Today's "Iron Harvest"
An estimated 1.5 billion shells were fired in Flanders between 1914 and 1918, some of them packed with explosives, some containing gas. In the preliminary barrage for Passchendaele alone, some four million shells were fired.
Ninety years later, the fields of Flanders continue to carry the explosives burden of that war, yielding thousands of unexploded shells on an annual basis - what's known in Belgium as the "Iron Harvest".
Most come to the surface as farmers plough fields and the smaller ones are then stacked by the roadsides or, slightly more prosaically, in the horizontal supports of concrete power poles. Others emerge when road or building works commence. Farmers contact the police and the police in turn contact DOVO, the Belgian Army's bomb squad which has a full-time unit operating in the World War One region around Ypres.
DOVO is called out more than 3,000 times every year and is almost constantly on the road in three teams of two specialist soldiers who collect the unexploded munitions and transport them to a depot near Poelkapelle. Their annual haul is in excess of 200,000 kilograms.
Until 1972 the unexploded shells were disposed of at sea. Today, however, they are dismantled, melted down or exploded. Each shell is cleaned and then scanned to determine the content before being ordered by country of origin and size. Gas shells, which make up five per cent of the total, are separated from the explosives shells.
Computerised dismantling
Smaller munitions are melted down in a specially constructed furnace while larger ones are blown up by controlled explosion. Gas shells undergo a unique process of total disassembly in equipment that is nearly entirely computerised and cost millions of euro.
Using robotic arms the machine disables the gas shells one by one. It's a time-consuming process but the most effective means of dealing with what are exceptionally dangerous relics of World War One.
While a number of farmers have lost their lives to the munitions over the years and DOVO uses specialists and technology to deal with the shells, these facts do not seem to deter a small number of collectors, and even tourists, from illegally trying to take them home.
Two exhibitions this year will feature both the "Iron Harvest" and the work of DOVO through the years. Both will be open to the public from Saturday July 14 and will be at the Varlet Farm near Wallemolen (near Zonnebeke).
DOVO is also responsible, together with police, for the recovery, storage, notification to the appropriate authorities and finally delivery to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, of human remains found in the region, although such discoveries are now becoming increasingly rare.
The most recent find occured last year when the remains of five Australian soldiers missing since the First World War were uncovered during road works in the village of Westhoek. The contractor called in specialists from the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 and the regional archaeological service Archeo7 after his staff came across the initial signs during works to install new gas mains. Archaeological investigations are performed under regulations stipulated by the Governor of West Flanders.
Post mortems are then performed by a Belgian forensic specialist and should the country concerned seek any further investigations of any sort, these are carried out on request. The remains are then passed to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for reburial at one of the Commission's cemeteries in the region in consultation with the country.