Malte Znaniecki Posted 16 October , 2007 Share Posted 16 October , 2007 Frans my friend absolutely stunning ! Best wishes and kindest regards to all of you ! Speak you soon Malte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPotter Posted 18 October , 2007 Share Posted 18 October , 2007 Frans, Absorbing thread as ever! The items in post 1769 look like the couplings found at each end of a fire hose - one being 'male', the other 'female' and named for crude, if obvious reasons. As the technology is simple I imagine this type of coupling has along history, but could also date from more modern times. Regards Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frans Posted 21 October , 2007 Share Posted 21 October , 2007 Can anybody help identify this item. I can make out that it reads " the Red Cross night". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw Posted 21 October , 2007 Share Posted 21 October , 2007 Red Cross Night Lamp? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KONDOA Posted 21 October , 2007 Share Posted 21 October , 2007 Red Cross Night Lime for use in the latrines. Roop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 21 October , 2007 Share Posted 21 October , 2007 Gibbs Dentifrice was still being produced in little round, pink, cakes in a tin, exactly like blanco, after WW2. You wet the toothbrush, rubbed it on the cake then brushed vigorously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DASharp Posted 21 October , 2007 Share Posted 21 October , 2007 Like many others throughout this thread, I started at page one, and have finally staggered bleary eyed to this point. And like so many others throughout this thread, I too would like to add my thanks to everyone involved in the recovery of the missing men from all of the Nations who finally have a resting place. Another thought is the lives and limbs saved by the ordnance removed that wont be there to kill and maim innocent people in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alliekiwi Posted 21 October , 2007 Share Posted 21 October , 2007 Thank you for the information Neil. What threw me a bit at first was that Paris is on the tin and the word if you can call it Dentifric. English advertisers love to use foreign words on their products as it makes them seem 'better 'and 'more exotic' somehow. I'm sure that was the same way back in WW1 and WW2. (As long as the word didn't have german connotations, of course!) Then there is this lovely quote from somewhere (excuse the language - it's from the quote): "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -James D. Nicoll Allie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiegeGunner Posted 22 October , 2007 Share Posted 22 October , 2007 Dentifrices is a perfectly respectable English word. In Class 3 of the International Trademark Classification it is the portmanteau English language term for dental cleaning products of all kinds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian turner Posted 22 October , 2007 Share Posted 22 October , 2007 English advertisers love to use foreign words on their products as it makes them seem 'better 'and 'more exotic' somehow. Allie And foreign advertisers love to use English in their ads for the same reason.... Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Tucker Posted 22 October , 2007 Share Posted 22 October , 2007 This looks like my surname - Frank Tucker, High Street, Somewhere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frans Posted 22 October , 2007 Share Posted 22 October , 2007 And foreign advertisers love to use English in their ads for the same reason.... Ian I agree Ian that is why I have to carry a dictionary with me al day. The ad men have missed a few in showing their language skills. Baked beans would sound much better as "haricots in sauce rouge", put that on your toast. Frans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dugout Posted 22 November , 2007 Share Posted 22 November , 2007 Frans, Where is the team’s actual excavating spot? Or do you work at several spots on the same time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J T Gray Posted 28 November , 2007 Share Posted 28 November , 2007 Frans and friends, I realise this is a little bit out of your area of digging, but you are probably the best people here to answer it. I was in the Cambrai area last week and it was very noticeable that there are still shells and mortar bombs turning up in fields. It is also very noticeable that they grow a lot of sugar beet - and, judging from the "beetroot" factories on the maps in the book we were following, have been doing so since before 1914. How on earth do you harvest sugar beet by machinery without getting blown up? I can see that it might be a good way of clearing shells and the like, but surely the first few harvests were downright dangerous... And what do they do in the factories when a shell rolls down the conveyor with the beet? These were the two live ones we spotted - just liked the juxtaposition of explosives with the signs for the gas pipeline and "danger de mort"! The second one is, AFAIK, a Stokes round - more obvious from as close as I cared to get to the other end of it. http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t141/gr...20/52810004.jpg http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t141/gr...20/52770007.jpg Nervously, Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frans Posted 2 December , 2007 Share Posted 2 December , 2007 Hi Adrian, You have a very good point. I don't know the exact numbers but when farming restarted after the war there have been many accidents. The farmers just after the war must have been either brave or tired of living. But despite the above the area has over the years been cleared in stages. From the 20's to just after the second world war the fields were plowed with the use of horses and the plowe they used could go 25cm deep. The next layer was cleared when after the second world war the horses were replaced by the early tractors, these were able to plowe 30-40 cm deep and the next layer of ammunition was cleared. From roughly the 1990's the big powerfull new tractors and combines arrived. Being able to plowe deeper again the next layer of ammunition is turned upwards towards the surface. One of the problems with the new heavy machines is that they compact the soil and to resolve this machines with big long steel pins are pulled through the land to loosten it again. One of the dangers is if farmland which has only been used for grazing is turned into arrable farm land. You can immagine that by going to a depth of 45-60cm you could hit problems going through a layer which has never been disturbed. The farmers are concious of this problem and it is the largest part of the clearing we do. I remember a few years ago a couple of mills handgrenades turning up with a ship load of potatoes in an English factory and there was a slight panic. A farmer a couple of years ago in the Boezinge area who plowed through a livens gasshell, but he was lucky because his tractor was on automatic throttle and lucky for him drove away from danger. I have heard of severall occasion where ammunition has got jammed in the machinery but luckely has not gone off. I can only speak for the area where we are active, the Ieper area. I understand that due to the different type of soil and ground conditions in France the ammuntions " metals preserved better" are more dangerous. The stokes mortar we class as very dangerous has claimed many lives of French deminers. Luckely over in our area it has corroded much more and made less leathal. What is very important that what is removed out of the ground is destroyed straight away. Belgium is probably the country which is the most advanced with the installations for the safe distruction of gas munitions. The situation now is that there is no gass stock pile above ground left waiting to be destroyed. The conventional munitions around a 300 tons a year is also totally destroyed. I must admit when I first came to live in the area being worried about the nummer of shells just lying around. But to the locals it is a way of life. The previous city in England where I lived would haven been shut down by just the rumour of a shell. If we were to take the standard procedures of what we are all normally used to the sallient would be in permanent shut down. Frans Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roel22 Posted 2 December , 2007 Share Posted 2 December , 2007 I must admit when I first came to live in the area being worried about the nummer of shells just lying around. But to the locals it is a way of life. The previous city in England where I lived would haven been shut down by jus the rumour of a shell. If we were to take the standard procedures of what we are all normally used to the sallient would be in permanent shut down. Just to describe how relaxed the people around Ypres deal with shells: one day, on a trip with the bomb disposal unit, a woman came running towards our car. She had picked up a shell from the field a few days earlier. Now she was too scared to pick it up and bring it to the passing bomb disposal car, because a spider was crawling on the shell... Roel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J T Gray Posted 10 December , 2007 Share Posted 10 December , 2007 My apologies, gentlemen - I thought I had replied, thanking you. Thank you for that response, Frans (and also to Roel - it raised a smile!) - much appreciated. It does make the mind boggle - and the Cambrai area had relatively little fighting over it compared to places like Ypres & the Somme battlefield. I agree utterly with your last paragraph - what a difference in attitudes, as if the few miles of La Manche was an ocean! Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian turner Posted 10 December , 2007 Share Posted 10 December , 2007 If recalling correctly, the brickworks at Zonnebeke has a magnet above the conveor belt, to separate the ordnance imported with the clay used in brickmaking. But every now and then there is an explosion! Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J T Gray Posted 10 December , 2007 Share Posted 10 December , 2007 If recalling correctly, the brickworks at Zonnebeke has a magnet above the conveyor belt, to separate the ordnance imported with the clay used in brickmaking. But every now and then there is an explosion! Ian ! Is all I can say! adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malte Znaniecki Posted 10 December , 2007 Share Posted 10 December , 2007 Dear Frans here are 2 old photos from the brickwork near Zonnebeke The first one is from 1917, the following from 1915 Hope it's for some use Malte Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shelley Posted 11 December , 2007 Share Posted 11 December , 2007 Can someone tell me what the metal "cross" like objects are in post 1756 regards Shelley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockney tone Posted 11 December , 2007 Share Posted 11 December , 2007 Shelly, They were used to help carry shell cases before they were fired! They slipped/clipped over what was the bottom of the shell and they had some rope/fabric threaded through them in a loop which allowed you to carry them. I actually found one myself near the White City on the Somme several years ago and quite often you see them used in Trench art. regards, Scottie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shelley Posted 12 December , 2007 Share Posted 12 December , 2007 Thanks Scottie !! I was given one by a kind friend a while back. cheers Shelley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnreed Posted 12 December , 2007 Share Posted 12 December , 2007 They were called Cruciforms, the prime purpose of them was to protect the percussion cap of the primer, there were linen tape loops incorporated so that the rounds could be easily withdrawn from their stowage compartment on the limber, still used today on the 105mm Light Gun ammunition. The round was carried shell in crook of arm with the hand on the other arm on supporting the base of the cartridge, if you want your a**e kicked by the No 1 carry the round by the tape. See attached photos of two of the cruciform which were dug up in post 1756. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockney tone Posted 12 December , 2007 Share Posted 12 December , 2007 John, great pictures, really highlight their purpose and thanks for the explaination. Regards, Scottie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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