Harold V. Warner Uniform(s)

    The other day I was contacted by a Marine couple who had two containers full of uniforms that were abandoned a few years back when the owner moved overseas.    One of the most interesting items in the pile of uniforms was his OCS graduation book which I.D. the Marine as Lt. Harold V. Warner hailing from the state of Indiana.    He joined the Marine Corps in the spring of 1941 before the U.S. entered World War 2.

   A puzzling question for both myself and the Marine giving me Warner’s wardrobe was why were there so many variations of USMC uniforms?   There were light summer whites and even the trousers that looked like German officer sets with the bulging sides.

   That question was answered by looking up LT. Warner,  upon graduation from OCS he soon held a billet at the recruit depot at Parris Island S.C. where he was part of Headquarters Battalion and sported these uniforms for all the ceremonial duties he must have participated in during his 3 year tour.

  Warner was promoted quickly during his time at the recruit depot and finally received orders to 2d Battalion 21^st Marine Regiment then on Iwo Jima during mopping up operations were he assumed the duties as an Operations Officer in the S3.  That explains his lack of awards in the photo.

    I will take care of this set and keep it together and spend some money and time hunting down the correct sets of insignia so these can be displayed at local USMC events.   Thanks again MaryAnn

                                                    Found Sword by:  Kasama Ikkansai Shigetsugu

Not your typical flea market find;  I set up at the Raleigh this past weekend selling all the estate sale/auction finds I could not sell locally doing my picking, plus garage debris, toys, and even beanie babies. 
  Fortunately,  at the last minute I decided to make up a couple of flyers “I buy war relics”.    Under the hot sun as I stand baking a nice young man with 2 young children who states he may  want to sell his Grandfathers WW2 trophy.  He says that his GrandPa had this sword surrendered to him.  Very interested, I tell him to bring it by as I’ll be here all weekend and sure enough he does return. 
” Wow, love the chain….., you say you’ve never had the handle off?”,  I tell him if there is no arsenal mark it’s a nice WW2 sword for any collector.   

  He also tells me that Grandpa is still alive and coming back from Florida next week,  I pose a question about this flea market deal,  to make sure that Grandpa won’t get upset, and if not do you think he’d do an interview for my website.  He assures me affirmative in both aspects, then we work on the stuck handle in the back of my van.  I get it off with a little persuading and see no arsenal mark and hand drilled hole.    I make a fair deal for the both of us as a blade with a living storyboard are relics I cannot pass on, and hopefully Grandpa has an interesting story to share here soon.  Came back with less than a half full van so that was a success too!

okinawarelics.com

Sgt Kellum - Battle of the Bulge

http://www.jdnews.com/news/military/world-war-ii-veterans/volunteering-for-war-but-wondering-why-1.152712

 Now I hope you read the article on SSgt Leon Kellum above.   I think he left out a couple of interesting stories;   “We lost a lot of men in the South of France.   They just kind of disappeared…. The word going around was that some of those guys where just robbing banks and such and just disappearing.”  He relates to me.     “They would drop those paratroopers in as pathfinders, then we would come in on the gliders.   Those pathfinders would sometimes just disappear and we never did find out what happened to them.   

    Sometimes we moved so fast we would catch the Germans in bars drinking and eating,  those didn’t put up much of a fight”.  He says smiling.

       “I guess if you are dropping into rich villages in southern France with no opposition and you have a couple buddies in the game with machine guns, it would be pretty easy to rob and bank and head to Spain!”  I think out loud.

Leon’s unit the 550^th Glider Airborne Infantry Bn. Was later attached to 194^th Infantry who were rushed to stop the breakout of German Armor around Bastogne during the final German push of the Battle.    “The fog was so think that you couldn’t see your hand 3 feet in front of your face”.  

What kind of basic tactics did you use to move and engage in combat with the Germans?

“Well you see we wanted the tanks to go in first to help clear the way so we wouldn’t get shot,  The tankers wanted us to go in first so they wouldn’t get blown up.   Most of the time it was all together!  We send in a pathfinder and a local to look around.   Oftentimes the Germans would let them go thru to get us in range.”

   The Germans were sneaky too, with booby-traps.  They would have Lugers and the like laying around and when you went to pick it up…..”  

I ask if he was able to bring pack any souvenirs.

“Me? Not much  you couldn’t bring back all those swords and stuff but some guys managed to find a way, I did bring back a P38 and a small hand pistol.   I sold both long ago for $50 now they worth a thousand!” Leon shakes his head.

   “My buddy at work father spent some time after the war ended hunting down Nazi’s.   Did you have to do any of that?”  I ask.  

“Yep”  Leon says,  “We had to clean out the whole of Dusseldorf for weapons and whatnot,  it was all over the place in barns, attics you name it”.

Did you receive a Purple Heart?

“Yep,  I got it around somewhere.”

How?

“During the Bulge.”

I ask about the details and Leon says he was a lucky man.

“You see I was out clearing this building,  and I hear a tank.  All of a sudden something hits my leg and I see three holes in my trouser leg.   It don’t hurt but one of the holes did not have a match so the bullet hit me in the leg.   I was real lucky because they pulled me out and threw me on a jeep, just when a German tank rolled through the building I was in.    I was lucky!.

It was a incredible talk with a Soldier who earned the Bronze Star in Combat , Leon Kellum a man who served his country well.

Hit the Beach

   Hit the beach after work on Camp Lejuene, it was a nice afternoon with about 1+30 left before the sun went down. Off shore there was some MEU work-ups going on with a LHA out a few miles and a bunch of LCAC's heading from shore to sea to redeveous with the ships offshore. I was happy with the fact that my cammies are hung up for good and I'm not on the flight deck of that LHA and that I'm here just to swing the Minelab.

   The winter is the best time to detect here as the sand moves offshore leaving some nice hard gravel near the top. My first hit in about 30 seconds of swinging brought up a gold ring. The ocean was not too kind to it as it was pretty beat, may have been there since the 30's as the area was a tourist place then. A little while later I snagged a braclet, I'm not sure if it's silver or not, maybe one of those titanium power deals? Lots of bullets and coins too! It was fun as hell, and I'm heading back soon as possible!

Semper Fi,
Bob

The Return of Makoboy...?

Fossil Fiends,

During the Christmas holiday WildRick proposed a planned dig at the tail end of January... as I looked at my hardhat with the most recent sticker dated 2009 I decided to circle the date and put in some leave papers for the day. That day was just here FossilFiends, and unfortunately at least for Rick who traveled down from Raleigh weather was a issue with the mines in Eastern Carolina barring access. Rick headed to the spoils piles at Aurora. I decided to try my lucky elsewhere. The rain was still a problem at my local friendly mine, but after showing Mr. Meadows my scuba license and MSHAW and OSHA regulated distress whistle I got access by my lonesome to the muddy,sticky,sandy,gooey million year old slop.

In no more than five minutes.... five minutes.... there was a Ricky that my buddy WildRick has been dreaming about as he drives down I-40. Too bad for him, lucky for me! After a time out for a 20 minute downpour, I headed back out, to uncover a bunch of fresh marl lumps full of interesting shells take a look! It was some rough hammer work to say the least, and without my MSHAW / OSHA approved safety glasses quite hazardous. But like Dewayne Varnum, and George Powell taught "you pick up and bring out what you don't know." So, what are these shells? Are they top shelf or shoebox?
http://www.okinawarelics.com/

First Dive of the season!

Flat seas, a cool breeze and the promise of 5 gallon bucketfuls of 6 inch Megalodon’s had everyone in a somewhat decent mood. You see, Captain Al just got finished talking about how the guys who dove with Spearit the day before had problems with too many teeth in the dive bag and that we were going to the same spot!

On board the boat called Littlefeet, you had a motley crew of teeth grubbing divers that often frequent the beautiful North Carolina reefs. Yes, I’m talking about Meghead and Wild Rick two modern day teeth pirates who stay down till the gauge is in the red. Bruce, Taylor, and myself rounded out the more mellow of the divers, who like to talk about the joy of diving but in reality are undercover teeth hoarders too.
(Wild Rick sleeping like a baby meghunter, and the sweet smile of success!)

There was some banter about Somali pirates, in fact I believe I heard Meghead and Wild Rick talking about the feasibility of forcibly boarding the big boat that comes out of the Outerbanks with spear guns in order to confiscate their teeth. These guys come with tons of divers and anchor overnight!

Brother…… the ships were out there on this beautiful spring day, with flat seas, and pods of dolphins frolicking in the sea, there was 4 or 5 other dive boats working the reef for Megs. Also of note, one of the outfits uses blowers to make the bottom look like Verdun in search of the big Megs so the possibility of actually being able to say that the ledge is hunted out may be valid sometime in the near future. The blowers allow the diver to go to hardpan scooping up the teeth as they are uncovered.

(Ring a ding ding -Meghead's 6.5 inch Meg! Fresh from mother earth!)


The diving conditions were excellent due to the flat seas and sun. We all did 3 dives at various spots and the winners of the day were Meghead pulling a 6.5 inch tooth from behind me, which is always a bummer for the other guy i.e. me, and Captain Al Highsmith (littlefeet charters) also finds a 6.5 inch tooth as he searched for Grouper and other tasty sea life with the spear gun.

(Captain Al with some throw backs! )


Cool stuff seen: A nice Mahi-mahi that WildRick hooked twice, then as the battle ensued for round three; the big fish took to flight as Meghead swam up alongside the boat ruining a fantastic dinnertime feast for Rick. Bruce and I also spotted a really big black triangular fin cruising in the water. I wasn’t too thrilled about watching this but Meg-fever will make a guy scuba in lava if there are teeth on the bottom. All in all can’t wait for the next time!

The Haunted Helmet

One day many years ago, back when I was a young collector I happened to stop at this North Georgia Flea Market in the middle of nowhere. Soon I spied on the table a WW1 doughboy helmet offered for sale by this overall wearing older country picker. I might have paid 10 bucks tops.
Anyway, I brought it to my new apartment (I just got out of the barracks cuz I was getting married) and hung it on the wall. A few weeks later, sleeping off some beer I awoke to a smoky apparition in the doorway of my room. I was sooooo scared I could not move while it was floating there. But, I chalked it up to the beer and early morning sleepiness. Then, I got married and the wife moved in. Strange things started to happen like doors slamming in the middle of the house, and mysterious knocks.
Then one night I was sleeping on the couch (because of a fight) when I awoke to some strange sounds in the hallway. As I listened as quick as a flash this beast of some sort stampeded down the hallway and spun around right where my face was. It seemed like a boar but with red eyes. It seemed like a eternity but then it was gone. I had trouble beliveing on just what happened. The next day I finally told the wife about it and she then told me how last night something was touching her legs in the bed.

Sooo what happened to the helmet? My buddy was having trouble with this Ahole in the unit. So he gave this helmet to the Marine as a peace offering to get back some revenge!
Mission Complete!