Blue Division Relics

[Sadurni]

Today the battlefiled looks prety much as it looked on that cold morning of February 10th....

[Kevin Grootaers]

Nice relics.

[Sadurni]

detail of one of the pouches and one spanish belt

[williamsong]

Wow mate..! that finds are really awesome!! very hard to find, and so beautiful to see, thank you very much for share it!

[Woolgar]

A great thread I love reading about the tenacious Blue Division !

Nick

[Sadurni]

What is very interesting is how we know the story of the battlefield where the item was found....but now..let's focus in the history of a particular piece itself....what does this helmet tell us.....



Maker mark is no longer visible due to corrosion, but I believe this helmet to be either of ET or SE manufacture, due to the shape of the Shell and of the vent holes. The outside dome has some pitting and is more damaged than the rest of the helmet, which makes me think it was laying dome down. It also has a stress crack.



The Huber Jordan Spanish Freiwillige decal is right down to the mm and the detail and characteristics of this very particular decal are present, note how is misaligned and no space under the vent hole,..common trait in original BD lids....!!



The clay that is still rather stuck to the shell is exactly the same as the one on one of the ammo pouches found in the same bunker.



Unfortunately the Heer decal is not in such good condition, and it has some wax on it probably was near a candle on the bunker where it was kept, that wax preserved the adler´s wing in good condition while the rest has surfed quite some deterioration.



The interior leather is still there with its original drawstring; unfortunately the liner band is far gone and can no longer tell any markings. Fortunately the markings on the chinstrap are still visible and is marked 1940.





The helmet has an eraly production lot number 852:



so what can we conlcude of this items..what´s its history......?

So if its ET or SE, the lot number would place it in 1940 as year of production, I believe,.....so therefore it could very well be one of the original helmets supplied to the Blue Division at the training camp of Grafenwohr...so therefore this helmet lived the units history, from supply at the Bavarian training camp where it received the Spanish volunteer issue decal (maybe that is why it survived) to the long march to Russia where it saw action on the Novgorod Sector, until it finally got lost in the Krasny Bor/Kolpino sector on that "Black February" of 1942 in those courageous actions performed by those brave men of Regiment 262 that held off the Soviet onslaught long enough for the unit to reorganize and stop the offensive

[Sadurni]

Now ...spanish belts and buckles were quite common on the filed...but not so common were the spanish made mouser rifle pouches...thes have lost all the stitching but the leather survived.....

[Sadurni]

Now the items were in a bunker (isba) about 6m down...in it were two helmets, two belts and three pouches along with some other material I was unable to obtaine: Photos when items were being cleaned:





When found both items had their liners..but one didnt survive.......

[Scout]

VERY interesting. Good pics, super relics and very distinctive pouches.
Thanks for posting.

[Sadurni]

Now the second helmet is not in such good condition...and no markings are visible, therefore I cannot piece the story as the first......but it's a rather large size lid....





An interesting fact that this rather rare find has allowed us to do, is to measure and compare original decals. Spanish Volunteer decals were made only by one maker Huber Jordan and was just one model of face down transfer...it has rather unique characteristics and measurements. So this discovery has allowed us to confirm the presence of this details. Thank God...fakers have not been abel to replicate this smal details, and even though they are getting close..the right measurments of the decal are unique and they have not gotten them right



the adler is also in poor condition:





and the interior, to bad that the liner did not survive and just rotted away....