What is your favourite (world) war?

[JayJay 78]

World war 3 is looking to be a blast tbh

[Dunkz 122]

i

[Howl 945]

2 hours ago, JayJay said:

World war 3 is looking to be a blast tbh

 

[Clark Kent 55]

World War 4 is in the making don't ya kno? That one will be the best.

[Chris 34]

World war 2

[Stewie 226]

On 10/25/2020 at 8:50 PM, Trevor said:

Keep going

Something I found quite interesting when I was in France/Beligum was that during a certain time of the year when the farmers plough their fields, they will purposely search for WW1 items as there are still thousands of tonnes worth under the ground - it's called the Iron Harvest and makes for very interesting reading online, there are a lot of fatalities during this time of the year with many Farmers being killed by shrapnel from unexploded bombs under the surface of the ground that their tractors dig up. Bomb disposal squads are obviously very active at this time of year. Crazy to think that over 102 years on from the end of World War 1 there are still people technically being killed by it.

 

When me and my brother were over in the Somme in France, we went through a field close to the Lochnagar crater, which was the site of the biggest underground explosion of all time at the time (basically trench miners dug under enemy trench systems, planted loads of bombs and set them off, they usually set them off just before an offensive where troops went over the top of the trench), when we walked through the field almost instantly we found bullets, bullet shells, sharpnel, old shell casings (bombs with no detonators attached/exploded already) and pigtail iron (thick iron poles used for holding up barbed wire infront of trenches) and we were only in the field a matter of minutes and we weren't opver there during the harvest season. We also saw piles of shells already dug up by farmers/landowners in Ypres, Belgium, at a place called the Hoog crater, piles and piles of old bombs etc. man was pretty cool

[Quincy 16]

Z

[Trevor 72]

5 hours ago, Stewie390 said:

Something I found quite interesting when I was in France/Beligum was that during a certain time of the year when the farmers plough their fields, they will purposely search for WW1 items as there are still thousands of tonnes worth under the ground - it's called the Iron Harvest and makes for very interesting reading online, there are a lot of fatalities during this time of the year with many Farmers being killed by shrapnel from unexploded bombs under the surface of the ground that their tractors dig up. Bomb disposal squads are obviously very active at this time of year. Crazy to think that over 102 years on from the end of World War 1 there are still people technically being killed by it.

 

When me and my brother were over in the Somme in France, we went through a field close to the Lochnagar crater, which was the site of the biggest underground explosion of all time at the time (basically trench miners dug under enemy trench systems, planted loads of bombs and set them off, they usually set them off just before an offensive where troops went over the top of the trench), when we walked through the field almost instantly we found bullets, bullet shells, sharpnel, old shell casings (bombs with no detonators attached/exploded already) and pigtail iron (thick iron poles used for holding up barbed wire infront of trenches) and we were only in the field a matter of minutes and we weren't opver there during the harvest season. We also saw piles of shells already dug up by farmers/landowners in Ypres, Belgium, at a place called the Hoog crater, piles and piles of old bombs etc. man was pretty cool

Were you just visiting on your own accord or were you part of some organization in efforts to help with the clean-up? Don't suppose there's anywhere I could go ahead and read/watch to learn more about the Iron Harvest? Sounds like it'd make one hell of a war documentary. 

[Stewie 226]

9 hours ago, Trevor said:

Were you just visiting on your own accord or were you part of some organization in efforts to help with the clean-up? Don't suppose there's anywhere I could go ahead and read/watch to learn more about the Iron Harvest? Sounds like it'd make one hell of a war documentary. 

I haven't heard of any documentaries or anything about it surprisingly, there's mentions of it in a few things I've watched on YouTube but that's it.  In France, there's a city called Verdun, where there was a huge offensive from the Germans on the French and British forces for months on end, and there is an area called "The Red Zone" where people are still not allowed to go today, due to all the live explosives and chemicals that were left once the war had ended ( very high levels of radiation in the soil and water table in the area too), tourists still go there though, sneaking through, and loads die because of explosions or get ill because of the spoil.

 

Nah we were just over as tourists, I think it's set archaelogist type companies that do a lot of the cleanups and excavations, I'm not aware of any charities but there may be some, if there are I'll be applying haha so might look into this. You can go over as an amature digger but you need to get permission from the farmers/landowners etc. unless you go to one of the public trails where there were trench lines (there are loads of maps showing you these as you walk/drive around the towns) and dig behind the trees, we found a few spots where people had been doing this. I can imagine it would be amazing fun with a metal detector in these parts, you'd find loads man.

[Trevor 72]

3 hours ago, Stewie390 said:

I haven't heard of any documentaries or anything about it surprisingly, there's mentions of it in a few things I've watched on YouTube but that's it.  In France, there's a city called Verdun, where there was a huge offensive from the Germans on the French and British forces for months on end, and there is an area called "The Red Zone" where people are still not allowed to go today, due to all the live explosives and chemicals that were left once the war had ended ( very high levels of radiation in the soil and water table in the area too), tourists still go there though, sneaking through, and loads die because of explosions or get ill because of the spoil.

 

Nah we were just over as tourists, I think it's set archaelogist type companies that do a lot of the cleanups and excavations, I'm not aware of any charities but there may be some, if there are I'll be applying haha so might look into this. You can go over as an amature digger but you need to get permission from the farmers/landowners etc. unless you go to one of the public trails where there were trench lines (there are loads of maps showing you these as you walk/drive around the towns) and dig behind the trees, we found a few spots where people had been doing this. I can imagine it would be amazing fun with a metal detector in these parts, you'd find loads man.

Not to overreach but don't assume you have any pictures laying around from your adventure?

[Stewie 226]

6 minutes ago, Trevor said:

Not to overreach but don't assume you have any pictures laying around from your adventure?

Yeah I do I'll dig out some of them and post them here in a bit man