WW2 relicts in my back yard / coke & bullets

Welcome to our Antique Bottle community

Be a part of something great, join today!

willong

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
1,022
Reaction score
997
Points
113
Location
Port Angeles, WA
Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!

Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation :) Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.

Here the bottle was found in the scrubb below the road:
View attachment 221813

When they returned with their bags I helped them sort through it and clean the bottles. The very dirty coke bottle caught my eye and I told the boys not to take this one to the store.

I never had seen one of these so I checked all the markings and asked Google.

Greenish Glass, reading:

CocaCola
Trade Mark Registered
min. contents 6 fl oz
View attachment 221807

on the other side it says:
CocaCola
Trade Mark Registered
Bottle Pat D-105529
View attachment 221808

and below that, at the waist

60L44
View attachment 221809

the bottom:

LYNN MASS
View attachment 221810

What I found out so far is that the year of production is 1944 and it was produced in Lynn, Massachusetts.

How did the bottle end up here? After all, I am writing from southern Germany.
My home town Stuttgart was conquered by French troops on 04/21/1945. During the war there were more than 50 air raids on the city, and most of it had been reduced to rubble. In the west there is still a whole hill of piled up debris. The focus was on the south of the city with its airfield. And that is where we live right now. Some time back in the meadows behind our house, we also found a .50 cal casing which was produced in 1944 in Illinois. This one probably was fired by an US plane during one of the attacks on the city.

The meadows with a freshly cut tree:View attachment 221811

The casing & the bottle:
View attachment 221812

The French troops were joined by US troops in July 1945, who have significant bases in our area to this day.

I hope you enjoed the little story. If you have some more info on this particular bottle please share.

All the best for ya'll

TobiView attachment 221807View attachment 221808View attachment 221809View attachment 221810View attachment 221811View attachment 221812View attachment 221813
Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!

Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation :) Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.

Here the bottle was found in the scrubb below the road:

Welcome to the site FenderBender!

Coke, and many other beverages were previously sold in such returnable bottles. Now, virtually everything in plastic--it's disgusting! The bottle deposit was three cents when I was a kid, and a coke cost fifteen. So, gather five discarded bottles, plus one for the deposit and a lad could have a refreshing treat and a start on the next one.

If that brass cartridge case is from German 20mm ammunition, then depending upon where you recovered it, it could have spit lead at my late father from a strafing Bf 109 or Fw 190. He would have been returning the gesture with .50 BMG and curses.

During a second hitch--Dad reenlisted after the war and served in the United States Constabulary (occupation forces)--my father fraternized with the "enemy." That's how I came to be born in Stuttgart. My mother was working at snackbar in a PX--perhaps Kaiser Kaserne, but I don't know for sure and there are none still living that I can ask--when my parents met.

My mother, her sister and two young nieces, together with my Oma were all DP's (displaced persons) who had to flee Beuthen in Upper Silesia (now Bytom, Poland) ahead of the advancing Soviet forces near the end of the war. They serendipitously missed an evacuation train that would have delivered them to Dresden during the night of the firebombing.

My Opa did not escape Beuthen, but was taken by the Soviets for slave labor--he was civilian bookkeeper over 50 years old at the time. Sometime well into his captivity he escaped with another, and the two made their way back to Germany. My Opa's legs were quite crippled for the balance of his life; and he blamed the conditions endured through the captivity and escape (he and fellow escapee had to cross river by paddling themselves across on ice chunk on at least one occasion that I heard about).

When we visited relatives in Kornwestheim in 1964, I was fascinated to find beer delivered to the house by the case in returnable bottles with lightning stoppers. Wish I could get a nice rich Double Bock--Spaten Optimator is my favorite bier--delivered to me here on a regular basis in that manner.

Never know what we'll encounter on the Internet, do we?

Auf wiedersehen.
 

relic rescuer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2016
Messages
93
Reaction score
66
Points
18
Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!

Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation :) Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.

Here the bottle was found in the scrubb below the road:
View attachment 221813

When they returned with their bags I helped them sort through it and clean the bottles. The very dirty coke bottle caught my eye and I told the boys not to take this one to the store.

I never had seen one of these so I checked all the markings and asked Google.

Greenish Glass, reading:

CocaCola
Trade Mark Registered
min. contents 6 fl oz
View attachment 221807

on the other side it says:
CocaCola
Trade Mark Registered
Bottle Pat D-105529
View attachment 221808

and below that, at the waist

60L44
View attachment 221809

the bottom:

LYNN MASS
View attachment 221810

What I found out so far is that the year of production is 1944 and it was produced in Lynn, Massachusetts.

How did the bottle end up here? After all, I am writing from southern Germany.
My home town Stuttgart was conquered by French troops on 04/21/1945. During the war there were more than 50 air raids on the city, and most of it had been reduced to rubble. In the west there is still a whole hill of piled up debris. The focus was on the south of the city with its airfield. And that is where we live right now. Some time back in the meadows behind our house, we also found a .50 cal casing which was produced in 1944 in Illinois. This one probably was fired by an US plane during one of the attacks on the city.

The meadows with a freshly cut tree:View attachment 221811

The casing & the bottle:
View attachment 221812

The French troops were joined by US troops in July 1945, who have significant bases in our area to this day.

I hope you enjoed the little story. If you have some more info on this particular bottle please share.

All the best for ya'll

TobiView attachment 221807View attachment 221808View attachment 221809View attachment 221810View attachment 221811View attachment 221812View attachment 221813
Did you find the cartridge with a metal detector? If you don't have one you should think about investing in one.
 

K6TIM

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2021
Messages
215
Reaction score
78
Points
28
I love the pictures. D-pat Lynn Mass is a common bottle. Hardly common to find in Germany! Hard to say how it got there. Amazing though. I love the kids cleaning up...literally! Incredible shape for being 78 years old and having gone through a WWII. I would like to end with a friendly Dig God from the United States!
ROBBYBOBBY64.
You are a very friendly and kind person. Happy to have you on the forum. Please tell us if you find anything else! We would love to see. Also, for the metal items, the people at treasurenet.com would probably like to see too.
Oh, and here.

The bottle is before 1960.Look at the norrow part of the wasp waist you'll see numbers and a logo look at teright of the logo the two numbers are the year it was made! Real interesting find that bottle in germany!
 

FenderBender

New Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2021
Messages
4
Reaction score
19
Points
3
Welcome to the site FenderBender!

Coke, and many other beverages were previously sold in such returnable bottles. Now, virtually everything in plastic--it's disgusting! The bottle deposit was three cents when I was a kid, and a coke cost fifteen. So, gather five discarded bottles, plus one for the deposit and a lad could have a refreshing treat and a start on the next one.

If that brass cartridge case is from German 20mm ammunition, then depending upon where you recovered it, it could have spit lead at my late father from a strafing Bf 109 or Fw 190. He would have been returning the gesture with .50 BMG and curses.

During a second hitch--Dad reenlisted after the war and served in the United States Constabulary (occupation forces)--my father fraternized with the "enemy." That's how I came to be born in Stuttgart. My mother was working at snackbar in a PX--perhaps Kaiser Kaserne, but I don't know for sure and there are none still living that I can ask--when my parents met.

My mother, her sister and two young nieces, together with my Oma were all DP's (displaced persons) who had to flee Beuthen in Upper Silesia (now Bytom, Poland) ahead of the advancing Soviet forces near the end of the war. They serendipitously missed an evacuation train that would have delivered them to Dresden during the night of the firebombing.

My Opa did not escape Beuthen, but was taken by the Soviets for slave labor--he was civilian bookkeeper over 50 years old at the time. Sometime well into his captivity he escaped with another, and the two made their way back to Germany. My Opa's legs were quite crippled for the balance of his life; and he blamed the conditions endured through the captivity and escape (he and fellow escapee had to cross river by paddling themselves across on ice chunk on at least one occasion that I heard about).

When we visited relatives in Kornwestheim in 1964, I was fascinated to find beer delivered to the house by the case in returnable bottles with lightning stoppers. Wish I could get a nice rich Double Bock--Spaten Optimator is my favorite bier--delivered to me here on a regular basis in that manner.

Never know what we'll encounter on the Internet, do we?

Auf wiedersehen.

Grüß Gott willong, my fellow Stuttgarter!

The digital world is small, isn't it? And the similarities don’t end with the city….

My maternal grandfather was a refugee from Gleiwitz, also Upper Silesia (now Gliwice, Poland) which is a 20 minutes drive from Bytom. Born in 1930 he was only 14 or 15 when the Red Army took his hometown. He and his classmates were drafted into the Volkssturm and had to fight the Russians while the regular German army withdrew from the city. Without military training and without proper weapons they were slaughtered by the Russian troops, but somehow my grandfather survived and was taken prisoner. He also escaped captivity (if I remember correctly while still on route to the camps in Siberia) and it took him almost 6 months to get to the Western occupation zone where he was reunited with his mother.
He suffered from severe PTSD for the rest of his life and died at 60.

Another tough life, about to be forgotten … Sometimes we have to tell these stories - we can learn so much from them. Gratitude and humbleness among many other things, I guess.

So all the best to you and your loved ones. It was very nice meeting you.

Tobi
 

FenderBender

New Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2021
Messages
4
Reaction score
19
Points
3
Did you find the cartridge with a metal detector? If you don't have one you should think about investing in one.

The cartridge was indeed found with a metal detector. It lay almost a foot below ground. My neighbourhood was bombed quite heavily because of the airfield which was located a mile to the south. Today my wife and I were jogging in the forest here and you can still see craters. We also found a lot of shrapnell.
According to the markings on the bottom the cartridge was made in 1944 by Des Moines Ordonance Plant,Iowa,USA.
 

Attachments

  • 20210324_213743.jpg
    20210324_213743.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 126

Jake2150

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2020
Messages
89
Reaction score
198
Points
33
The cartridge was indeed found with a metal detector. It lay almost a foot below ground. My neighbourhood was bombed quite heavily because of the airfield which was located a mile to the south. Today my wife and I were jogging in the forest here and you can still see craters. We also found a lot of shrapnell.
According to the markings on the bottom the cartridge was made in 1944 by Des Moines Ordonance Plant,Iowa,USA.
Amazing stories all around. Thank you all for sharing.
 

Len

CT LEN
Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
994
Reaction score
823
Points
93
Very Cool stuff and story! A lot of potential collectibles in a hot market. Warning! A lot of things that go BOOM may be among them! Supervise those kids carefully lest WWII claim another casualty. ...Das Boot I-Great movie! Das Boot II--not as much...
CT Len
 

Jimmy Langford

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2020
Messages
359
Reaction score
346
Points
63
Location
North Texas
Very Cool stuff and story! A lot of potential collectibles in a hot market. Warning! A lot of things that go BOOM may be among them! Supervise those kids carefully lest WWII claim another casualty. ...Das Boot I-Great movie! Das Boot II--not as much...
CT Len
One of the best war films in my opinion. During the depth charges, it is one of the few times in a film which I have truly feared for my own life. It’s very realistic and very much scary.
 

Len

CT LEN
Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
994
Reaction score
823
Points
93
We have dive able U-Boat wrecks offshore here (CT) too. Just looking at them even from pics makes you think. All submariners--brave souls. A big THANK YOU to all our troops.

GO TX Rangers! Hey everybody we got a new stadium with a roof and ac! I still can't believe it...
CT Len
 

willong

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2009
Messages
1,022
Reaction score
997
Points
113
Location
Port Angeles, WA
Another tough life, about to be forgotten … Sometimes we have to tell these stories - we can learn so much from them.

Hello again Tobi,

Thank you for your kind reply to my comments. The coincidences are remarkable; and they are still accumulating.

I do not even know the origin of his pet name for me; but my father often called me "Toby" throughout our time together (my dad died in 2001).

I highlighted your comment about "another tough life, about to be forgotten..." because one of my favorite quotes from cinema, and among the most poignant ever, at least in my opinion, are the dying words of the character Roy Batty, delivered by actor Rutger Hauer in the science fiction movie "Blade Runner."

My German uncle, husband of my mother's sister, was part of a crew that manned an anti-aircraft 88mm cannon installed on top of the Rathaus tower in Kornwestheim during the war.
1617212803949.png

His assignment there is a link in the chain of events leading to my own existence, for that was the destination of the women who were to become my Oma, mother, aunt and two nieces after they were pushed out of Silesia.

The dimensions of the cartridge case, together with its headstamp information, which you provided in a different posting, indicate that it is from an American .50 caliber BMG cartridge--the inside diameter of the neck should measure 12.7mm to confirm. Therefore, I will revise my earlier comment--instead of the remnant of a round fired at my late father, it could be that of a round fired by him:).

Regards,


Will
 

Members online

Latest threads

Forum statistics

Threads
83,218
Messages
742,910
Members
24,231
Latest member
rrenzi
Top