Fliegerhorst Gilze-Rijen. Archaeology & Research.

Here another KG2 pic with a crew:




from left to right.

Rössel, Schönnberger, Linnenberger, Schulze,

Don't know about their accomplishments but two of them have the E.K.

 

You are quite right - the best relics are the ones you find yourself - in your mind, it always has that special association.....

 

True some of the material I have is junk for others but priceless for me, because I found it or because it is local history. Hope I didn't offend you Nick, I didn't mean to. Did you see the KG2 picture?

 

Offcourse you didn't Remco...
very interesting pic, its from Gilze-Rijen or?...

Martin, we share the same thoughts.

 

I have found some interesting shelters near Hulten (N.E. from the Fliegerhorst) made some pictures a few days ago... also some pics from the area. Beautiful area overthere... spend much of my free time in that forest. Beautiful nature, hardly no other people to see... and many bombcrateres, foxholes etc to discover! I'm in my element.

Only sad that they are building a new road from Gilze to Tilburg, destroying some of the woods near Hulten, also when they where digging on the fields east of the Fliegerhorst many concrete platforms etc. where dugup, they where part of some hangars who where build there in 1944.

 

Some great pictures, take as many pictures as you can while it's still there. Regarding the picture I don't know whether they stayed at Gilze. I have other pictures with brick walls , but that's just a hint not evidence as these bricks only show it's northern or Eastern Europe architecture.

 

Very nice pictures indeed!

 

Thanks guys.

 

Great shots!
I love this stuff!

 

Hi guys,

Yesterday I wen't out again to the airfield with my metaldetector.
I searched on one of the ladingstrips south of Hulten.
Well I have to say the airfield was bombed for over 4 years so I have found many scrapnell and pieces of airplane bombs, but what I found yesterday was abnormal, a piece of scrapnell as big as my torso! I almost couldn't lift the damn thing. Thats not the worst... It lay about 75 cm's deep in the hard ground!...
It almost has no rust on it, pretty good condition, could see some paint on it still.
A friend of my took it with him, for in his garden.

 

This is a great find! It looks like a the upper part of a 500 kilo bomb to me. I'm not certain, but the cylindric part could be the upper part where the detonator was fitted. This bomb has obvioulsy exploded. It is probably the relic of an allied bombing of Gilze Rijen . The good condition could be the result of a dry sandy earth with a mix of turf. (the picture shows sandy soft earth) This could have prevented rusting to a certain degree.

 

Wow! That's a huge piece of shrapnell! Once again you have made me jealous! Great job, and thanks for shring the pics with us!!

 

Well guys, I found it interesting to find but I don't have any room for it here, so its in good hands with my friend who's from Alphen (south of Gilze), we almost go out every sunday, and we did some nice trips together allready after I met with him in dec 2007 when I was searching around near the airbase with my metaldetector.

Remco, its indeed the upperpart!

 

Very nice for you!
I thought it looked a littel like a part Skipper showed on another thread?

 

that is correct , my piece of sharpnel is the upper part from a 1400kilo RAF bomb. It's also the same top part. The bombs were filled with TNT and Amatol among other things. My piece weighs about 30 kilos and is about 35cm+ 30 cm wide.

 

In the previous page I mentioned that while there where building a new road south of Hulten many remains of concrete hangars where dugup... and sadly where destroyed.
Here some pictures of the scrapyard, east from the airfield.

You can see on some pictures some machines and a huge container full with old metal scrap from the field where they are building the road, me and my friend from Alphen went out almost every day that time (after the people where done over there offcourse) to look what they left behind, so we both took some nice items along with us before they could be destroyed!!! (this is a few months ago, the machines etc. are allready gone)
Some items we/I could save like the german razor handle, Air Minitry airplane parts en some German airplane parts as well, this you guys can see in the previous page's.

Here some pictures!!

 

Nice pictures again and what a shame that you don't have more time to look for smaller items. I'm sure there is much more to find and thinking that it is going to be buried is sad. In a hundred years or so, these relics will be rare, no they are just destroyed. I'm glad you managed to save at least some of these relics.

 

Well, that sucks!

Basically they are destroying history for the sake of progress! Bummer!
But, as Skipper said, at least you had the opportunity to save some of them!!

 

Hi all,

With the big piece of scrappnell I also found this German airplane object.
What it is I really don't know... but very interesting!
It has 2 aluminium tags, but they are hard to reed because they are to rotten...
I still have to clean the thing up which is very hard to do because of the rust. Here some pictures and I hope you guys know more than I do!!!
I think it has something to do with an electric mechanism.

(On the picture below three unknown airplane parts, two .50 BMG cartridges, a 2cm MGFF cartridge, and a LP42 cartridge.

 

Some better pics of one side, which I tried to clean so far.