With the filming of series 2 of WW2 Treasure Hunters taking up a LOT of my time, I haven’t been able to get out on my own for absolutely ages. However, an opportunity presented itself this weekend to visit an old permission of mine. This WW2 USAAF airbase was home to B17s and has always produced some great finds.

As with all of my sites, a great deal of research goes into them before I even attempt to get landowners permission, let alone dig them. It is the same with this site and, on this visit, I decided to concentrate firstly around one of the the bomb storage areas, then a couple of aircraft bays, then lastly the bomb fuze storage area. I had a couple of things in my mind I wanted to find. Firstly, a bomb kidney plate. Secondly, a decent bomb pistol or fuze. I chose my search areas carefully and kept my fingers crossed. I have only ever recovered two bomb kidney plates in 20+ years of searching, so this was a long shot. However, I had found bomb pistols on the site before (three to be precise), so I knew there was a chance of finding one or two.

There is an old saying in the detecting world…..’You have to walk over it to find it’. This is obvious, but very true, and many sites I’ve visited over the years I’ve declared ‘cleared’, only to return at some point in the future to find an area I had missed on every previous visit. This base wasn’t like that as it is a BIG base, and there were areas I have never searched before. However, I had searched the area around the two bomb fuze storage bays quite a bit, so wasn’t too hopeful of finding any fuzes/pistols. This was made even more likely when I arrived at the site to find the area behind these bays densely overgrown with brambles, nettles and various other obnoxious plant life.

Undetered, I dived into the thorn bushes and stingers and attempted to detect. I soon realised it was hopeless, (couldn’t swing my detector and, even when I could, it got entangled in the tough brambles almost immediately), so knew I was going to be limited to a relatively thin strip of land behind each bay, relatively clear of undergrowth, to detect in. I was sure I had already detected both of these areas extensively.

I soon found out, if I had, it wasn’t as extensive as I thought.

On to the finds………………

So I had found one item I was after, and had recovered NINE No 30 bomb tail pistols, six of which came from ONE hole!!!

I also had two kidney plates. What was revealed when they were cleaned?

 

Here’s the first…..

 

First kidney plate is from a 1000lb MC bomb. Curiously none of the information has been filled in. Normally these are stamped to heck and back with dates and initials of the men who ‘worked’ on them. Quite a common bomb so nothing overly spectacular.

 

The second one turned out to be FAR more unusual!

 

 

As this kidney plate was recovered from a USAAF base, home to a B17 bomb group, it couldn’t have come from the war years. The USAAF never used the Tallboy. So where has this kidney plate come from?

After a bit of research, and help from a good friend of mine, (thanks PB!), it was confirmed that the base where this was found was used as a storage depot by the RAF after the war ended. It is highly likely then that this is from one of the Tallboys stored at the base.

Even so, having a relic from such an incredible bit of ordnance gives me goosebumps! How many other people have such a piece, from one of the biggest bombs dropped in WW2. Indeed, one of the biggest non-nuclear bombs in history.

 

Not a bad dig.

 

Not a bad dig AT ALL!