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Uncovering the Past at Detektorweb.cz |
Jul 29, 2006 |
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For me, the term "metal detector" conjures-up the image of someone walking slowly across a farmer's field, swinging an odd-shaped broomstick left and right, in the hope of uncovering some ancient artifact. If you're lucky the hi-pitched beeping in your ear might indicate the presence of an old horseshoe or perhaps even a Celtic broach-pin. In Eastern Europe, however, things are a tad different. Thanks to the Second World War you're just as likely to stumble across a tank as you are to find a Roman coin. The old battlefields stretching from Berlin to Moscow are littered with the corpses of AFVs and planes. We just don't know they're there. Many lie buried in fields. Some are submerged in bogs, others in lakes.
Thanks to a growing army of plucky enthusiasts such relics are once again seeing the light of day. DetektorWeb.cz is a website in from the Czech Republic which catalogues a host of recovery operations. Each story unfolds through a sequence of photographs which often start with nothing more exciting than an image of a muddy field. What emerges from beneath the dirty brown layers of time, however, sometimes defies belief! In one montage an almost perfectly preserved StuG III is disinterred - still resplendent in its coat of winter white-wash. In another story, a T-34 is dug out in a forest. It too is in remarkable condition. Other vehicles, like the Bison/Grille SPG and Jagdpanther, are less well-preserved and yet still give us a fascinating glimpse back in time. In the case of the latter, the photo sequence goes on to demonstrate the restoration process (which must take years) resulting in a completely rebuilt prototype. They even get the thing running again - and firing (watch the videos)!
DetektorWeb.cz is a truly fascinating website. There are many hours of photographs to study all of which are immensely rewarding. Each sequence of pictures tells its own story - so the fact that the site is in the Czech language is of little import. I recommend you take a look today but, be warned, you could be stuck in front of your computer for ages!
Homepage: http://www.detektorweb.cz
Top 10: http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=top10&lang=1&vd=1&mm=7
NB: Once on the site, use the list of links at the very bottom of each page to navigate through the various stories.
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