The traces the war left are extremely diverse. I think that many people might not aware about this aspect of war damages so it might be interesting to share this with you.
The heavy us of artillery, on both sides, left many forests all over the battlefields of Europe devastated. The consequences are still an issue today. Although clear cuts were done in the most badly hit forests shortly after the war, there are still many forests in Europe that have trees riddled with shrapnel.
Until about 15 years ago the timber coming from these woods was literally worthless. Nobody wanted to put these logs onto the sawmills, If you were lucky someone would pay you a modest sum and use it for firewood. Nowadays things have changed.
Due to extremely performing metal detectors and new procedures in veneering and milling as well as advanced machinery these logs can be sold for good prices. The pictures show the telltale signs foresters look out for in order to locate the shrapnel in a piece of timber. The pictures we have posted show oak logs being processed by foresters of the ANF, the Luxembourg Forestry Department, in order to be sold at the Saint Avold timber sale next February. This sale, which will be held by public submission, is the most important sale of high quality veneer and to a lesser degree coopers timber in Europe. If they are of an, except for the shrapnels, high quality, oak logs with one or even two shrapnels can score prices up to 1000€ per cubic meter.
The logs shown in the pictures come from a forest near Boursdorf, on the upper slopes of the Sûre river, just across the border from Germany. This area was the southernmost point of the Bulge salient.
Working in the morning mist, together with colleagues from the French ONF Office National des Forêts. The black half-moon shaped discoloration on the top end of the log is due to a shrapnel that is quite near to the cut.
Cutting through shrapnel logs is always like playing the roulette.....if you hit a shrapnel you have at least an hours work of filing the chain, if you are lucky! Often you have to scrap the chain because it's too badly damaged.
The blueish discoloration points to the presence of shrapnel.
Black stains like this one are a 100% sure giveaway to the presence of a piece of shrapnel. In this case the piece of steel is very near as the wood in-between the bark and the black stain is clearly rotten.
The slight depression, just to the upper-right of the center of the picture, is the mark left by the impact of shrapnel in the bark of an oak. For an untrained eye it is invisible. If, on a standing tree, it is located at an height of several meters it will be very difficult to spot. Even for the eye of a trained professional.
