World War One Canteen on Omaha Beach?

Come over and I'll take you on a tour of the beaches and to go and find some stuff. I work over here as a WW1 and WW2 tour guide (Normandy (landing beaches and Falaise pocket), Bastogne, The Somme, Ypres, Verdun and Compiegne, amongst others).
 
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edrob357 said:
Come over and I'll take you on a tour of the beaches and to go and find some stuff. I work over here as a WW1 and WW2 tour guide (Normandy (landing beaches and Falaise pocket), Bastogne, The Somme, Ypres, Verdun and Compiegne, amongst others).
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Very intresting job you have. Perhap I could go over there someday.
 
Are you alowed to scavenge stuff off historical battlefields?????
Don't they have a local museum this gear can go to?
Every Tom, Dick and Harry will be there foraging for relics then selling them on E bay!
Like the Russians digging up German graves to sell off the kit they dug up.
Pretty poor if you ask me.
 
Quote from Warwick "Are you alowed to scavenge stuff off historical battlefields?????
Don't they have a local museum this gear can go to?
Every Tom, Dick and Harry will be there foraging for relics then selling them on E bay!
Like the Russians digging up German graves to sell off the kit they dug up.
Pretty poor if you ask me"

No, I'm not robbing graves. There is so much stuff over here that most of it is sold as scrap metal, and the museums have so much stuff they're not interested in one water bottle. After the war, the french government sold off the salvage rights to the various beaches and places where there was heavy action to the local scrap dealers, and they destroyed the lot. Tanks, Guns, 88's, everything, are now mostly paperclips. As far as most of the Farmers are concerned, you're removing dangers scrap from their farms. And if you look in most Norman Newspapers they have military collectors columns where you can buy and sell stuff. Most of the stuff I find is cartridge cases and other small stuff like that. Up on the Somme they leave large rubbish skips beside the road for the farmers to put the artillery shells in that they find during the spring while ploughing the fields. It's called the "Iron Harvest". The french army then come along and take them all away to be blown up. Can I suggest that you educate yourself before you start to critisize others?
 
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edrob357 said:
Come over and I'll take you on a tour of the beaches and to go and find some stuff. I work over here as a WW1 and WW2 tour guide (Normandy (landing beaches and Falaise pocket), Bastogne, The Somme, Ypres, Verdun and Compiegne, amongst others).
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hey that would be a pleasure mon ami :)

:cheers:
 
Finally, here's a picture of the canteen I found and a few other things (artillery nose fuses, mg belt, cartridges of various calibres and various bits of schrapnel and some other stuff. Hope you like it.
 

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MightyMacbeth said:
hey pretty nice... I got a bunch of calibers believed to be Iraqi 8)
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Send me a copy of the headstamp markings (colour photo, if poss) and I'll tell you where they came from, if you want. Small arms ammo is my thing (and military history).
 
That's only a little bit of the stuff I got. I found over 1000 live .303 machine gun bullets (they've all got the rusty steel links still on them) in my own back garden 150 feet from my front room. A mix of armour piercing and incendary. I've buckets of stuff like that.
 
Fox said:
Did you found any german helmet with SS on their german helmet?
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No, but I found half a jerry can with the SS stampings on the side of it. Rusty though, and squashed, but you can see the letters ok.
 
edrob357 said:
Sorry, no. Dying to find an mg 42 though.
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Lucky guy. I can't imagine having a job like yours. I am very jealous. As far as I'm concerned, if there is not significant historical value such as from Napoleonic era, it's finder's keepers. All graves are in protected areas so there's no ethical problems. France must be covered with collectibles. To most people, it's just junk so you're doing society and history a service.
 
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