whatilearned
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
TIL in Belgium and France, Farmers still recover tens of thousands of unexploded shells and ordinance From WW1 that get pushed up by normal ground shifting (frost thrust, etc) and plowed up in farming fields. They call it “The Iron Harvest”. They expect this to continue for hundreds of years.
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The Canadian tv series “For King and Country” had a historian go to the battle sites Canadians fought in in World War I, and he would walk through farmers’ fields that had been trenches back in the war. The amount of military debris (mostly non-explosive) he would find just lying on top of the ground after ploughing was astounding. Buttons, badges, remnants of webbing, etc. are all over the place.
There are whole swaths land in western Europe that unusable because of unexploded ordinance.
Anyone know what percentage of shells didn’t explode?
Remember and keep Armistice Day, for it is holy.
And also music.
My friends dad in Champagne region also has a collection of Neolithic tools he has dug up, along with some of those shells.
I’m from the piney woods region of south Mississippi and we used to tell up buckets of arrowheads from our fields.
I wonder how often they explode from the rough treatment of the plough
This is why landmines are terrible. There are too many just sitting around on this rock, still live, waiting to give someone or something a bad day.
They should send Magneto there as part of his community service.