Apparently 1940-41 though there does seem to be some discrepancy over if the 9mm was German or Italian.
When I was a kid my Great Uncle related a story to me of chasing the Germans out of a city (he didn't specify) and then finding massive stores of ammunition left behind.
He also told me of being in a foxhole in the desert during a battle and having a large calibre round hit the back of his pit. He jumped out of the pit in case it exploded but it didn't. He says he almost pooped his pants when he looked down and saw that spinning between his feet.
As a footnote he was then sent to Singapore just in time to be captured by the Japanese from where he went to work on the railway in Burma which he survived by eating mashed cockroaches collected from the latrines.
He survived the war without any injury, but in an ironic twist of fate he died from gangerene; he was showing me the derelict site where he used to work in a chalk pit and stepped on a rusty nail.
Even though this became infected, he refused to get it treated until finally he had to have his leg amputated.
He died some months later just before he was due to have the other leg amputated as the gangerene had spread.
A stupid end to a stubborn old soldier but I guess after all he'd been through a simple nail seemed rediculous to worry about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sternjaeger
That's interesting, I didn't know about this ammo capture in N.Africa, when did it occur?
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