More from another day
Day 3 turned out to be a fascinating one…
The German authorities had searched three times in the 1990s for a field cemetery that had been near a small field hospital but had never found it. Members of the group though had researched the likely site in the winter and interviewed some of the senior residents to see if anyone remembered it. One lady, now well into her 80’s remembered where it was and was adamant of the site. Some test pits dug in March had proven she was right and permission had been sought and granted from the German authorities to find it and recover them missing.
Exactly which way the cemetery ran, how large it was were all unknowns, so we dug…
The digger found nothing for some meters, then almost unseen the ground changed ever so slightly… a thin scrape with the digger and a dark patch of a grave cut was visible. The digger moved on leaving the dark area to be searched by the first team by hand. German graves are different to Russian ones in that its almost always one man, one grave with a measured distance to the next one, so the order and place of the line can quickly be established. Also they have dog tags… these carry the unit, blood type, and soldiers number on them but no name. The number can only be traced by the German authorities so we never know the name of the soldier until they are buried in the official cemetery and get a named headstone, at which point the details are added to the authorities website and family members will be able to see that they have been recovered.
Some of the nearby villagers came to watch and one 15 year old girl, so fascinated by the event went home, put on wellies and came back, asking if she could assist. She was teamed up with the lady from the Latvian govt working with us and when we found the soldiers dog tag in the next grave we let her recover it and wipe it clean and explained the details on it. She was entranced… I have to say comparing that to the UK where, three layers of fencing, hard hats, hi-vi jackets, 17 risk assessments and an exclusion zone, actually made a refreshing change and seeing young people interested in history has to be a good thing surely?
The dig found 23 soldiers in total, most had dog tags and came from a variety of units, tank, flak, infantry and air force. Coins, awards, spectacles, combs, buttons, boots and even some cloth insignias, mean that its likely all will be identified.
During our dig the lady who had pinpointed the site came along to view the dig… She broke into tears seeing the remains, she had lost family in the war and her brother had been badly hurt in a bombing raid. She was thrilled though that we had done what we set out to do and on leaving we gave her one of our much needed beers, as well as a Union Jack, she sat with us Brits, holding our hands, showering kisses and as we left waving her flag, it was a nice moment for us and her I suspect.
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