Roadside history - back metal detecting at Site X!

 

I packed the metal detector and spade in a pannier on the Enfield 350 and rode to do a quick half hour detecting at Site X for some more trinkets, and as always was not disappointed with 8 Hispano 20mm cannon shells...  the wood keeps delivering!

Film..

More soon...

Return to `Site X` metal detecting again...

 

Back out metal detecting at `Site X` again last week with friend Liam after we did a bit WW2 exploration digging somewhere else looking for stuff - that will be in another post once I return to do some more err digging. after that I took Liam to the undisclosed location which if you watch this video I made from several years ago how this wood was in the flight path of a WW2 Coastal Command Live Fire Range on the coastline - most of East Lothians coast line was out of bounds to the Public in WW2 away from coastal villages and towns and both heavily fortified against invasion and some areas were used for live fore training...

Liam loved it and I let him take away his finds to polish up...

We were only there an hour but still find all these Hispano 20mm cartridges.

Next day I went back as G on dayshift and spent a couple of hours there and ended up with an impressive haul. When I first went there I found out quickly that no one had been metal detecting there, there was even cartridges lying on the ground!, I think I have harvested several hundred if not more over the years.

2 steps and PING!

Couple of the magazine clips too...

Soon filled the bag and I was off home...

40  20mm Hispano cartridges and some nice .303 cartridges, all preserved in sand for 80 years

Keeping the good ones to really polish up for the military collection I cleaned the rest and put them in the Jeep to give to any Jeep fans I meet when out and about...

More soon...

Last Breath of Winter...

As forecasted a real cold spell has come in over the weekend and Sunday the temperature plummeted,
Saturdays rain had eased then the clouds returned on Sunday evening and today Monday dawned with 3" of powder dry snow which was swirling around in the wind and drifting in places...
Up early for work i had time to go for a cycle, and did a lap of the Race Circuit on the Moonlander.
Although not that deep this is the type of snow this bike is designed for riding, not the usual wet snow we get here in the UK, it was Baltic cold too with the wind chill...

More snow coming in, see the snow coming off the train passing!...

No Golf today at work...

Snow has shifted enough down at the coast for a couple of hours out with the metal detectors again at `SITE X` and i got another 19 Hispano 20mm 1942 cartridges, friend Steve got 24...
Must have been some noise from the Bristol Beaufighters that fired them as they dived low over the Range,
There was 4 Hispano 20mm Cannon Guns on the Beaufighter and De Haviland Mosquito, here is a film of one Hispano being fired...




And a WW2 News real film of the power of those planes with four of these guns firing...

More Metal Detecting...

Sundays are mostly now going to be spent with half days out doing other hobbies in East Lothian until the woods are lush green again with undergrowth.
2 Days i want to spend walking the route of the now long gone railway line that ran from Longniddry to Gullane,  and the railway route from Pencaitland to Gifford,  a past and present picture threads.

Another is spend more time out with the metal detector,
Sunday i arranged to take friend Dave and his son Jamie out to look for more WW2 cartridges,
i told Jamie he can have all the ones i found so he was eager to go!,  friend Steve joined us too, Steve also has a GARRETT ACE like mine - but the smaller 150, which does as good a job as the bigger 250 model as the day would reveal...

East Lothian WW2 Live Fire Ranges;
During WW2 there were many live fire Pratice Ranges along the coast and out to sea. Most of the coast was closed off to the public as the `Coastal Crust` anti invasion defences were constructed and large areas were mined.
I have already blogged about the Range at Yellowcraig and the wreck of HMS Ludlow, to read about that story and stuff i found click here...

1942...
In 1942 East Fortune Airfield was transferred to RAF No.17 Coastal Command,

Young airmen were trained with  Bristol Beaufort and Beaufighter`s along with other aircraft in Anti Shipping attack...

20mm Hispano ammunition being loaded...

The low level attack training was dangerous, and there were many casualties from crashes...
The trained crews went on to attack the Axis Shipping in the North Sea and inflict a blow in the German Navy and many of the young crews who came from New Zealand and Australia to be trained, then returned home to take the fight to Japanese shipping...

Steve`s dad was in the Home Guard here in East Lothian during the war and  told Steve of another area to go have a look at.. We went this morning and spent a couple of hours...

I`m not revealing where this is as we have just scratched the surface but the place is littered with 20mm Hispano cartridges!, and the sand is so dry here even the belt clips are there!, and they like the cartridges are in perfect condition despite laying buried by undergrowth and sand for over 70 years...

Here is some film...
click on the cog icon to view in HD

Song is `The XX Intro`...

Coast- Detecting...

A few months ago i bought a cheap metal detector on ebay,
an impulse buy which i returned for a refund as it was rubbish,
you would find more with a magnet taped onto the end of a stick...
So i did some research on various forums,youtube and the largest UK metal detector stores Regton Ltd ,
I bought a Garrett ACE 250 Detector,described as the worlds most popular detector and a great first detector...


This has enough features to keep any geek happy, you can specify metals to eliminate which saves time digging up juice cans and ring pulls etc, and different tones alert the type of material, depth of object in Inches is given and a pin pointer button is as i found really accurate...
The LCD screen is easy to read even with the showerproof /dust/sand cover i added as an extra,4 AA batteries give 20-40 hours run time,
At home i found setting the search to `Relic` eliminated floor nails and `pinged` away at WW2 Spitfire shells on the floor- Happy days!
Saturday evening i went down to Hedderwick Sands at John Muir Park for low Tide at 7pm...


walking across the sand i found a couple of .303 Rifle shells then i walked across a sand bar roughly where i knew there had been a firing range during the War and it started to find more .303 shells, lots of them, Sun was setting but after around half an hour i found this lot...


Not sure what the big lump was,maybe a bit of the base of a mortar...


Sunday i spent a half hour at Longniddry Dunes where recently Sea Buckthorn has been cleared so the soft sand dug over by a 360 Digger would be easy digging and there would be no worries about digging there,
I found my first coin; a 1946 1/2 Penny, a silver fork stamped Argentina, and while digging pulled out a 1/2 pint `Murchies` milk bottle!...


Need to get the Carry bag for it so i can take it on the back of the Pugsley to scan areas of coast at low tides, more soon...

Heres a film of a review of the detector...