12 Most Amazing Unexpected Military Finds

war is a very untidy thing even when it's over debris and d'être - Saar left spread across battlefields and can end up buried deep in the earth waiting to be discovered again years later some of the old war artifacts you're about to see in this video will provoke a sense of wonder while others might make you feel a little sad but all of them will show and tell you more about the recent history of warfare on our planet and the people who fought in those wars at various locations on the old eastern and western fronts of the Second World War you'll find the remains of what you might call tank bunkers tank towers or turret bunkers they're exactly what they sound like a bunker mounted with tank weaponry while it sounds like a fearsome weapon and it was it was actually an ingenious method for recycling tanks that had been damaged but not destroyed a tank that was no longer capable of movement may still have a working turret and that turret is a useful defense weapon if mounted inside a bunker the German side of the conflict repurposed many captured enemy tanks to become tank bunkers including several Soviet BT and t26 tanks checklist Avakian LT 35 s and some French tanks too rather than attempt to repair the damaged tanks the Germans dismantled the turrets and sent them to defensive lines to fortify their positions the unorthodox weapons proved to be so efficient that the Germans eventually began to build them deliberately as opposed to scavenging them from elsewhere examples of tank turrets still exist on the borders of several nations involved in the war it's important to remember that the soldiers who fight in wars are more than just soldiers they're people like you and I with thoughts and feelings and passions of their own and they're capable of works of great art look at the quality of this carving as an example it was etched into the side of a metal canteen by a Russian soldier imprisoned in Poland during the first world war more than 100 years ago the romantic nature of the scene suggests that it might be an idealized depiction of the soldier and his love who was presumably waiting for him at home the canteen is a relic of Zurich a notorious forced labour camp which was known to be riddled with disease and starvation there's evidence of several different carving techniques in the design which would likely have been refined and improved over more than a year sadly we have no way of knowing whether the soldier who made this carving ever made it home to see his love again when the Germans attacked the Soviet Union in the middle of 1941 the attack happened fast tanks roared across the border in Belarus and the fighting immediately became intense and destructive all these years later the skeletons of destroyed and forgotten tanks still litter the landscape but there's a team of people excavating them one at a time the yakushev family are Belarus's most famous tank hunters and have been credited with the discovery and restoration of dozens of old war machines they've been hard at work for more than 20 years and now own and operate the so called Stalin line Museum near Minsk amazingly almost all the old tanks found by the yakushev have been restored to working condition even after so many years in the mud and dirt sometimes they have to cheat a little though they patch up one tank with pieces of other tanks until they had enough pieces to make a complete working model that's how they've been able to completely repair two panzer 38 and a German stood three that was deliberately set on fire by the Germans to prevent them from falling into enemy hands of all the relics of the Second World War you could find close to your home an unexploded bomb would be the worst even if they've laid dormant and undisturbed for decades the bombs are still considered to be live and could still go off if they were handled incorrectly that's why the army always has to be called in to safely dispose of them as was the case when one turned up in London in March 2015 the 1,000 pound German bomb was discovered below a pensioners Activity Centre during renovation work and the army took the threat so seriously that they ordered the evacuation of every street in the surrounding area forcing people to take shelter at a nearby gym the spirit of camaraderie reminded some of the older residents of the Blitz the bomb eventually diffused successfully although it's almost inevitable that are still more of them lurking somewhere beneath London's streets the only people who didn't seem disturbed by the experience where the pensioners who used the activity center who were amused by the idea that they'd spent years drinking tea directly above a bomb if you ever visit the Royal Armouries of Fort Nelson in Great Britain you'll see one of the very few surviving examples of a Smith gun an anti-tank weapon built out of total desperation in 1941 the British thought that a German invasion of their country was an inevitability following a devastating loss in the Battle of France and they were low on viable defences against invading tanks retired Major William H Smith thought he had the answer a weapon he designed himself at home made from a hollowed-out barrel and a homemade 54 inch gun capable of firing three inch mortar rounds it had a range of around 700 feet was heavy and cumbersome to move and could only fire if lay it on its side in the perfect position despite its limitations Winston Churchill ordered a series of Smith guns to be built they soon developed a reputation for blowing up their operators if moved or carried the wrong way around by 1943 the RAF refused to use them anymore and in 1945 they were declared obsolete [Music] the Smith gun wasn't the only unconventional or ramshackle weapon lashed together by the Brits during the war the spigot mortar was another strange anti-tank weapon trialed by the british side and was issued to several locations under the control of southern command the 29 millimetre weapons were also known as black er bombards on account of the fact that they were designed by one lieutenant-colonel VBS blacker in ideal conditions they were capable of launching a 20-pound bomb over a 2,700 foot distance spigot mortar bases can still be seen in various locations around England such as Winterton Beach and a training centre at Aldershot Command 22,000 of the weapons were built during 1941 but by 1942 Southern Command was forced to accept that they were nowhere near as effective as they needed to be and so they were declared obsolete it was another failed experiment but it at least meant that the Brits had plenty of scrap iron to use in the construction of their weapons while finding the occasional lost tank or weapon from the Second World War is pretty remarkable finding an entire undiscovered battlefield must feel like walking into another world and yet it happened to Australian army captain Brian Freeman in 2010 Freeman was walking the Kokoda trail and Papua New Guinea when he found the site of the Battle of a Ora Creek one of the final confrontations between the Japanese and the Australians in the jungle as the war drew to a close locals had known of the site for years but refused to walk through it because they believed the spirits of the dead still lingered there and so aside from the fact that the jungle had grown through and around it the site still looked exactly as it did at the moment the last gun was fired almost 70 years previously there were Japanese guns with ammunition still attached and kidney dishes from a makeshift battlefield hospital only when Brian found a skeletal Japanese soldier set against a tree still wearing his boots and helmet did he appreciate the true scale of his discovery the site is now off-limits to visitors as experts comb through it and attempt to repatriate the remains of the long-lost fallen soldiers Papa New Guinea isn't alone in hosting a Forgotten battlefield in the Baltic Sea sits the island of [ __ ] tutors which those in the know have called the mind island for years because they know it's covered in unexploded World War 2 era landmines when the Germans were driven from the island during the war they left almost all of their military equipment behind and it's still there there are piles of live ammunition shells rusting away in the open and the frames of Tanks and large guns dotted all over the landscape the German and Finnish armies first captured bolshoy tutors during 1941 and heavily fortified it but they were eventually beaten back by the Soviet Army in 1944 while some of the artillery is badly rusted and damaged at least some of it looks like it could still be fired today if given a little bit of cleaning and oiling because of the number of landmines known to exist on the island it remains illegal to visit it without a permit and a trained guy should you ever find yourself stumbling across an unexploded Hand Grenade the correct approach is to leave it alone back away to a safe distance and call the police the wrong approach is to pick it up toss it into the back of your car and drive to a crowded restaurants we may never fully understand why a 35 year old couple who found a grenade while out fishing in Florida in January 2019 felt the need to drive their discovery to a Taco Bell before they informed the authorities but they did when the bomb squad did turn up they were forced to evacuate the location before attempting to deal with the device in the trunk of the heart of thinking couple's car fortunately for everybody involved it was eventually determined that the safety pin on the old World War 2 era grenade was inoperable and therefore the explosive was non-viable it's understood that the police didn't arrest the couple for endangering the public but they would certainly have received a severe warning for acting so thoughtlessly and recklessly in April 2000 and nineteen a pair of hikers out walking in the lower dabangg district of Guwahati india saw what they thought was an old plane very deep in foliage in the distance they couldn't get close enough to it to investigate it themselves and so they notified the authorities and continued with their Trek the authorities went to look for it and although it took them eight days of searching through an area covered in snow and jungle plants they eventually found what the hikers had seen a crashed and long-forgotten World War two aircraft belonging to the American side sadly the pilot was still inside strapped to the same seat he docufide for almost 80 years some of the debris found in and around the Fallen plane seems to confirm that it crash-landed in 1941 in unknown circumstances the route is seldom walked by anybody in the location can't even be seen from directly above due to the density of the jungle and the plants and so it's likely that the reason the crash site has remained secret for all those years is because the pair of hikers were the first people to see it since the day it came down it's becoming apparent that world war two relics can turn up anywhere even in the basement of your home Jim Thomas a resident of Fond du Lac in Wisconsin USA was cleaning out his basement in April 2016 when he noticed that one of his shelves had a false top when he lifted out the false top he was stunned to find an old-fashioned two bazooka rocket looking back at him as a military veteran Jim was confident he knew what he'd discovered and also felt comfortable enough with the device that he felt safe to drive to the local police department with it the police however were far less comfortable with having the weapon on their premises they called in a bomb disposal unit which ordered the evacuation of two square blocks around the police department to ensure the safety of the public it was eventually determined that the rocket was a training round and didn't pose a threat but only after a lot of sweating and tension nobody has any idea how the Old World War two air around came to be in a civilians basement but it's possible that an old soldier kept it as a souvenir [Music] most of the visual records we have of the world Wars come from official bodies and official documentation it's far rarer to receive a detailed personal photographic account from a veteran who served in it and that makes this discovery truly special in the midst of the war an unknown soldier shot a whole thirty-one rolls of film on his own camera but never got the chance to develop them years later the undeveloped film turned up at an auction in Ohio where it was bought by photographic expert Levi bet Weiser the film was in a delicate State and there was every chance that Levi's attempts to develop it would result in its destruction but he knew he had to try his efforts were rewarded and he was able to develop several striking and candid war pictures from the rolls we'll never know who this soldier was but we now know what the war looked like through his eyes and it's the type of perspective we almost never get to see subscribe to the channel turn on the notification bell and enjoy watching new videos on my channel thanks for watching and see you soon [Music]

Channel: Lightning Top

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Keywords: 12 Most Amazing Unexpected Military Finds, Military Finds, Unexpected Military, Unexpected Finds, 12 most, top 12, most amazing, lightning top, compilation, lightningtop

Id: qRSZplGKaMc

Length: 14min 12sec (852 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 16 2020