# WW2 relicts in my back yard / coke & bullets



## FenderBender (Mar 21, 2021)

Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!

Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation  Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.

Here the bottle was found in the scrubb below the road:





When they returned with their bags I helped them sort through it and clean the bottles. The very dirty coke bottle caught my eye and I told the boys not to take this one to the store.

I never had seen one of these so I checked all the markings and asked Google.

Greenish Glass, reading:

CocaCola
Trade Mark Registered
min. contents 6 fl oz




on the other side it says:
CocaCola
Trade Mark Registered
Bottle Pat D-105529




and below that, at the waist

60L44




the bottom:

LYNN MASS




What I found out so far is that the year of production is 1944 and it was produced in Lynn, Massachusetts. 

How did the bottle end up here? After all, I am writing from southern Germany.
My home town Stuttgart was conquered by French troops on 04/21/1945. During the war there were more than 50 air raids on the city, and most of it had been reduced to rubble. In the west there is still a whole hill of piled up debris. The focus was on the south of the city with its airfield. And that is where we live right now. Some time back in the meadows behind our house, we also found a .50 cal casing which was produced in 1944 in Illinois. This one probably was fired by an US plane during one of the attacks on the city.

The meadows with a freshly cut tree:



The casing & the bottle:




The French troops were joined by US troops in July 1945, who have significant bases in our area to this day.

I hope you enjoed the little story. If you have some more info on this particular bottle please share.

All the best for ya'll

Tobi


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 21, 2021)

I love the pictures. D-pat Lynn Mass is a common bottle. Hardly common to find in Germany! Hard to say how it got there. Amazing though. I love the kids cleaning up...literally!  Incredible shape for being 78 years old and having gone through a WWII. I would like to end with a friendly Dig God from the United States! 
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## RCO (Mar 21, 2021)

interesting story , its for sure a 44 coca cola bottle from the US , I'd assume the troops were being given some with there rations .

coca cola was highly popular back then so makes sense it be given to front lines troops as a way to boost moral and remind them of back home 

I've found US coke bottles here too and I live in Canada although they usually are broken ones


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## TxBottleDigger (Mar 21, 2021)

Hallo Herr FenderBender. I studied your country's participation in WW2 for 3 years. I also collected German militaria. I then got into bottles, which *WON'T *be going away. Coca Cola was shipped overseas to the troops in both Europe and the Pacific. That's a great part of history you have there. Greetings from the United States.


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## BrentC (Mar 21, 2021)

I am sure the bottle was shipped over by AAFES Army, Air Force Exchane Service that run stores on the American Bases world wide. I have enjoyed many a Coca Cola in Germany. I was able to find Yuengling (Pennsylvania made and distributed mostly on the east coast) beer in an AAFES store in England a few years back. 

Brent


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## ROBBYBOBBY64 (Mar 21, 2021)

RCO said:


> interesting story , its for sure a 44 coca cola bottle from the US , I'd assume the troops were being given some with there rations .
> 
> coca cola was highly popular back then so makes sense it be given to front lines troops as a way to boost moral and remind them of back home
> 
> I've found US coke bottles here too and I live in Canada although they usually are broken ones


Military Cokes were Clear Cokes with no city on the base. Am I wrong?
ROBBYBOBBY64.


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## FenderBender (Mar 21, 2021)

Thanks for the replies and the additional info. 
I really like the pic of the GIs with the box of bottles. Of course I also assume that some thirsty US soldier had a chilled coke in the summer of 44 and tossed it out of his willys jeep while singing " _It's a Long Way to Tipperary_ " with his pals - But - and this is a big but - my inner German keeps screaming at me: Why, this is so inefficient! All these heavy bottles with so little coke! And no reusable system in place, whatsoever! Bringing them all the way from the US? No way they beat us this way. Cause we are so efficient ... 

But I guess it is true.

I will ask my boys, where exactly they found this one. Maybe we will find some more stuff. I'll bring the metal detector too. I will report, if we find more....

By the way "German participation in WW2" is a very polite way of puting it, thanks for not rubbing it in!


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## CanadianBottles (Mar 21, 2021)

That's definitely an unusual find for Germany!  What's interesting to me is that the US military got its own Coke bottles during WWII which were clear and didn't have city names on the base.  While some city-marked bottles made their way into the supply based on what I've seen people finding in former military stations from the War in the Pacific, they seem to make up only a tiny fraction of the Cokes that were sent overseas.  So that makes yours even more unusual!


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## hemihampton (Mar 21, 2021)

I think the clear bottles were made overseas while the more normal looking Cokes were exported from USA. Fender Bender, let me know if you find any olive drab Camouflage Beer Cans over there. LEON.


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## TxBottleDigger (Mar 21, 2021)

FenderBender said:


> Thanks for the replies and the additional info.
> I really like the pic of the GIs with the box of bottles. Of course I also assume that some thirsty US soldier had a chilled coke in the summer of 44 and tossed it out of his willys jeep while singing " _It's a Long Way to Tipperary_ " with his pals - But - and this is a big but - my inner German keeps screaming at me: Why, this is so inefficient! All these heavy bottles with so little coke! And no reusable system in place, whatsoever! Bringing them all the way from the US? No way they beat us this way. Cause we are so efficient ...
> 
> But I guess it is true.
> ...


You are a very friendly and kind person. Happy to have you on the forum. Please tell us if you find anything else! We would love to see. Also, for the metal items, the people at treasurenet.com would probably like to see too. 
Oh, and here.


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## willong (Mar 24, 2021)

FenderBender said:


> Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!
> 
> Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation  Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.
> 
> ...





FenderBender said:


> Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!
> 
> Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation  Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.
> 
> Here the bottle was found in the scrubb below the road:



Welcome to the site FenderBender!

Coke, and many other beverages were previously sold in such returnable bottles. Now, virtually everything in plastic--it's disgusting! The bottle deposit was three cents when I was a kid, and a coke cost fifteen. So, gather five discarded bottles, plus one for the deposit and a lad could have a refreshing treat and a start on the next one.

If that brass cartridge case is from German 20mm ammunition, then depending upon where you recovered it, it could have spit lead at my late father from a strafing Bf 109 or Fw 190. He would have been returning the gesture with .50 BMG and curses.

During a second hitch--Dad reenlisted after the war and served in the United States Constabulary (occupation forces)--my father fraternized with the "enemy." That's how I came to be born in Stuttgart. My mother was working at snackbar in a PX--perhaps Kaiser Kaserne, but I don't know for sure and there are none still living that I can ask--when my parents met.

My mother, her sister and two young nieces, together with my Oma were all DP's (displaced persons) who had to flee Beuthen in Upper Silesia (now Bytom, Poland) ahead of the advancing Soviet forces near the end of the war. They serendipitously  missed an evacuation train that would have delivered them to Dresden during the night of the firebombing.

My Opa did not escape Beuthen, but was taken by the Soviets for slave labor--he was civilian bookkeeper over 50 years old at the time. Sometime well into his captivity he escaped with another, and the two made their way back to Germany. My Opa's legs were quite crippled for the balance of his life; and he blamed the conditions endured through the captivity and escape (he and fellow escapee had to cross river by paddling themselves across on ice chunk on at least one occasion that I heard about).

When we visited relatives in Kornwestheim in 1964, I was fascinated to find beer delivered to the house by the case in returnable bottles with lightning stoppers. Wish I could get a nice rich Double Bock--Spaten Optimator is my favorite bier--delivered to me here on a regular basis in that manner.

Never know what we'll encounter on the Internet, do we?

Auf wiedersehen.


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## relic rescuer (Mar 24, 2021)

FenderBender said:


> Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!
> 
> Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation  Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.
> 
> ...


Did you find the cartridge with a metal detector? If you don't have one you should think about investing in one.


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## K6TIM (Mar 24, 2021)

ROBBYBOBBY64 said:


> I love the pictures. D-pat Lynn Mass is a common bottle. Hardly common to find in Germany! Hard to say how it got there. Amazing though. I love the kids cleaning up...literally!  Incredible shape for being 78 years old and having gone through a WWII. I would like to end with a friendly Dig God from the United States!
> ROBBYBOBBY64.





TxBottleDigger said:


> You are a very friendly and kind person. Happy to have you on the forum. Please tell us if you find anything else! We would love to see. Also, for the metal items, the people at treasurenet.com would probably like to see too.
> Oh, and here.


The bottle is before 1960.Look at the norrow part of the wasp waist you'll see numbers and a logo look at teright of the logo the two numbers are the year it was made! Real interesting find that bottle in germany!


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## FenderBender (Mar 24, 2021)

willong said:


> Welcome to the site FenderBender!
> 
> Coke, and many other beverages were previously sold in such returnable bottles. Now, virtually everything in plastic--it's disgusting! The bottle deposit was three cents when I was a kid, and a coke cost fifteen. So, gather five discarded bottles, plus one for the deposit and a lad could have a refreshing treat and a start on the next one.
> 
> ...



Grüß Gott willong, my fellow Stuttgarter!

The digital world is small, isn't it? And the similarities don’t end with the city….

My maternal grandfather was a refugee from Gleiwitz, also Upper Silesia (now Gliwice, Poland) which is a 20 minutes drive from Bytom. Born in 1930 he was only 14 or 15 when the Red Army took his hometown. He and his classmates were drafted into the Volkssturm and had to fight the Russians while the regular German army withdrew from the city. Without military training and without proper weapons they were slaughtered by the Russian troops, but somehow my grandfather survived and was taken prisoner. He also escaped captivity (if I remember correctly while still on route to the camps in Siberia) and it took him almost 6 months to get to the Western occupation zone where he was reunited with his mother.
He suffered from severe PTSD for the rest of his life and died at 60.

Another tough life, about to be forgotten …  Sometimes we have to tell these stories - we can learn so much from them. Gratitude and humbleness among many other things, I guess. 

So all the best to you and your loved ones. It was very nice meeting you.

Tobi


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## FenderBender (Mar 24, 2021)

relic rescuer said:


> Did you find the cartridge with a metal detector? If you don't have one you should think about investing in one.



The cartridge was indeed found with a metal detector. It lay almost a foot below ground. My neighbourhood was bombed quite heavily because of the airfield which was located a mile to the south. Today my wife and I were jogging in the forest here and you can still see craters. We also found a lot of shrapnell.
According to the markings on the bottom the cartridge was made in 1944 by Des Moines Ordonance Plant,Iowa,USA.


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## Jake2150 (Mar 24, 2021)

FenderBender said:


> The cartridge was indeed found with a metal detector. It lay almost a foot below ground. My neighbourhood was bombed quite heavily because of the airfield which was located a mile to the south. Today my wife and I were jogging in the forest here and you can still see craters. We also found a lot of shrapnell.
> According to the markings on the bottom the cartridge was made in 1944 by Des Moines Ordonance Plant,Iowa,USA.


Amazing stories all around. Thank you all for sharing.


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## Len (Mar 24, 2021)

Very Cool stuff and story! A lot of potential collectibles in a hot market. Warning! A lot of things that go BOOM may be among them! Supervise those kids carefully lest WWII claim another casualty. ...Das Boot I-Great movie! Das Boot II--not as much...  
CT Len


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## TxBottleDigger (Mar 24, 2021)

Len said:


> Very Cool stuff and story! A lot of potential collectibles in a hot market. Warning! A lot of things that go BOOM may be among them! Supervise those kids carefully lest WWII claim another casualty. ...Das Boot I-Great movie! Das Boot II--not as much...
> CT Len


One of the best war films in my opinion. During the depth charges, it is one of the few times in a film which I have truly feared for my own life. It’s very realistic and very much scary.


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## Len (Mar 24, 2021)

We have dive able U-Boat wrecks offshore here (CT) too.  Just looking at them even from pics makes you think. All submariners--brave souls.  A big THANK YOU to all our troops. 

GO TX Rangers! Hey everybody we got a new stadium with a roof and ac! I still can't believe it...
CT Len


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## willong (Mar 31, 2021)

FenderBender said:


> Another tough life, about to be forgotten … Sometimes we have to tell these stories - we can learn so much from them.



Hello again Tobi,

Thank you for your kind reply to my comments. The *coincidences are remarkable*; and they are still accumulating.

I do not even know the origin of his pet name for me; but my father often called me "Toby" throughout our time together (my dad died in 2001).

I highlighted your comment about "another tough life, about to be forgotten..." because one of my favorite quotes from cinema, and among the most poignant ever, at least in my opinion, are the dying words of the character Roy Batty, delivered by actor Rutger Hauer in the science fiction movie "Blade Runner."

My German uncle, husband of my mother's sister, was part of a crew that manned an anti-aircraft 88mm cannon installed on top of the Rathaus tower in Kornwestheim during the war. 


His assignment there is a link in the chain of events leading to my own existence, for that was the destination of the women who were to become my Oma, mother, aunt and two nieces after they were pushed out of Silesia.

The dimensions of the cartridge case, together with its headstamp information, which you provided in a different posting, indicate that it is from an American .50 caliber BMG cartridge--the inside diameter of the neck should measure 12.7mm to confirm. Therefore, I will revise my earlier comment--instead of the remnant of a round fired *at* my late father, it could be that of a round fired *by* him.

Regards,


Will


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## logan.the.collector (Mar 31, 2021)

I believe my reply glitched, so I had to edit this but... that photo of the soldiers drinking the Coca-Cola in WWII way up in this thread is awesome. @YoloBottles would find that one really interesting


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## Ineedhelpwithmybottles (Mar 31, 2021)

FenderBender said:


> Let me kick this off with a friendly “Grüß Gott” from Germany!
> 
> Two weeks ago my boys were picking trash along the embankment of a road near our house. The money they collect for returning the bottles is then spent on sweets - classical win-win-situation  Even the dentist is happy … Deposit on bottles in Germany range from 8 ct for glass beer bottles to 25 ct for single use plastic bottles.
> 
> ...


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