YouTube has numerous videos from the states that encompass the old battlefields of the Eastern Front. A remarkable array of vehicles, from tanks to half-tracks to prime movers … you name it, are being pulled out of swamps, streams, ponds, lakes and rivers. Interestingly, a number of T34 'beutepanzer', still wearing their German markings, have emerged from the depths in addition to Russian vehicles.
The most fascinating video I watched involved a recovery team that hauled a Soviet KV1 (IIRC) out of a river and then was able to get it started after cleaning up the engine compartment. I'd never have believed it possible after 75+ years.
There is also a serious Russian/Eastern European community of civilian search teams who hunt old battlefields for artifacts and remains of unrecovered dead. If they are able to identify the dead, they make an effort with the respective national authorities to locate surviving relatives in order to pass on the news and any personal effects they might find. Russians, Germans, Italians, Romanians, etc … they don't seem to be concerned about nationality. My hat is off to people like that.
Judging from the video, it can be nasty work way out in the back of beyond – forests, swamps, etc, up to their necks in slime and mud sometimes.
B
examines another house in this series.
