Written by the treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Fellow Using Two-Box Detector To Locate Buried Shells From WW I On His Farm Source: video link below. |
My father was on a minesweeper during WW II. He never talked much, hardly anything, about his experiences during the war. We have, however, found where his ship was everyday during the war. Palermo, Genoa, Sardinia, and Malta are some of the places where they cleared mines before his ship came back to New York and Miami before going through the Panama Canal to the Pacific.
I tell you this because the National Archives has tons of information that you can search. Not only can you research individuals, but you can also find detailed records on ships and battles. And not only do they have information on WW II, but also information going back to the Revolutionary War and more.
I was able to find a daily longitude and latitude for my dad's ship, which was one of the smaller ships in the Navy. You might find it easy to find even more information about larger ships.
If you want to find information about a family member or track down a ship that sank while carrying gold bullion, the National Archives and Navy have tons of records that can be accessed. You can receive some information free, but there may be a price charged to cover the cost of copies of other records.
Oh, by the way, you can also get medals and things posthumously, as well as a flag
You can apply for the flag by completing VA Form 2008, Application for United States Flag for Burial Purposes.
Here are a couple of websites that can help you get started with research on a veteran or a ship.
http://militaryrecordsusa.com/
http://www.ancestry.com/nara_new
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| Collection of Militaria From NY Times Video Clip Source: link below. |
The story is a good reminder that there still may also be dangerous things in the ground and on the beaches around the Treasure Coast, which was once a military training center.
It is said that 20 million shells were fired during the Battle of Verdun, of which about 20 percent did not explode.
Thanks to teklord for sending me that link!
Remember to be careful when digging where there could possibly be old shells or bombs. That includes the Treasure Coast.
Spain recently returned a bunch of stolen artifacts to Columbia.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/06/24/us-spain-colombia-archaeology-idINKBN0EZ1YW20140624
You might remember the case from back in 2012 in which Odyssy Marine had to turn over tons of coins from the Nuestra Senora de Mercedes that it recovered off of Portugal.
http://tbo.com/news/business/spain-sends-military-to-retrieve-treasure-from-odyssey-marine-360822
I'm not sure why Peru didn't prevail in their claim for the same coins.
A Mexican helicopter fired shots at a US border patrol. They claim it was by accident, of course. I would not be surprised by anything down there these days.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mexican-helicopter-crosses-u-s-border-fires-border-patrol-n142966
There are religious shrines around the world that are visited by millions of people, but you might not know that there are religious shrines in the US as well. I thought this one was especially interesting.
National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Fonda, NY: Having lost her parents at an early age, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680) was raised among the Mohawks in the home of an uncle. There she first encountered Christian missionaries, and was baptized on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1676 in Fonda, NY near the Jesiut mission in Auriesville. Because of her baptism, her exemplary life, and her desire to remain a virgin, Kateri suffered great persecution. She died at age twenty-four known as the “Lily of the Mowhawks,” since she had given herself over entirely to care for the sick and long hours of prayer and penance. She was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II. Her body is buried in the church of the Native American reserve of Kahnawake, Quebec.
Source: http://www.ssvmusa.org/Events/CatholicCulture/PilgrimageSites.shtm
It sometimes seems that the obvious beaches are over hunted. I suppose they are. There must be more detectorists today than back a few decades. Yet that is easy to over estimate, as I've said before. The detecting community is so much more visible today than in the past, due to the internet.
The most over-hunted beaches are those that are obvious and easy. Most of those "obvious" beaches have parking lots and beach walk-overs.
There are however long stretches of beach along the Treasure Coast that are seldom hunted because they are not as easy to get to. Those beaches are not as heavily hunted, but they are also generally not as busy and so produce fewer modern targets. That doesn't mean they will never produce shipwreck items though, and they may produce a few good modern targets even if they aren't real plentiful.
One way to make it easier to hunt those out-of-the-way beaches is to get someone to drop you off and pick you up again later. That can keep you from having to walk a few miles with your detector, scoop, water, etc.
If there are two or more of you, you might consider dropping a couple of the more energetic people off at an out-of-the-way location while the others go ahead to a parking lot. If the one group detecting the more distant location only has to walk to the parking lot, that means the walk has been cut in half. If you park at a parking lot then walk to a remote site and then have to return to the parking lot, that doubles the distance you have to walk.
On the Treasure Coast we are stuck in the same old weather pattern with a one to two foot surf. As is typical of this kind of weather, a few shards have recently been found up in the Corrigans area.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
