Hi there,
This my first post on the forum, I live in Normandy and regularily go metal detecting on the battlefields, I mainly find items related to the war on the ground but recently I found this large aluminium panel.QUOTE]
Please, Please. Please be safe!
There are still a lot, many tons, of explosives left on the many battlefields of not only WWII, but WWI. These explosives do NOT know that the war is over. They can still explode causing serious injury and death. Sometimes it can take very little disturbance to cause an explosion.
These many devises have explosives that have deteriorated and are now even more unstable. This makes handling anything with explosives beyond extremely dangerous.
Anytime you find anything that may contain explosives, leave it, don't touch it! Mark the area and note the location. Then give this information to the French Police or other local authorities.
I can not stress this enough!
I served both in then West Germany, 1980 - 1983 and in Iraq 2003 - 2004. I received many safety breifings on how to deal with found explosives. Safely dealing with the highly dangerous explosives requires the expertise of a trained Explosive Ordinance Device person.
So be very safe!
Bill G.