The Adam Park Project

Item Information:

Catalogue Number: 11/07/001 Source: TAPP Archaeology Surveys Location: No11 Adam park Report No: Report No.12 Artifact Type: Ammunition Production Date: 2012-05-09 00:00:00 Dimensions of Item: 50.5mm x 7.5mm (shoulder) Copyright with The Adam Park Project

Other Description:

The survey at No.11 Adam Park did yield a notable first for the project; the recovery of a complete 6.5mm Arisaka round. To date a large number of Arisaka projectiles have been discovered on various sites and 3 expended cartridge cases have been found (See Survey Report 11 & 8 for details), but this is the first ‘full’ or ‘dropped round’ found in the estate.

Historic Context:

The presence of Japanese cartridges on the periphery of the estate is not surprising as the histories suggest that the Japanese were only able to occupy one or two of the remoter estate houses during the fighting but to find a dropped round (11/04/03) so near to the centre of the estate is unusual. The most obvious answer is that the round was dropped during the immediate aftermath of the fighting when the two protagonists were milling around together sorting out the captives from the guards Alternatively it could be connected to the POW camp phase. The mystery was compounded by the discovery of another Arisaka cartridge casing (11/07/01) in the same area but this time it had been fired. It would appear on this tentative evidence that the Japanese attack had at sometime made it as far up into the estate as the garden of No.11.