Dear
Friends, Family, & Readers:
As
many of you know, I enjoy hunting for WWII relics and I thought I would share
some of my pictures from various adventures.
The photos for this particular blog entry are from various locations
around Saipan. The bottle was found in
the jungle near Obyan Beach. The
fragment of a Japanese grenade and the fuse cap were found in the jungle off
the road that leads to Naftan Point.
There are plenty more of these where this came from. Last, but not least, the picture of a pile of
ordinance that I stacked up for a photo was taken at the old munitions dump
(a.k.a. FEBC radio towers cliff line in Marpi)
Even though it has been swept by professionals hired by the government
there is still a lot of munitions lying around, which can be very
dangerous. I hope you enjoy the pictures
and their explanations. Remember to click on the pictures to view them in enlarged fashion.
Sincerely,
Grant
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| One of the things that has come in very handy in my collecting of relics is Muriatic Acid. This liquid is highly poisonous and the fumes are easily enough to make you light headed. You know the bottle is dangerous when it has a skull and crossbones on the outside and each time you take off the cap vapor comes out. This liquid is often used for cleaning swimming pools and easily eats away at most metals. If a grenade or piece of metal is too rusted, this liquid will eat away at the rust and grime. When the relic has spent enough time in the liquid, I bathe it in WD-40 to protect it from further corrosion. Always put this acidic liquid in a plastic container with water i.e. a Maxwell House coffee container. |
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| These are some strange pilings I found embedded into the earth at Obyan beach shoreline between Obyan and Naftan. I'm not sure what they were used for or what may have existed at this point. I have yet to extend the trail I've been cutting further down the beach. |
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This is a WWII sanitation bottle used for hygiene. I found the bottle in the jungle off of Obyan Beach. It could have also been an old 40's motor oil bottle. Either way I found the patent for the bottle on Google patents at:
The bottle was patented by Glenn A. Mengle of Brockway, PA on Jan. 1, 1935.
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| This is what I believe to be the base of a Japanese hand grenade from WWII. Japanese grenades were rather large and had a lot of steel on the outer shell. Unfortunately they were not made as well as American grenades and you rarely find the outer shell in tact due to corrosion. So, if you think this grenade doesn't look like a grenade that is because the rest of it has rusted away or been blown off. |
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| This is the other view of the grenade. The reason I wanted to show this view of it is as a warning to fellow seekers. I've been told that the circular ridge you see as a barrier between the center circle and the outer hexagonal shell is actually old T.N.T. The inner circle is a stick of dynamite that either didn't light or has been exposed after countless amounts of corrosion. I've been told that this T.N.T. is still viable. The government needs to clean this stuff up because a person with the knowledge to do so could carefully drill a hole into the stick of dynamite and insert a fuse. I found this fragment of a grenade on the road leading to Naftan Point in the jungle. They were scattered all throughout the jungle. |
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| These are my trail markers if you ever see an orange trail marker with a black cross you can say that Grant Fifield has been there on Saipan, MP. |
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| This is a pile of ordnance that I collected one day while exploring the cliff line at the FEBC radio tower facility that is soon to be closed down. In the front of the pile are many pieces of American grenades and to the left large shell casings that had exploded along the cliff line as American forces pushed toward their goal of Suicide Cliff in Marpi. |
Saipan Time is also Guam time:
I remember the Japanese grenades being all over Naftan when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteCollecting post-war items definitely brings nostalgia. It is because those relics are concrete representations of what happened before. And when you take a simple glance on the war paraphernalia, you'd think of how many lives were sacrificed for peace and freedom. Anyway, if you enjoy digging these relics, I think the Corregidor Island in the Philippines can satisfy you.
ReplyDeleteLorita @Manchester Coin & Jewelry
Mahaha, I grew up on the FEBC compound on Marpi and you could literally just walk into the boonies and pick hand grenades off the ground. That's a normal childhood memory, right?
ReplyDelete