by Viktors Duks
When we saw their trembling hands and pitiful looks, we were happy. Our friends had had a festive night!
Matt was a bit apologetic. “Look, Viktors—once they start partying, they can’t stop.”
I was prepared for this statement. “Well why didn’t you tell me that on the first day? We were holding back!”
What are you thinking now? We’re a bunch of old men who like to tip back a few glasses? We’re drunks? Go ahead. I can’t keep you from thinking whatever you want. Life is life, and I’m writing down the truth here, dammit. Drinking is an inviolable part of our peculiar lives.
The evening fog was spreading itself over the meadows like a blanket. The forest was falling silent. The hurried pace of the day, when we were boiling in our own sweat, fighting mosquitoes and sharing our last drops of water, was finished.
“Look. Let’s drink to the boys who are in those black bags over there. The first toast for the soldiers, the second for the gods of digging, the third one for us…”
The burning liquid poured strength back into our bodies. Slowly but purposefully it always soaks into each and every cell of your body, and then you want to walk into the dewy meadow, barefoot, look at the silent moon and shout, “I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME!!!” And then it’s time to go to bed.
Matt and Ken finally arrived. There wasn’t time for talking. The forest, shattered by hand grenades and full of foxholes and trenches, was waiting for its guests.
I think that Chris can best tell you what we saw and experienced.
We are 130 kilometers southwest of Riga in a forest that has no name. On the maps, it is just a green shaded area with a marsh at its center—just another expanse of dense foliage deep within Latvia.
It looks tranquil enough, untouched even. The only access is down a rutted, twisting dirt road that seems to go on forever. Apart from the occasional logging track, there is no other visible sign of life—surly the place has remained unchanged for hundreds of years?
The wind scatters the fur and pine trees and the lack of any human noise, apart from our own, is very odd and for a westerner-used to continual background noise-slightly disturbing. Frogs leap away from our advancing wellies; crucial for the ground is boggy, and tangled, twisted branches grab and claw at our faces.
Everything seems to look just as it has done for thousands of years. But when you look closer, become more attuned to the contours of the ground and study the rise and fall of the land, you iviliz this is not a forest untouched by man, not a forest tranquil and unchanging, but a place of death and destruction.
For what first appeared to be a small brook and large, leaf filled ponds are in fact trench lines and command bunkers. Scattered collections of holes and divots aren’t fox or badger dwellings, but the remains of a German bunker position. The solid immovable objects that are easy to trip over aren’t the thick hard stumps of roots, but the top end of unexploded German 81 mm shells—welcome to Latvia’s Valley of Death.
This is where we found ourselves, accompanied by the local military archaeological group known colloquially as the Diggers.
They have been coming into these woods for the last couple of years, exploring, searching and finding an amazing collection of weapons and equipment from both German and Russian armies. And on some occasions finding the bones of the men themselves.
Situated about 15 kilometers, or about nine miles, from the town of Saldus we are in an area known as the Curland Peninsula. In 1945 the remnants of the German Army Group North (led by General Schorner) found themselves pinned into the peninsula by the Soviet 1st Baltic Front. This once great army—part of which had fought in the suburbs of Leningrad—had been in full retreat for more than a year. Bottled up and unable to escape they fought pitched hand-to-hand battles with the Russians as the front line advanced slowly northwards.
Saldus was another town that needed to be taken by the Russians just as they had taken hundreds before them since they had managed to stop and then turn back the Germans in 1943.
Latvia’s capital Riga was taken in October and the speed of the Russian advance was matched only by the retreat the Germans where now having to iviliza.
The 8th Soviet Guards Division moved in a classic pincer formation with the right flank engulfing the German lines to the east of the town. But the western flank got bogged down in the heavily wooded terrain and the Germans were able to surround and destroy the Russian advance. No one knows how many died in this battle but the Diggers reckon it was probably about 1000 men—it was a small victory for the Germans at a time of massive defeats.
Today the terrain is little changed. Some years after the war, the heavy armour wrecks were removed. Since then the area has returned to nature.
Our party of 13 stayed at a lodge about an hour’s drive from the forest. The four of us from the UK had flown into Riga a couple of days before and had met up with the Diggers before heading out into the country’s heartland.
Our team of Latvians is made up of former Soviet army conscripts, most of whom served in the Eastern block countries just before the fall of Communism. They are all experienced not only in the ways of modern war, but also extremely interested in the events that blighted their country so many years ago. Some are farmers, others marketing directors and company presidents. But all share a common interest in digging up relics from the past and repatriating the bones of long dead and forgotten servicemen.
How three Brits (journalist, logistics manager and war historian) and one South African (doctor) came to be in this forest of death is testament to the powers of e-mail and, perhaps more importantly, Internet search engines. We made contact, exchanged ideas and then got invited to Latvia. We landed at Riga airport three months later full of enthusiasm, which was tempered slightly by the fear of the unknown.
Conditions were extreme on the first day. All night the rain had drummed down on the roof of lodge. At daybreak the sky was dark and heavy, but at least the rain held off.
From Saldus, the drive into the forest took just over an hour. Here we stopped and suited up for a first day of digging. Army camouflage waterproofs and waders are essential for this type of work, as most of the ground is little more than a thick bog. We gave each other one last apprehensive look before heading out into the dense, unyielding forest.
The going was tough as we followed two deep rutted tracks made by some kind of logging-truck leviathan and the walk into the area of the battle took another hour and a half. The foliage was so thick and disorientating that our guides routinely cut indents into the trees so that we would be able to find our way out again.
Along the path was the evidence of what took place here. Shattered trees long hollowed out, deep round shell holes and half filled-in trench systems. Rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition, steel helmets and the occasional shell casing lined our route—evidence of earlier digs and finds.
What state the Germans must have been in when they arrived in Latvia one can only image. Having been involved in the original Blitzkrieg into Scandinavia and then the siege of Leningrad, Army Group North was a formidable, if battle scarred fighting force.
But the remnants of the army that dug countless trenches and bunker positions in this almost deserted part of Latvia in a desperate struggle to stop the Soviet advance must have been tired, hungry and pretty sick of war. Cut off from a land escape route by the Russian 1st Belorussian Front and with Hitler stubbornly refusing to allow them to evacuate by sea, to members of the Army Group it must have all seemed pretty futile.
With very little rise and fall in the ground we continued deeper into the forest. More and more evidence of the battle greeted us, and like novice adventures we took photos of everything; holes, bullets, helmets and trees filled up many rolls of film.
The Diggers were leading us to a place they had found earlier in the year and one they believed contained a rich variety of weapons and equipment. What we found was a hole in the ground filled with mud and water. Tired and a little disorientated this was not what we had expected
. The Diggers explained that this had once been a German ammunition bunker and by the excited looks on their faces we could tell they believed there was plenty of unused ammo still in there.
Stripped to the waist and clad in our waders we ventured into the water, more full of hope than confidence. But within minutes the 50-year-old bunker began to grudgingly reveal some of its secrets. It was hard going, the floor of the bunker was just thick, sticky mud and most of the finds were discovered more by luck than judgement. A long, thin steel probe became the most sought-after piece of equipment we had.
Surrounded by smaller trench systems the bunker was set apart from the rest by some distance. This was obviously because as it stored ammo the chances of explosion were pretty great!
Having lain in the ground for so many years the 81 mm mortar shells that started being pulled out of the mud were in remarkably good condition. All were live, most with original markings, and a number still packed inside their metal boxes. We tugged them out of the mud like prize catches and raised them up triumphantly to show the others.
Not far from here one of our team had been given a metal detector (White’s Spectrum XLT set for relics) and, after hours of false readings, found a Mossin carbine with the bayonet still attached and the bolt still in the breech. This was a rifle used mainly by Russian artillery troops and was one of the finds of the trip, as the Diggers had never found anything like this before. The other good find was a rocket from a German anti-tank weapon (8,8cm RPzB-54). This was pulled out of the thick mud of the ammo bunker.
Half a day later and we had enough live ammo to start a small insurrection. Dozens of 81 mm (German) and 82 mm (Russian) mortar shells, a couple of hand grenades, a number of empty Panzerfaust one-shot anti-tank rockets, wooden ammo boxes and cases and an almost compete German gas mask lined the side of the bunker hole.
It was at this point that a Russian TV camera crew arrived to film the scene for the audience back home and to gather more information about the Diggers work. They also took a passing interest in ourselves and what had brought us to Latvia
After lunch we traveled deeper into the forest to a place where the Diggers believed there were the remains of a number of soldiers. Nearby we found a tank shell and eight Russian mortar shells in a shallow ditch.
According to our hosts, the remains of many soldiers still lie in the forest where they fell. Identifying which side they were on is relatively easy. Usually a helmet is lying close by and this is a good pointer to whether they are Russian or German. A rather gruesome way to find out if the helmet belonged to the body is to see what damage has been done to it and compare that to the state of the skull.
At one site we found a Russian helmet with a bullet hole on the left side and beneath it only the jawbone and small fragments of the occupant’s skull! Next to this were hundreds of spent machine gun casings—evidence that the poor fellow was making some sort of last stand as his position was overrun. More sinisterly we found beneath his body two hand grenades attached together with a trip wire. From the way it was set out, the Diggers reckoned the body had originally been booby-trapped.
Personal equipment and possessions are also another good indicator of which side the soldiers were on. What is almost impossible to do is to identify the actual individual, as the Russians particularly rarely carried any form of ID that could have lasted 50 years in the ground. All the remains that we found on our trip were identified as being Russian.
The euphoria of the morning was replaced by sober introspection as we dug and then laid out the bones of the fallen men. These are the unknown soldiers, having lain undiscovered in the forest for so long. Perhaps somewhere back in the Russian heartland is a surviving relative who will never know where their loved one fell. With one set of remains we even found a aluminium cigarette case. Poignant though it was, it still didn’t help in identifying the owner.
All the bones that the Diggers find are taken back to Riga and stored, until a proper burial with honours is conducted. This is done every May in the presence of the Russian Ambassador.
It was whilst examining the remains of another set of bones close by that we came across the handiwork of the so called Black Diggers. These are, according to our hosts, unscrupulous treasure hunters who scavenge the remains looking for anything of value to sell either in Latvia or to collectors overseas. The bones they find are scattered, strewn and forgotten in the search for valuables and this was certainly the case with the third set of human remains that we came across.
Only one solitary hand grenade was left in the shallow hole we found, everything else had either been taken or thrown away. We collected up what we could find and made a simple cross, laying it in the hole as a mark of respect.
By now the sun was slowly beginning to drop from the sky and we began the long walk out of the forest. Our thoughts on that first day were mixed. There was plenty of excitement about the things that we had found, exhaustion from the physical labour and sadness about the human remains and the ultimate futility of their deaths.
Days two and three revealed to us the true nature of digging; i.e., lots of actual spade-in-hand shoveling. Whereas in the first day we had been to places well known to our Latvian hosts, now we went into uncharted territory. Deeper into the forest to places they had only visited maybe once before.
One of the constant hazards even in May was the abundance of mosquitoes. An ever-present irritant they are always around your face, hands, arms or any other unprotected area of skin. One of our team was bitten so badly that his hand swelled up alarmingly, so much so that the team doctor decided he needed more advanced treatment than our first aid kit & trauma pack could provide and they both trekked out to find the nearest medical center.
Our finds on these two days were not as exciting or as numerous as the first. We got a taste of what it is like to physically find and then dig out another massive bunker, but this time with no guarantee of success. After an hour or so of digging the metal detectors went in but could find no trace of anything and we gave up. We did find a huge horde of Russian POMZ anti-personnel mines imbedded deep in a trench and spent a few hours exploring an intricate German bunker system but the finds were limited to bullets, shell casings and helmets.
All the live ammo that we found was left out in the open and as visible as we could make it. In the next couple of weeks engineers from the Latvian Army will accompany the Diggers into the area and will either make it safe or blow it all up.
And then our time was up in the forest. Weighed down by helmets, empty mortars shells and wooden ammo crates we made our way back to ivilization. Driving back to Riga we stopped at the home of a man the Diggers regard as the godfather of digging. Here we were treated to a private viewing of his collection, which spanned 25 years worth of mooching around Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Russia.
Blockaded and decimated, the Germans became even more contained in the Curland Peninsula. The front line encroached more and more into their territory as the Russians kept them successfully penned in. Some Germans managed to escape by sea but most were left to fight it out right up until VE day. Latvia became part of the old USSR and apart from the removal of heavy armour the battlefield was left to nature; if not forgotten then certainly abandoned to the elements.
Soon the remains of the men we found will be laid to rest with some honour and dignity and that knowledge gives me great satisfaction. I have stood and taken in the emptiness of battlefields across the world from the massacre at Islanwanda, the heroic actions at Rorkes Drift, and the barren cold beauty of Culloden. But nothing prepared me for to the stark reality of this forest and discovering the desperate heroics of unknown men, long dead.
Strange events. Strange events always walk with us, and without them our adventures would not have the spice that they do have. In a watery ditch torn out by a hand grenade, for example, the Classicist’s metal detector found some peculiar metal object. The Classicist and I were joined by a newcomer, Nautilius, in jumping into the water. Our long
rubber boots filled up with cold water. We rolled up our sleeves and tried to find the unknown object. Our arms were too short, and we had to bend down low enough to get all wet. The clay and mud began to yield their treasures. We lifted handfuls of Russian bullets from the ditch. Some of them were in a half-corroded cardboard box. A while later we found a Russian military helmet and, on the other side of the ditch, the jawbone of a soldier.
“Shit,” the Communicator sighed. “He’s in here somewhere. We need some buckets.”
The Communicator thought about the problem while Nautilius, like a wild boar, diligently dug through the brown liquid.
Nautilius was 18 years old. “Hey, guys,” he spoke up. “What’s this? It came off of something else?”
Nautilius was holding a small and bent piece of metal. The rest of us looked at each other.
“You dummy,” the Classicist was smiling. “It’s the ring from a hand grenade.”
“Let’s start counting,” I chimed in. “One, two, three, four seconds, five seconds…” We lucked out. The grenade didn’t explode.
Sometimes we get a little too crazy. We’re on the edge of a knife and we behave like we don’t care.
***
The last evening. The Englishmen are flying back home tomorrow.
I collapse across the threshold of my house. I want to prepare gifts for Matt in a way that will ensure that he is not grabbed by anti-terrorism units when he goes through customs. I disarmed four Soviet infantry mines and drilled holes in five bullet casings.
***