Detectorist Finds D-Day Soldier’s Cigarette Case
A metal detectorist in the Netherlands unraveled the mystery of his latest find and is determined to return it to its home.
How did a cigarette case belonging to a Welsh soldier who died in Normandy end up buried in a field in the Netherlands?
That was just one of the questions that metal detectorist Filip Krapels was faced with regarding his latest discovery. BBC News reported that he found the silver case last month.
It had decades’ worth of damage, but the hallmark and date mark were still recognizable, identifying it as British silver made in 1934. An inscription on the lid was harder to read, with the name interrupted by what Krapels believes is a bullet hole. The remainder of the inscription, “By the committee of the Penarth Central Boxing Club in appreciation of his Loyal Services, April 10th 1937,” helped him determine the recipient’s name: Stan Drew.
In his research, which included reviewing military records and contacting the Penarth Civic Society, Krapels learned that Drew was born in Wales in 1912, worked at his family’s general store, and served in the 5th Battalion of the 1st Welsh Regiment in World War II. They were among the troops who landed at Normandy on D-Day.
Drew had four brothers who also served during World War II, one of whom lost a leg.
The Penarth Central Boxing Club had been started by one of Drew’s brothers to help World War I veterans with what was called shell shock at the time, now known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Sadly, Stan Drew was one of the great many casualties at Normandy, honored at the Bayeux Memorial in France and St. Augustine’s Church in Wales.
Krapels believes that a fellow soldier from Drew’s regiment took his cigarette case with the intent of returning it to the owner’s family. He told the BBC that he found a cap badge reading “Ich Dien,” the motto of the Welsh regiment, in the same field, and he knows that Allied soldiers traveled from Normandy through France and Belgium to liberate the Netherlands.
Krapels is looking for Drew’s family descendants so he can hand the case over to them. “For Stan’s sake, but also for the men who believed this case was important enough to take with them, I simply must return it to its rightful home and complete the job that they had obviously intended to do themselves,” he says.
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