New site 'The Three in One' WW2 British Airfield,

[LUCKYSTRIKE]

Both Me and Whitehunter have had our eye on this airfield for sometime but just never got around to having a serious look around. But in the summer WH had spotted the potential site of a small dump, so we finally got around to checking it out .

(1 of 3) Obviously our first destination was the dump site, it looked promising around the edges with a good scattering of broken period glass and pottery. We soon got going, WH dug a hole at the edge only about 10 feet from me, he dug down through nice black soil into period domestic relics. I'd chosen nearer the middle of the dump and immediately hit first a foot of so of orange clay soil full of stones and well compacted that had been used to cap the site. Sadly below this was another layer of 1960's waste. This was mainly made up of large pieces of rusted metal including caravan argh, all very hard to dig through. I kept at it though because I'm certain under this 60's rubbish lay the decent WW2 dump, this was confirmed by WH's find of the remains of a WW2 Gas ointment tin and tubes etc. But after 3 1/2 hours toil digging away and still not reaching WW2, my moral was crushed!! I got a few bits of scrap lead and brass but nothing more but never say never (may be next time).

(2 of 3) With only a couple of hours day light left we returned to our cars and swapped dump digging gear for Metal Detectors. Although we had looked at aerial pictures before we didn't really have any plan where to search so just headed for the edge of flat ground away from the former runway. By the time we were ready to search we only had about an hours light left. We were soon swinging away and stopping every few paces to dig an interesting signal. We kept at it until it got dark and then too dark to see where we were even walking. But the MD saved the day for me, In a relatively short time we'd recovered quite a few interesting relics from the war years.

(3 of 3) We trudged back to the cars with one final search planned. A magnet search of the pond close by. First set back was WH finding he'd forgotten to bring his magnet !!! Never mind I had mine so we'd give it a go. Sadly no luck here either although the pond was there during the war and even had concrete road/taxi ways constructed around it. All the relics if there are any will now lie very deep under the silt. As soon as I cast the first throw and dragged the magnet back we noticed it was only about 1 foot or so below the surface of what is a large pond, it just slid across the smooth surface of the silt. We walked around the edge and tried a few places but with the same result. Nothing was brought out except slime and algie. Never mind at least we'd tried.

The following day I emptied my full MD finds bag . As well as the usual bits of scrap, copper wire, bits of brass and alloy there were a few interesting WW2 relics.

The first pictures show the relics as found straight from the bag. Notice the 2inch flare cartridge bases, all 35 of them came from just one hole, I called WH over and he had a few out as well.







The first three flare cartridge bases are cleaned.



An interesting aero? black electrical panel, sadly with no markings except the aluminiumn stamp that it's made from. You can see where the labels had originally been stuck perhaps for warning lights or switches.



A razor handle and thin brass cog wheel.



My favourite aero related find.... sorry if I took a few pics but I wanted to show all the angles to help identify it. The frame is aero alloy and the paddle wheel is solid and quite weighty brass. Sadly I could find no markings, perhaps they were lost to corrosion. It's 8 cm tall and the wheel is 5 cm across.



The top seems to have a small filter tray, perhap's it was used for a cooling, fuel or oil system.





You can see why it was dumped, it's lost some of the paddles from this side.



A piece of aero skin, this was found on the surface by WH and given to me. It still retains a fair bit of the paint even the underside has a little light blue.





Sadly the marking is not very clear.



And finally a nice but corroded WD 1940 spoon.



That's my finds for now !!, I think it looks promising for periodical searches in the future. Not bad for only an hours MD, I've already forgotten how the rest of the day progressed.
Cheers
LUCKYSTRIKE

[Steve T]

Some interesting bits and a good 'save' after the disappointment of the dump

Good job !

[cornishboy]

Well done chaps,good effort.Thanks for sharing the experience

[ian_]

Nice bits, the brass bit is an air driven gyro out of an instrument. Either an artificial horizon or gyro compass.

[Whitehunter]

Great story LS really brung me back to the day

First up LS's Caravan part
Attachment 449313
More dump finds, Poison bottle, Johnson & Johnson toothbrush, 1914 penny, War grade stopper and a nice Biscuit,tea, Tobacco ect tin
Attachment 449314
Attachment 449315
Attachment 449317
Attachment 449318
Attachment 449319
All my finds from the day, I didn't get as many good keeper from the MD part mostly scrap, but oh well still a great day out
Attachment 449316
Attachment 449322


I'm sure we will be again in the near future so stay tuned

[LUCKYSTRIKE]

Nice pics Mate, they came out well for a dull overcast day, can even see the detail on the penny!! I see a nice looking little panel in there and was thinking perhaps that control knob is from an oxy cylinder rather than a heating valve,
Cheers
LS

[LUCKYSTRIKE]

Hi Ian,
Thats excellent news, it seems so obvious now that you've said . An air powered gyro love it, a well made and eyecatching relic you can feel the quality, I'm sure if the alloy surface hadn't been so corroded it would have been covered in aero markings.
Will update the thread after our next foray.
Cheers.
LS