Finds and UXBs!

Guys...

Im not sure if this subject has its own thread but maybe a good one to start ( albeit bits may be mentioned elsewhere on the site).

Has anyone got any info/stories/personal knowledge of things that have been found on WW2 airfields....

Apart from all the buildings has anyone found ( or heard) of things found as people have wandered/investigated these historic sites. Anything from UXBs ...pipemines...ammo...remains etc etc!

Mr Google obviously brings up numerous and interesting bits with newspaper reports etc but be great to find out more from you all!

The only things ive found is old bits of barbed war by the dispersals that use to be at West Malling. Apparantly in the early stages of Kings Hill being built some residents said a UXB was found...and maybe others still on the outskirts! Lee

Live .303 rounds, stove, period newspapers, tools, elsan toilet. (Chedworth)
Battledress buttons, Stirling parts. (Northleach)
Aircraft tyres (Windrush) - turned out to be off a Harrier!
Various aircraft tie downs (Down Ampney)
Aircraft panels (Southrop)
Aircraft fireaxe embedded in a tree (Broadwell)

Some bits I've still got, the rest are probably in the back of my Dad's shed still.

On the old disused American side at Goose Bay would you believe they found an F101 Voodoo!

At Holmsley(Hants) well into the 60s it was possible to find live ammo-.303 and.5 mostly - but I once picked up a live cannon round among the gorse bushes .Don't know the calibre but it was approx 1 inch - I took it into New Milton police station - they weren't all that pleased to see it!

At other places in the New Forest where the some of the D-Day assembly points had been located there were( in 50/60/70s) lots of expended .303 cases scatered around.

I found a live blue tipped .50 Cal round at Hunsdon recently, As far as I know the only aircaft that were there and fitted with that type of gun was 611 Squadrons Mustangs. That round hs been rendered inert now.

I have one or two other bits and bobs found at various places including a foot long section of .303's still in the metal links and a 10Lb practice Bomb dated 1937. Always on the lookout for aircraft bits and pieces while out walking old airfields. I found an oxygen bottle from the dinghy pack at Woolfox Lodge, many items from both Hunsdon and Sawbridgeworth.

Spent .50Cals , metal plates from a flak jacket, and have found metal items torn off the underneath of aircraft that crash landed alongside the runways at Matching airfield.

Always worth a bit of field walking after the harvest has been gathered in and ploughing has started.

JimC is an extremely gifted finder of all things metallic! get him to post a few images

Some interesting finds so far!! May have to get the metal detector out :0) In the Shoreham air museum ( nr Eynsford) there is a stick top from an ME109 that a woman found in the woods by Biggin Hill! ...Must be awesome to find something like that! Lee

When you talk of finds etc we had two 28lb UXBs nicked at Tain! These things have approx a pound of explosive in so they can do some damage.

At Driffield back in the mid 1970s me and a friend discovered a SECRET document detailing the dismantling of the Thor missile site, which was found in a dustbin in an annex attached to the remains of Hangar 5. We also discovered a “Keep It Under Your Hat” security poster in Hangar 2, which when we tried to remove it, it tore. We left it there. We also found live .303 rounds from the war (handed in to the Guardroom via an adult), plus a few spent 9mm cases and hundreds of blank .303 cases on the airfield following an ACF exercise. Loads of cases in the firing range (then still in use). There was the remains of a Vampire on the airfield, but by the time I heard about it, it had been removed. A plastic RAF cap badge (Kings Crown) was found while just looking on the surface of a recently ploughed field. We also picked up a fresh £1.00 note dropped by someone parking his lorry next to The Four Winds Café.

What remains today is mostly from the 1980/90s, including a 1993 RAF calendar still in situ in the main stores (used by the ATC). Talking of which, when I was in the ATC I collected a bent propeller from a Whitley bomber which is now with the YAM.

The best thing I ever collected on former RAF Driffield were some wonderful memories.

To the best of my knowledge the following were found at Gutersloh. A British 500lb UXB, several boxes of Luftwaffe 20mm flak ammo, a British indecdeary UXB. And best of all an MG 42 machine gun in its crate.