Re: [GZG] Mine resistant vehicles

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 12:07 AM, Brian Burger <blurdesign@gmail.com>
wrote:

>  At the Vimy Ridge Memorial, Parks Canada[1] uses a flock of sheep as
>  lawnmowers. There´s an average of one UXO per square metre, so it´s
>  far too hazardous to use any sort of human-operated lawnmower. They
>  lose about one sheep a year to something 80+ years old finally going
>  Boom.[2]

A friend of mine visited the Great War battlefields in France and
Belgium two or three years ago. He said they are still finding all
sorts of stuff. The woman whose B&B he stayed at had a collection that
put many museum displays to shame.

Michael heard it suggested that you could pretty much dig anywhere on
those fields and find something in short order. He did a test and
marked off a metre square area and began to dig with his hands. Within
minutes he had what he thinks is a buckle from a gas mask case. The
French government have no problems with people finding these things
and taking them home (unlike the U.S. Parks Service, which gets pretty
upset with people who take metal detectors onto Civil War
battlefields).

As you mention, they still find unexploded ordnance quite frequently.
Not long before my friend got there, someone near the B&B where he was
staying was killed by a Mills Bomb. Mind you, the idiot had dug up the
Mills Bomb and was using a power grinder to clean it up. I guess he
never learned the simple equation: unstable explosive + vibration +
heat = boom.

They still find human remains on a regular basis. The local farmers
try to find out who the remains belong to. Michael heard that if the
remains are German they end up "thrown away" as the farmer doesn't
want to bother with the paperwork.

-- 
Allan Goodall http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@hyperbear.com
awgoodall@gmail.com

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