Recently, while visiting a friend’s property the topic of conversation turned to metal detecting and he mentioned that within walking distance was the site of a World War II army camp. Needless to say I was pretty keen to get back there as soon as possible with my CTX 3030 to see what relics there were to be found.
Fortunately, I only had to wait a couple of weeks to return and see what I could find. When I arrived at my friend's property I had a quick search around his yard to show him how the CTX 3030 and the PRO-FIND 25 worked. One of the first things I noticed was that the soil was quite mineralised which resulted in the pinipointer falsing when in contact with the soil. This is easily fixed by having the PRO-FIND 25 in contact with the soil when you switch it on, effectively ground balancing it.
Whilst walking over to the area of the army camp I mentioned that I had never found a rising sun badge, the emblem of the Australian Army, and it was high on my “to find list”. Switching on my detector, we started walking into the bush, not far in I had my first target. A short dig and I had a small blue badge with a religious motif on it, I quickly had this bagged and the location marked as a FindPoint using the GPS function in the CTX 3030. By recording each find I can then see on Google Maps with the XChange 2 program where best to head next time I go there.
After about ten minutes, I had another target under my coil, the sound was a bit iffy but the Target Trace was showing a nice vertical line on the screen which suggested a conductive target. A quick scratch with my pick and I had a live .303 round, standard issue for troops during WWII. Once again bagged and recorded, I hadn’t moved far when I had another iffy signal; another dig and using the pinpointer I found the target. As I was moving soil with my hand, something pointy poked my finger, a bit more of a dig and there was a WWII rising sun hat badge! I couldn’t believe my luck, third target for the day and I had found something I had been after for years. Could things get any better then this?
After admiring my find and my friend laughing that I had only just said I had never found one we carried on. At the base of a large old tree I had another mixed signal, but I was digging anything that sounded good, so I started carefully digging away soil. A check with the pinpointer said I was close and with a bit more of a dig out came another rising sun hat badge! My friend quickly pointed out that he thought there was more in the hole, a bit more of a dig and I had another .303 round, then another. Must have dropped his ammo as well as his hat badge I commented, but then out came another rising sun hat badge! What was going on here? Two hat badges in the same hole.
My PRO-FIND was telling me there was still more in there, so it was time to make the hole a bit bigger. More digging and out came a couple of live .45 caliber rounds, then a shiny round disk, hang on I said, this looks like an ID disk, now commonly know as “dog tags”. I put my had back into the soil and came out with a handful of tags, what was going on, two hat badges, bullets and ID tags all in the one hole. More checking and the hole was at last empty. Time to move on as we needed to get back for lunch, they say an army marches on its stomach and so do I!
On the way back to the track we had walked in on, I found a belt keeper of an army issue-webbing belt and just near the track my last target, which was under a small bush, was a 1942 penny.
Once back home, it was time to have a closer look at my finds. The badge that I found first, turns out to be a 1932 Blessed sacrament badge from St Patrick’s College in Ballarat , Victoria, on the other side of the country. Did some young soldier from over east drop it here in Western Australia while waiting to be deployed overseas?
As for the ID tags, most are in sets of two with names and service numbers, but the interesting thing is that there are blank tags and two sets with the same name and number on them? I will have to look further to find an answer to that riddle. So, with all my finds plotted into XChange2 I have a good starting point for next time I get out there.
Until next time, enjoy the history… I know I will be!
You can see more about my detecting adventures on my YouTube channel “Westcoast Mark” and my own blog http://westcoastmark.wordpress.com/.
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