Battlefield Archaeology: An insider's view on WW2 battle relics excavation

Military archaeology, the research for battlefield relics dating to World War 1 and World War 2 is a widespread practice in many areas across the world.

In Europe, the fierce battles fought on the Eastern Front during WW2, produced millions of dead soldiers, many of whom lay where they fell.

Groups of metal detectors are searching the now serene areas and are locating many items, ranging from guns, ammunition, parts of vehicles, aircraft, bunkers, to human remains of soldiers who were killed during those battles, along with their personal belongings.

There is a big discussion on the ethical aspect of battlefield archaeology, as it has been proved to be a highly lucrative business, with many collectors worldwide prepared to pay thousands in order to get a rusty item, once belonging to a soldier.

In some countries, battlefield archaeology is associated to grave looting, as many researchers simply obtain the items they want to sell and just scatter the bones of the soldiers killed in action, desecrating their final resting place and disappearing all items, like dog tags and personal items, that could help identify those persons.

On the other side, there are military archaeologists, who do their research with respect to the fallen soldiers, try to identify the killed and work closely with state authorities, in order to ensure that personal belongings are returned to the families of the soldiers who never made it back home.

The Romanian Military Archaeology is one of these researcher groups who are the "good guys".

Here is their story:

When and why did you start looking for battlefield relics?

The Romanian Military Archaeology group was founded at the beginning of 2015 by me, Michele, and Daniel. 

When we met, we realised that we share some common interests, rooted into the Romanian history, especially around situations of armed conflict within Romanian territory. 

Both having recently purchased our first metal detector, we decided to explore exactly what was interesting for us, Romanian battlefields areas from WW1 and WW2. 

From the beginning, our intention was to explore the sector which defined our recent national history , starting this way also the first movement of military archaeology in Romania. 

We don’t consider ourselves archaeologists, but "military archaeology" is the closest term to describe our work. 

In Romania searching for militaria isn’t a widespread practice, we are very few compared to the number of registered metal detector users. 

So this results in virtually virgin areas to explore, where we have started our work. 

In a short time we had the luck to gain a lot of attention, finding our selves managing a site and page with over 10,000 followers, subscribers, likes and so on. 

The core team of the R.M.A. group is formed around 5-6 individuals, but we have recently enlarged the team, adding another team operating in Moldavia, Iasi area.

What is the most important relic you have found so far and why is it important in your opinion? Did you ever find any personal stories related to the relics you found?

It’s hard to choose a single item, because there are many with relevant importance or particular histories. 

We have found some very interesting personal items, like a gold wedding ring with the soldier’s wife name ''Henny Carlson'', and the date of their wedding 23.10.1914.

Considering that the battle which took place in the area where the ring was found is dated 1915, we can conclude that they were married for maybe a year. 

We found near Bucharest  a lighter with the engraving ‘’Sevastopol - Crimea 1943’’, probably belonging to a soviet soldier which ended in Romania, during the fights around Bucharest, after having fought also in Crimea. 

Or to a Romanian soldier who fought in Crimea and came back home to fight around Bucharest, we will never know. 

We found also another lighter, this time in a WW1 area, this one reporting a Romanian name engraved ‘’Dumitru Cimpoca’’. 

For us every object is important, everything that can be recovered and preserved, in order to become also inheritable. 

I would add also the items recovered from the battlefield of Oarba de Mures.

What happens when you find the remains of a killed soldier? What do you do with them? There are many cases when gravediggers just throw the bones away and desecrate the tombs of the soldiers. What is your opinion?

I will start by saying that there is a bit of confusion around this subject. 

There are a lot of people believing that every object found on a battlefield is looted from a dead body; that every identification tag found, is found with the owner’s body. 

This isn’t true, and shall be told. 

We have found many objects with names, but those are impossible to connect to their owners. 

We have found several identification tags, we contacted the authorities asking about a procedure to identify the owners and relatives, but at least in Romania the bureaucracy makes this process impossible. 

So we remain with this belongings, guarding them as something sacred. 

Last year we have found two WW1 mass graves, containing a total of 11 confirmed bodies. 

We alerted the local authorities and helped them to locate the exact perimeter of the graves, and in the recovering of all the remains, including the id-tags and other belongings. 

The remains will be buried at the local Heroes Mausoleum.

We don’t associate with any kind of black digging activity. 

We operate all our activities by following  the laws regarding metal detecting and national archaeological heritage. 

The black digging is just another form of stealing, and thieves exists in every domain, not only in metal detecting. 

We tend to believe that this situation is worse and more present in other places than Romania. 

For example in Russia, where the number of troops and materials implied was enormous, and some epic battles took place, so also the density of relics in the terrain is very high. 

There is a very well established market of relics coming from Russia, always fresh, weekly updated, even if in Russia the metal detecting was forbidden i think 2 or 3 years ago, due to this black digging activity, which developed into a black market. 

We always alert the authorities when we find human remains or live ammunition/ordnance. Is also our interest, as history motivated individuals, to know that the soldiers remains, if found, will end properly buried.

Do you have a permanent exhibition of the relics found? What are your plans regarding these relics?

No, we don’t have a permanent exhibition, or own the space in order to organise something similar. 

Some of the items are donated to the museums, the rest (what can be legally kept) goes into our collections. 

To be honest, we tried to establish a dialogue with some institutions which should have been interested in our works, but without gaining any feedback from them. 

Maybe in the future, when something, somehow and at some point will change, we will be able to present the relics in a proper way.

Are you working together with experts on archaeology, history etc.?

No, we are ‘’alone’’ in what we are doing. There is no interest coming from the archaeologists when it comes about WW1/WW2 contexts; they barely cover what is considered a priority in their work (national archaeological heritage) so there are no funds for researching recent history. 

We operate by our personal funds, we aren’t funded by none, we aren’t associated to other organisations or parties, we are R.M.A.

Tell us a bit more about the war history of Romania; WW1, WW2 and your searches in those areas were the battles were fought.

I will describe in few words our area of operations. 

Regarding the Romanian WW1 history and battlefields, we have everything concentrated in the area of the Carphatian Curvature, around the city of Brasov, and the Oituz area, around the city of Bacau. 

In these locations took place the biggest clashes during WW1 within the Romanian territory. 

Regarding WW2 we have locations disseminated throughout the country, around Ploiesti, where the Germans were controlling the oil refineries (later bombed by the US Air Force) or around Bucharest. 

But the spots of the most concentrated WW2 activity, are located in the northern Romania, in Moldavia, where the soviet offensive breached into the Romanian territory, and later on in all the country. 

We explore bigger or smaller spots from those areas, planning our trips even with months in advance, because we allocate much time also preparing the documentation and following the history of the places we’re going to explore. 

We use history books, books written by local veterans, stories heard from locals in some remote village... 

Describe yourselves: Are you professionals or hobbyists? What is your background?

We must declare ourselves hobbyists, even if we operate more like professionals :). 

During the past year, we had encountered a lot of situations to manage, starting with the mass graves, ending in a mine field, so we were forced to learn by the circumstances. 

In short time, we started reserching about digging techniques, methods in order to dig preserving the context of a possible grave, methods to dig without damaging the object, how to recognise live ammunition, how to…everything. 

Each of us comes from different mediums: I am a visual artist, Daniel is a sales manager, Adi a chef, Ovidiu works at the ambulance service and so on.

Is metal detecting legal in Romania? (I ask because in Greece it is illegal).

Yes, in Romania you can go metal detecting if you follow some basic rules: you must register your MD to the authorities in order to obtain a permit, which allows you to detain and use the machine. 

You must avoid archaeological protected areas, and you must hand to the authorities objects which could be of archaeological interest. 

And you must cover your holes :)

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WW2 Pacific Treasures: Operation Cartwheel, Bougainville, November 1943 to August 1945

Bougainville, Papua New Guinea - 1943

Photos : William C. Shrout - LIFE Collections

The Bougainville Campaign was a series of land and naval battles of the Pacific campaign of World War II between Allied forces and the Empire of Japan. 

It was part of Operation Cartwheel, the Allied grand strategy in the South Pacific. The campaign took place in the Northern Solomons in two phases.

The first phase, in which American troops invaded and held the Perimeter around the beachhead at Torokina, lasted from November 1943 through November 1944. 

The second phase, in which primarily Australian troops went on the offensive, mopping up pockets of starving, isolated but still-determined Japanese, lasted from November 1944 until August 1945, when the last Japanese on the island surrendered.

Operations during the final phase of the campaign saw the Australian forces advance north towards the Bonis Peninsula and south towards the main Japanese stronghold around Buin, although the war ended before these two enclaves were completely destroyed.

Before the war, Bougainville had been administered as part of the Australian Territory of New Guinea, even though, geographically, Bougainville is part of the Solomon Islands chain. 

The United Kingdom and Germany had traded it for another islands territory which became British rather than German. 

As a result, within the various accounts of the campaign it is referred to as part of both the New Guinea and the Solomon Islands campaigns.

During their occupation the Japanese constructed naval aircraft bases in the north, east, and south of the island; but none in the west. They developed a naval anchorage at Tonolei Harbor near Buin, their largest base, on the southern coastal plain of Bougainville. 

On the nearby Treasury and Shortland Islands they built airfields, naval bases and anchorages. 

These bases helped protect Rabaul, the major Japanese garrison and naval base in Papua New Guinea, while allowing continued expansion to the south-east, down the Solomon Islands chain, to Guadalcanal and New Guinea and beyond. 

To the Allies, Bougainville would later also be considered vital for neutralizing the Japanese base around Rabaul. 

In March–April 1942, the Japanese landed on Bougainville as part of their advance into the South Pacific. 

At the time, there was only a small Australian garrison on the island which consisted of about 20 soldiers from the 1st Independent Company and some coastwatchers. 

Shortly after the Japanese arrived, the bulk of the Australian force was evacuated by the Allies, although some of the coastwatchers remained behind to provide intelligence. Once secured, the Japanese began constructing a number of airfields across the island. 

The main airfields were on Buka Island, the Bonis Peninsula in the north, at Kahili and Kara, in the south, and Kieta on the east coast, while a naval anchorage was constructed at Tonolei Harbor near Buin on the southern coastal plain, along with anchorages on the Shortland Islands group. 

At the opening of the Allied offensives, their estimates of Japanese strength on Bougainville varied widely, ranging between 45,000 and 65,000 Army, Navy, and labour personnel.

These forces constituted the Japanese 17th Army, commanded by General Harukichi Hyakutake. 

Hyukatake reported to General Hitoshi Imamura, commander of the Japanese Eighth Area Army, headquartered at Rabaul on New Britain Island.

Naval command at Rabaul was the responsibility of Vice Admiral Jinichi Kusaka, commander Southeast Area Fleet. 

The level of cooperation between these two officers was greater than that usually found between the branches of the Japanese armed forces.

On Bougainville, the Japanese forces consisted of the following formations: the 17th Infantry Group – consisting of the 81st Infantry Regiment and the III Battalion, 53rd Infantry Regiment under Major General Kesao Kijima and elements of the 6th Division. 

The 17th Infantry occupied northern Bougainville, while the 6th had responsibility for the island south of Tarina.

SOURCE 

1948: Nazi aircraft with the star of David and the irony of History

An artist's representation of a dogfight between an Israeli Bf109 (Avia S199) and an Egyptian Spitfire in 1948

Just try to imagine the scene and grasp the irony of History: 

Israel’s first fighter plane was the famed German fighter Messerschmitt Bf109. 

The Czechs sold 25 of their own version of the fighter to Israel, named Avia S-199.

A Bf109 with the star of David

Constructed in Czechoslovakia, with parts and plans left over from Luftwaffe aircraft production, the aircraft had numerous problems and was generally unpopular with its pilots. 

It had a bomber motor, making it very unwieldy to fly and land. Many of the planes crashed shortly before or after arriving in Israel. 

Czechoslovak pilots nicknamed it Mezek ("Mule"), while in Israel it was officially known as the Sakeen ("knife" in Hebrew). 

A downed Egyptian Spitfire on the beach of Tel-Aviv

In practice, the aircraft was more often called Messerschmitt or Messer (which also means "knife", in German and Yiddish).

On May 15, 1948, immediately after the Israeli Declaration of Independence on the previous day, a full-blown Arab-Israeli war broke out, the first in a series of clashes between the two parties in the following decades, a deep hatred that continues to fuel clashes to this day, with no foreseeable resolution.

One of the three B-17 bombers sold to the Israelis for $15,000 a piece

A combined invasion by Egypt, Jordan and Syria, together with expeditionary forces from Iraq, entered Palestine.

An artist's representation of a dogfight between an Israeli Bf109 (Avia S199) and an Egyptian Spitfire in 1948

The invading forces took control of the Arab areas and immediately attacked Israeli forces and several Jewish settlements.

The 10 months of fighting, interrupted by several truce periods, took place mostly on the former territory of the British Mandate and for a short time also in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon.

Arab Air Forces: Spitfires, T-6 Texans, C-47 Dakotas, Hawker Hurricanes, Avro Ansons

Israeli Air Forces: Spitfires, Avia S-199s, B-17 Flying Fortresses, P-51 Mustangs, C-47 Dakotas

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