Relics from Moissy ford

Martin if you follow the instructions I think you will be pleased with the results
a word of caution wear rubber gloves!!!
the stuff dose not burn your skin but I am sure its not good for you
it cleans copper and brass very well

 

Guys, here are some of my finds from moissy
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Sorry I will try again, Dose any one reckonise this item, it has a spring in center and what appers to be a cap over the top

 

Wow ! You're not kidding - I've just treated my first two items and the results are astonishing ! Much better than shot-blasting, as no damage is done to the non-oxidised metal.

Fantastic recommendation, Pegasus !

As to your mystery item, I can't help - except to say that I found an identical piece at Arnhem some years ago. It didn't have a cap on the top which was quite closely threaded......

 

I understand that there are many who use tooth brushes. Have you tried to use the electrical ones? I have one made by Braun that I use when I clean things like candlesticks and other items made of silver. Can also be used för cupper things like coins etc. Since I tried it the first time, noone in my family throws away the brushes when they have been worn out. We save them for our cleaning operations!

Try it!

Mats

 

Hello everyone,

All of the various captions to and descriptions of this famous photo that I have seen say the man to whom Hauptmann Rauch surrendered is Company Sergeant-Major George Mitchell. Mitchell was with "C" Company of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, my father's Company. There is no question that Mitchell and my father were present when the well-known photos and film were taken by Lieut. Grant and Sgt. Stollery. My father remembers the surrounding events, including Rauch’s side-car driving up the road and its occupants being forced to surrender, and is in the background of Grant's famous photo.

All who knew him describe George Mitchell as a very brave soldier, which he demonstrated at St. Lambert, Moissy, and later at Moerbrugge in Belgium, where his dangerous trip past the Germans to get more ammunition for the cut-off Canadians on the north side of the Ghent Canal probably saved the lives of my father and many of his comrades.

There are no still photos that show the face of the man taking Rauch's surrender on August 19. Recently, I extracted some frames from the newsreel footage that is at the end of the DVD, "Death & Destruction in the Falaise Gap." Some of these, which I have posted elsewhere, show much of the face of the man taking Rauch's surrender. I recently had a chance to sit with my father and go frame by frame through that sequence of the film. After looking at it very carefully, and comparing it to a clear photograph of George Mitchell in the Argyll's book, "Black Yesterdays," my father has concluded, rather reluctantly, that the man in the famous photo is not Mitchell. There are three reasons:

1. Mitchell had a moustache. The man in the film does not. Also, the man in the film appears to have a narrower face than Mitchell's, and in my father’s words, he does not recognize the man in the photo as, "the George Mitchell he knew."

2. As Company Sergeant-Major, Mitchell had a large, circular crest on the forearm of his tunic. The man in the film does not have such a crest. He appears to have a small, rectangular marking on his left forearm that is visible in a few frames.

3. Mitchell usually carried a Sten gun, not a rifle like the man in the photo.

My father met Mitchell again after the war, including at a reunion in 1963. They never looked at Grant's famous photograph together, so my father cannot say whether Mitchell believed he was the man shown taking Rauch's surrender.

The photo in question is probably the best known Canadian photograph of WWII, and although there is no doubt Mitchell was present at the time, it now seems he was not the man in question.

Kieran

 

those are pretty cool finds!

 

Thanks for the posting and info, Kieran.

It seems that, as is so often the case, something that has been 'taken as read' for many years may prove to be incorrect.....

 

the crossing, June 2010... seems peaceful and quiet now...



looking from the other side, back across... .....wait, what's that?



looks like there are still a few german straglers trying to get across! ....some using captured american and free french jeeps too! (note the mismatched uniforms )



.............broken down or strafed from a passing fighter ????.........



.

 

staying on this side of Moissy ford, turning around and walking up the lane, we are greeted with a fork in the road.....



turning left, then walking about 100 yards, we see this memorial to the two P-51 pilots (shown earlier in this thread by John) ......seems to be well looked after - nice to know



some 'finds' later

 

after wandering off the lane we walk along the river a little, but the grass growing along the banks of the river is far too long to be able to see much, .....poppies make an appearance




however under a tree where cattle obviously sleep, these items turn up....



sitting on the surface, just waiting to be seen - an artilliery shell, a used tube of german toothpaste and other bits of twisted metal


.

 

after this we again walked along the narrow roads, did some field walking in a few fields that had been recently ploughed ....

note the button, spoon, D-rings, ammo etc .........all lying on the surface





lots more ammo, towards the bottom right of the photo, you may notice the top of a little hair brush, razer - all need some cleaning

 

Andy, nice finds.

It looks like you had better luck at finding relics than what i did at the beginning of June. The fields were full of crops which made it difficult to search.

The second from last photo (items laid out on a car mat placed on the grass) has some interesting items in it. The top right and bottom right items have my attention in particular, can you post more photos of them.

I can also see the base of a flare cartridge and a couple of D rings from equipment straps.

That Kubelwagen is very tasty, did they find it behind the bushes on the other side of the ford?

As a matter of interest, Andy, was there a Poppy Appeal wooden cross under the tree on the other side of the ford from where the vehicles where parked? I put a fresh one there every time I visit the Moissy ford as a mark of respect to all the soldiers who died in the area.

 

sure john, i've cleaned up most of the stuff, but the photos are still on the camera, i'll upload a few close-ups tomorrow hopefully.

....there was indeed a poppy cross under the old tree

 

after cleaning...



John what do you think the peice in the middle is? (porcelain with the green stripes)



i tried to get a close up of that cylindrical object, but no luck - it is very heavy, and has those little grooves/grip going all around....any ideas?

 

some more personal items .....makes you remember that they were men too, .... not just soldiers



I thought this was an interesting photo ...... lumps of molted glass from the extreme heat of the fires ..... once bottles and windshields ......now strange 'artwork'

 

the object on the right appears to be in rather good shape, with both 'parts' being able to rotate around one another, also shown are some items that have maker stamps present


here's a photo of the map that is shown on top of the hill that the British used as an observation post for artillery during the battle, it shows the general areas, and colour codes the units involved.

Pink areas - British
Blue areas - Americans (who looped around the Germans from the right to help close the Gap)
Orange areas - Polish (you can see Mont-Ormel to the extreme right of their positions)
Black arrows are of course the directions of the Geman thrusts (forces consentrated within the forests to the right of the map)

you can see Moissy - (being pointed at by the most northernly german thrust/arrow)

 

just bumping this up for John, incase he recognises any of those mystery items

 

Thanks, Andy.

That right hand object is a mystery and the knurled item is also odd, i'm guessing it has a thread on the inside? Are there any markings on either of them?

The top middle item is the top part of a razor and the sillver thing below it is the base from a flare cartridge.

Not sure what the item on the left is?

 

Well, after a little bit of 'research', I'm happy to confirm that the rusty / dirty shell case partially full of cow sh*t in post #71 is in fact an 88 shell case ..... that's made my day!