digging in the area of a dump ... ?

Hi gremlin,
No i didnt use a metal for any of them! The area im digging has to much metal in it to use one so just hard digging!!

[ironcross1]

Awesome stuff , you guys are so lucky to be able to find these relics , cheers Raymond