I've been meaning to relate this story for ages since hearing it last year. Here goes:
I have some friends over here in Normandy who own and run a small holding with pigs and chickens etc. I've even worked on it a few times and love their type of lifestyle. Anyway when Simon was doing the restoration of the loft to the main house he was rooting about in the eaves of the roof over a canopy covering the stairway leading into the attic and found a big bundle of straw, presumably for insulation. While raking out this dry and very old straw what did he find buried under it, but this. See pix below.
It's a World War German 2 Mauser Karabiner 98K bolt action rifle.
It was in a pretty sorry state at the time, but shows no woodworm in the wood and the metal parts cleaned up nicely and now the bolt action runs smoothly and the firing pin works when you pull the trigger. Not sure of the condition of the barrel as the cleaning rod for that is missing. It's pretty much as you see it, even down to the missing shoulder strap.
Simon has no idea how it got there and has probably laid there since the war. I can only speculate what its history was. Did some German soldier retreating from the allies dump it in the woods? Was he shot and the owner of the house found his body and kept the rifle? Could it have been part of some French resistance cache? We'll never know but I thought you Hugh would like to see this.
I have some friends over here in Normandy who own and run a small holding with pigs and chickens etc. I've even worked on it a few times and love their type of lifestyle. Anyway when Simon was doing the restoration of the loft to the main house he was rooting about in the eaves of the roof over a canopy covering the stairway leading into the attic and found a big bundle of straw, presumably for insulation. While raking out this dry and very old straw what did he find buried under it, but this. See pix below.
It's a World War German 2 Mauser Karabiner 98K bolt action rifle.
It was in a pretty sorry state at the time, but shows no woodworm in the wood and the metal parts cleaned up nicely and now the bolt action runs smoothly and the firing pin works when you pull the trigger. Not sure of the condition of the barrel as the cleaning rod for that is missing. It's pretty much as you see it, even down to the missing shoulder strap.
Simon has no idea how it got there and has probably laid there since the war. I can only speculate what its history was. Did some German soldier retreating from the allies dump it in the woods? Was he shot and the owner of the house found his body and kept the rifle? Could it have been part of some French resistance cache? We'll never know but I thought you Hugh would like to see this.
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Simon and his boys often go camping, so I'm sure there's a Fenna or two tucked away in their nosh kits already.
