ack-ack Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 I've always been intrigued by the transition from battlefield back to productive farmland but theres hardly any information available. Does anybody know: 1) how long it took to remove ordnance / remains etc 2) what sort of work force it required - where they military / civilian / numbers 3) if any photos exist 4) whst was the cost of the clean up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loriusgarrulus Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 They didn't manage to remove it all. It still keeps turning up. My son went to some of the French battlefields when he was doing his basic training in the Army and they found lots of old shell cases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TIGHTCHOKE Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 The shells turn up every year and are harvested by French and Belgian EOD Teams, taken away and made safe. The Maccains chip factory on the outskirts of Peterborough regularly buys lorry loads of potatoes from France and Belgium and quite often find hand grenades in the loads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ack-ack Posted July 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 There are loons that dig live ordnance and bring them back to the uk to this day! I was thinking more the ground work required to level a vast area of lunar landscape pre dozer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ack-ack Posted July 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 The shells turn up every year and are harvested by French and Belgian EOD Teams, taken away and made safe.The Maccains chip factory on the outskirts of Peterborough regularly buys lorry loads of potatoes from France and Belgium and quite often find hand grenades in the loads. After what they did to our lamb a few years back, i'm not surprised . Lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loriusgarrulus Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 Should stick to Lincolnshire spuds wouldn't be a problem then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amateur Posted July 27, 2014 Report Share Posted July 27, 2014 I believe that chinese labourers, who substantially dug the trenches and were used in other labouring roles, were retained to clean up the battlefields. http://www.remembrancetrails-northernfrance.com/history/nations-in-war/chinese-labourers-in-northern-france-during-the-great-war.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
figgy Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I've watched some documentaries on the battle fields and in parts of France they only shallow plough and plant due to the amount of scrap metal of old ordnance and bones of the many lost soldiers that were not recovered.The edges of fields are full of it. One lady housewife and mother was on call as bomb disposal. Still get trenches caving in to this day. The pictures of now and then showing the fields before war during and then restored for farm use is quite humbling how much the landscape changed. Woods disappeared flat fields with hills and troughs as it takes too much to move that amount of earth. One of the biggest movement of earth was lochnagar the crater is huge. Figgy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catamong Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 There's plenty of unexploded shells still laying around in the woods in Northern France & Belgium. Cat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalahari Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 We were visiting a few years ago (we have visited the battlefields a few times) and our guide was telling us about a school party that were caught taking home live, filled gas shells! The armies have milk rounds collecting the shells. You see them stacked up at the sides of the roads. There are still quite a few farmer fatalities as a result of all the unexplded ordnance. David. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BattleFieldRelics Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Both sides just left the battlefield. So a big clean up operation never took place. Its still all out there to be found if you know where to look. I found a Mauser on one battlefield. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harpoonlouis Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I lot of Chinese labour stayed on after the conflict to work clearing anything of Military value back to Army stores but most damaged stuff was buried I believe. A lot of Chinese graves in Military cemeteries due to flue pandemic that swept through in 1919. Astromonical amounts of ammunition and other equipment was simply lost into the mud or turned over my artiliary barrages and buried. Most cemetries have lists of graves that disappeared when the front moved back and forth over the same ground or shells simply obliterated them, same with stores. A lot of equipment was simply surplus at the end of the war, out dated or no men left to us it. The little piles of shell casing you see even now in the corners of fields ready for collection are just scrap near the surface. I believe their are several know mines that didn't explode that run into hundreds of thousands of pound of explosive, last one went up in the sixties after a lightening strike. I am amazed there aren't more casualities out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malkiserow Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I think your question might help explain your alleged lack of success in another department. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ack-ack Posted July 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I think your question might help explain your alleged lack of success in another department. Listen, I was robbed at this years synchronised swimming gala, there was no way I was out on the last triple plume de tante Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malkiserow Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Listen, I was robbed at this years synchronised swimming gala, there was no way I was out on the last triple plume de tante I thought you lost it at the Catalarc 180 in the trans from closed (following the Eifel Walk) to the open trans from the first to second. ..... but hey, what do I know? ...... it's not my battle to fight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaniel Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I watched a documentary where there were tonnes of explosives under a farm in France which was about to get blown up but the tunnel was detected and by all accounts it was all still there buried under the ground Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studley Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 We visited the ww1 battlefields with school a couple of times and all found mushroomed bullets on the ground and casings in the undergrowth. The most most memorable part was being there just after harvest on a scorcher of an afternoon and having our tour guide point out to us the patches of soil on the other side of the valley. You could clearly see the outline of the old trench network through the stubble on the baked soil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ack-ack Posted July 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I heard that the French charged us for clearing up our sector and that it took two years before the last section was handed back. There are some fairly shocking pics if the turk clean up after the gallipoli campaign. Huge piles of sun bkeached remains. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullet1747 Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 I watched a documentary where there were tonnes of explosives under a farm in France which was about to get blown up but the tunnel was detected and by all accounts it was all still there buried under the ground this is true it's from when the Brits took miners to tunnel under the German bunkers and it never got used Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy H Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 The program was "One of our mines is missing" ,Here is a clip from it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BattleFieldRelics Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Think there 2 mines still left unblown Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ack-ack Posted July 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Doh! I was just getting into that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ack-ack Posted July 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Itv4 now, post war aerial footage of western front. Good then and now comparison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harpoonlouis Posted July 28, 2014 Report Share Posted July 28, 2014 Just found this page which I had not seen before, very moving accounts of clearing the dead. http://www.vlib.us/wwi/resources/clearingthedead.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.