A few days in the Hurtgen Forest

Myself, along with Pegasus and 82nd Airborne (my dad ), have just returned from a few days camping in the Hurtgen Forest, Germany.

Due to work commitments it was a 'whistle stop' tour and not nearly as long as I'd we would have liked it to be.

However, even with the time constraints, we managed to find a few relics in the forest and foxholes that abound the area.

These are some of my finds...

U.S. Garand clips and spent cartridges-these were all found in the same foxhole.


Shell lifting eyelets-these are scattered everywhere!


I have a feeling that one of these has been shown on the forum before, but what is it? part of a fuse?

Top


Bottom

 

He's been at it again !

This post has given me digging-withdrawal-symptoms.....

John, the 'mystery item' is the base of a US HE fuze ; I found one at Falaise back in April and ( I think ) 272VGD successfully identified it in one of the threads at that time......

 

still nice to look at these!

 

Thanks for the identification, Martin, I knew I'd seen one before .

Do I get the feeling that you may be booking another week in that wonderful Gite near Trun?

 

A shot of the Hurtgen Forest


A foxhole in the forest


Part of the forest and terrain

 

It's such a large place. I'm always surprised how people manage to find relics there. Did you have any hints or was it just randomly?

 

Many times this year, my mind has wandered back to that most excellent week...........

 

thankyou for showing your great finds and i must say a great time to be had
cheers mark

 

We did a little homework beforehand on where to look, it also helped that Pegasus had visited the forest earlier this year so he had a few places of interest marked on his maps.

Most foxholes we found had been dug by people previously, but we did find a few untouched ones deep in the forest. We used metal detectors for most of our searching and the main problem was the pieces of shrapnel that are scattered everywhere, so a lot of our diggings would reveal only a piece of jagged twisted metal !

The best find of the trip was made by Pegasus...but I'll not spoil it for him by revealing what it was as I'm quite sure he'll put some photographs on the forum soon

This was our campsite next to the River Rur

 

Can anybody identify this ?

 

It looks like a handle, but I couldn't tell what it is.

 

Dragons Teeth

 

Well Done jagdpanther44.

 

This is the Soldatenfriedhof Vossenack (military cemetery) in the village of Vossenack


Field Marshall Walter Model's grave is in the cemetery. In 1955 Model's son had his fathers remains exhumed from the place where he had died, and had them re-buried in the cemetery at Vossenack.

 

Next door to the cemetery at Vossenack is a memorial to members of the 116th Panzer Division 'Der Windhund'.

 

Another mystery object up for identification?

It's quite heavy for its size, approximately 1 Kilo.

 

These pictures are truly great! I find it kind of ironic that I'm reading a book that deals with the Hurtgen Forest, though it's Historical-Fiction. It's mostly based around the thought of the Nazi occult and how it was such a bloody battle. ( Shadows in the Mist.) Just a quick question though, did you happen to see any churches around the cemetary, or at all?

 

Yes, there were plenty of churches dotted about the area? However, I don't recall there being one near either of the cemeteries in Hurtgen or Vossenack.

This is Hurtgen cemetery - each headstone has two or three names on each side.

 

Gottcha! Thanks for the information! Cleared up a bunch of mess that I was trying to get through! Great picture, by the way.

 

Wow, really great pics!!
That first mystery was on the forum, I believe it was Nick who found it, not sure. I can't remember though what it was!!!!
The second one has the shape of a shot glass, oops that was a little telling!