De Diggers Battlefield Exploration, Ieper

[Gast]

I must appologise for not being to be able to write German.

If there is interest on this forum I will be pleased to keep it updated with the latest excavation pictures and news.

De Diggers have worked the Ieper regio for the last 25 years.

This is a photo of a maxim ammunition box found yesterday on the area of the Sudspitze in Boezinge.


If you wish to look at some of our previous work our website will give you the wright links:-

De Diggers:- http://www.geocities.com/dediggers

If there are any questions I will be pleased to give you an answer.

Kind regards, Frans Hoijtink

[Marek]

I not good at english but think diggers you have difficult time here.

[MikeG]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Although geschichtsspuren.de focuses on buildings and fortifications, there is of course a certain interest in battlefields. However, per definition we are not a forum for treasure hunters. If your excavations are legal and you respect and treat the human remains as what they are and were, we would be happy if you keep us updated.

Please don’t get me wrong – we welcome serious research, but at the same time don’t like „black digging“. Please understand that.

Hope to hear from you.

Mike

P.S: I would like to ask you to attach your photos directly to the forum posting. This way, a photo won’t get lost when it is taken from the external server. Sometimes, this would render a posting senseless.

[Gast]

Hello Mike G,

I can put your mind at rest.

We hold government licenses for detection and work under very strickt rules regarding remains of any soldier.

The area where we work is the Sudspitze in Boezinge and Langemark a german artilery position. We hold licenses for both area's.

It is because of our group that propper procedures were put in place in 1987 regarding the remains of german soldiers. We acheaved this with the german press and a documentary which was shown on german television.

We are only allowed to look when an area is threatend, in the case of the Sudspitze the reason being that a Industrial estate is being built. Otherwise area's which are not threatend are out of bounds.
Not keeping to these rules is a serious offence.

Removel of a fallen soldier regardless of his nationality is always done with the police present. We have a very close working relationship with De Volksbund and the Commonwealth grave
commission as with the french authorities.

It was last week when I spoke to the head of De Volksbund at a presentation at the Studenten friedhoff in Langemark, I remarked that I would wish that we had more contact with people in Germany.
For the english speaking countries we are very well known with many programmes being made for television with the group.
The best known being the forgotton battlefields made by the BBC.

The items we find are for 98 procent explosives which are removed straight away by the Belgian bomb squad and disposed of. The remaining items are usually in a very bad state of preservation.
The few items which have stood the test of time go to either The In Flanders Field Museum in Ieper with whom we have a very close working relationship or the Hooge Crater Museum in Ieper.

We as a group pride ourselves that we have always respected and looked after remains of the soldiers, even in times when the interest in the war was minimal. Since the beginnnig of 1998 we have recovered in Boezinge a total of 207 soldiers of all nationnalities, who have all gotten their rightfull resting places on their respective cemeteries. Sinds the start of the group in 1982 many more have been recovered.

The ratio of english to german visitors in Ieper is about 100 to 1, while we recover soldiers at a 50 - 50 procent level. I hope that we can improve on this and give you all the feeling that there is a great deal of compassion to all soldiers who fell in this time.

Kind Regards, Frans Hoijtink

[MikeG]

Thank you, Frans, for that explanation!

Mike