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Why would you burry 2 ammo boxes neatly lined up?

timefuze

Well-Known Member
Hi there,

This weekend I found burried 2 metalic British QF 3,7 inch ammo boxes filled with 2 fired brass cases each in a forest. Each shell case was put back into their cardboard protection.
The inside of the boxes was still painted green, and the tags indicated that they had been packed in 9/42.
Apart from the nice find, I do ask myself the question: why would you burry this in the middle of some foxholes in the middle of a huge forest, with no forest roads in a 400m radius?
Based on the total picture I can say that the boxes were positioned on the pine forest floor on one line, touching each other at the handles.
Then a U-shaped ditch was dug around it to get enough sand to cover the two boxes.
They were approximately covered with 50cm sand.

Anyone an idea why someone would do that?
There was never a QF 3,7inch battery placed on that swampy spot (too heavy gun, no roads)?
Why would a sneaky ordonance collector hide boxes with fired shell cases so deep into a forest, positioned on a nice line and not next to each other, and leave a very obvious U-shaped ditch behind?
Could it have been used to create a good grounding surface for a radio antenna maybe?

Any idea highly appreciated!

Best regards,

timefuze
 

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IMHO this is a product of military laziness. If you have to build a dirt wall of certain height any crate that fills the inside of it reduces the amount of soil needed to be moved.
Bob
 
I don't know about the british manuals, but some german manuals have instructions that during war time not working ammunition had to be buried. In peace time it had to be returned. But that's mostly valid for cartridge ammunition or chemical ammunition with leakages. For german separate ammunition the instruction was to wait several minutes before opening the breach and then exchange the primer and try again.

For empty cases I think it was normal in all countries that these should have been returned - but it's as Nabob wrote for different reasons and nobody wanted to risk his live to return two cases. I think all military forces (not matter if in peace or war time) are very good in loosing things.
 
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