Metal Detecting Military Artifacts In Sillamäe, Estonia
Shallow Targets - WWII Military Relics
But the signals were all the same... A "Big" signal produced a fragment of an artillery brass shell.
A Good Coin Signal Resulted In a Brass Splinter
Endless digging of junk continued until I ran out of available metal detecting space. I had hit sites like this in Russia before and learned that it would take a few days to clear the site off unwanted WW2 relics. Only after that, it would be possible to get to the older "cultural" layer, i.e. coins and artifacts. Unfortunately, I did not have a few days to "hammer" the site so I said 'Good Bye' to the site and left.
WW2 Relic Finds of the Day
Honestly, I did not fully enjoy metal detecting at this site or any other sites of the WW2 battlefields in Russia, Ukraine, and Estonia. Digging the reminders of the most horrible war in history made me sad. It also made me understand better the ugliness of any war, its horror, and its senseless nature that reduces the value of human life to nothing.
In Russia, many official searching groups, consisted of students and volunteers, conduct the research and recovery of countless soldiers' remains at the sites of the WW2 large battlefields. My friend and I visited such a recovery site called "Nevsky Pyatachok" - a Bridgehead on the Neva river, near St. Petersburg.
It was the site of one of the most critical and costly campaigns during the Siege of Leningrad from September 1941 until May 1943 to reopen land communications with the city during the German siege. 400,000 Red Army soldiers and 160,000 German soldiers died there for the duration of the struggle for the bridgehead, estimated to be 1 km by 1.5 km in area.
Still many remains of WW2 MIA's would have to be recovered at the spot. I observed the group of official military searchers digging up human remains. It was a gruesome scene. A skeleton of a soldier lay on the bottom of the large hole that had just been dug by the searcher. The skeleton was in a pose of throwing a grenade which was still clenched in its hand! It was sad to realize that this soldier's relatives had never known what happened to him many years ago. They probably would not be able even to attend his reburial...