Original subtitles

[tense music]

[tense uptempo music]

- [Danny] Mysteries can be buried anywhere.

Under the earth,

[volcano booms]

beneath the sea,

[aircraft whooshes]

or even right under our own feet.

[tense uptempo music]

And when we stumble upon them,

sometimes what we find can change history.

[tense uptempo music]

Tonight, long lost relics of war resurface

like a deadly weapon dredged from a river.

- It looks an awful lot like a bomb,

and it's sitting right next to two gas lines.

- [Danny] To a World War I bunker frozen in time.

- They'd start finding empty wine bottles, newspapers,

and a rusty camp bit.

- As they continue digging,

they find a much more sobering discovery.

21 skeletons.

- [Danny] To a legendary blade pulled from the depths.

- The archeologist takes one look at the sword

and gets goosebumps.

[tense music]

- Join us now because nothing stays hidden forever.

[tense music]

- [Danny] Construction crews are used to unexpected finds.

Pipes, rubble, even the occasional time capsule,

but on one site in England,

they uncovered something much more explosive.

[keyboard clacking]

- It's February 7th, 2023 in Great Yarmouth,

a seaside town on England's east coast.

Crews are dredging the River Yare

prepping for a new bridge crossing.

Suddenly one worker freezes.

The dredger has pulled something out of the mud.

[sinister music]

It's metallic, about three feet long

and it looks an awful lot like a bomb.

What's worse, it's sitting right next to two gas lines.

[sirens wailing]

- The site is evacuated immediately.

Police pour in.

In comes the bomb squad.

It is all hands on deck.

- The bomb unit moves in carefully.

They study the object and based on the shape

and known bombing patterns,

they soon have a sense for what they're dealing with.

It appears that this is a 550-pound German bomb

from World War II

and it's still live, armed, and deadly.

A blast from a bomb of this size

and a crowded city would be catastrophic.

- [Danny] It's a terrifying find

and a reminder of Great Yarmouth's role in World War II.

[explosion booms]

- Great Yarmouth was an important military port,

not only to clear the English channel from mines

and the German threat,

but it was also a launching point

for much of the allied shipping that was used.

So it's a prime target for the Germans to bomb.

[tense music]

- [Don] The Germans dropped over 81,000 tons of bombs on Britain.

Around 10% of those failed to detonate,

which means thousands of hidden threats

still lurk underground.

- [Danny] That's why the moment this bomb is uncovered,

the response is swift and extreme.

[tense music]

- [Don] The bomb squad works nonstop building a protective

barrier with over 440 tons of sand.

It's their only protection.

- [Martin] Old bombs like this get more dangerous

with the passage of time

because simple things such as heat or pressure

or friction can set them off in the present day.

- [John] After three tense days, the site is finally secure.

And army specialist prepare to disarm the bomb.

The plan is to cut the fuse

and then haul it out of the city

for a controlled detonation.

- [Don] As they use high pressure water jets to cut the

fuse, the sand barrier starts to collapse.

[tense music]

The site becomes compromised

and the crew is in increasing danger.

- [Danny] With the clock ticking,

the workers try something else.

- [Martin] They rebuild the sand barrier

and then they cut into the bomb casing in an attempt

to burn off the bomb fillers slowly

so that it doesn't produce a high order explosion,

but rather a low order release of energy

that doesn't endanger lives.

- [John] And then without warning, boom.

[tense music]

The bomb goes off sending a shockwave through the site.

Debris flies everywhere.

Car windows shatter.

A flood wall cracks.

The shockwave is felt 15 miles away.

- [Don] Thanks to the barrier, the explosion is contained

and there are no injuries,

but it came dangerously close.

[chilling music]

- [Danny] Decades earlier, another World War II find

surfaces in a more surprising place, the African desert.

- [John] It's November 1958

and a team of British geologists

working for the D'Arcy Oil Company

are flying high over the Libyan Desert

scouting for drilling sites.

- [Andrew] From their vantage point 10,000 feet in the air,

they see something on the desert floor below them.

It looks to be wreckage of an airplane.

The company sends a team to the site

led by a surveyor named Gordon Bowerman.

[tense music]

- [Danny] When Bowerman arrives,

he finds a perfectly preserved military aircraft

complete with operable radios and machine guns.

- [John] He sees no sign of crew,

but he does find uniforms with names stitched inside.

He also finds maintenance records

that identify the plane as a B-24 D Liberator.

- [Andrew] Bowerman contacts a nearby US Air Force base

at Wheelus.

Turns out it's an American bomber from World War II

and it's been missing in action for 15 years,

known as the Lady Be Good.

- [Danny] But the discovery leaves one terrifying question.

What happened to the airmen who vanished with it?

- Search teams scour the desert for months.

Now about 19 miles from the crash site,

they do find a pair of flight boots

and this serves as the first sign of life.

- More clues follow.

Parachutes held down with stones

likely left there to guide rescuers,

but the trail leads to the Calanscio Sand Sea,

a vast expanse of dunes rising to 400 feet.

- [Danny] Unfortunately, no bodies are found.

Then a year later, the search team gets

a little unexpected help from Mother Nature.

- [John] The dunes are constantly shifting with the

winds and in February 1960,

petroleum workers make a grim discovery.

[chilling music]

Five bodies on a plateau in the sand sea.

One of them is Lieutenant Robert Toner.

- [Danny] Among the remains is Toner's journal,

which chronicles the airman's final mission.

- [Andrew] Back in April of 1943,

25 of these B-24 D Liberators

took off from Libya on a bombing mission.

Their target, Naples, Italy.

- [John] One of the last planes to lift off is the Lady Be Good.

It's its first combat mission.

Inside are nine crew members,

but they quickly run into bad weather,

strong headwinds, and poor visibility.

By 7:50 PM, the mission is scrubbed

and the plane turns to head back toward its base.

- [Danny] On the return flight, things go from bad to worse.

- [Andrew] At 12:12 AM, plane's pilot, William Hatton,

radios back to base.

Navigation system is malfunctioning.

They're flying blind.

- [Danny] Running out of fuel,

the men make a drastic decision.

- [Sami] The men bailed out around 2:00 AM on April 5th.

Now, one of the airmen wasn't with the rest of the group

because his parachute didn't open.

The remaining eight of the nine airmen

end up traversing this incredibly vast,

incredibly hot desert

with only half a canteen of water between them.

- [Hakeem] They traveled 85 miles in blistering 130

degree heat.

Eventually five couldn't go on and they stopped.

The remaining three continued forward,

but they didn't make it either.

[sinister music]

- [Danny] Search teams continue to follow the trail

the men left behind and eventually find two more bodies.

- [Sami] In all, eight of the nine bodies

of the airmen who were lost to the Lady Be Good

are recovered.

- [Andrew] After this tragic discovery,

the book closes on one of the great mysteries

of American army aviation,

but the most important thing is the closure

given to the families of the brave crewmen

who lost their lives on the heroic mission

of the Lady Be Good.

[sinister music]

- [Danny] During the chaos of war,

enemy secrets are usually uncovered by

highly trained spies.

But for one soldier, a stroke of luck

leads to a critical piece of intel.

[foreboding music]

- [Don] It's September 1862 near Frederick, Maryland.

[foreboding music]

The Civil War is at a boiling point

and could tilt either way.

General Robert E. Lee has just led the Confederate Army

across the Potomac into Maryland,

striking distance of Washington, D.C.

[foreboding music]

- [Martin] At this point, the stakes are very high.

Every battle promises to be a decisive engagement.

- [Andrew] On the morning of September 13th,

soldiers from the 27th Indiana Volunteer Infantry

are on a skirmish line out ahead of the main Union Army.

- [Martin] After hours of marching,

27th Indiana eventually reaches a farm

recently abandoned by Confederate forces.

Two of the men, Corporal Barton Mitchell

and Sergeant John Bloss they sit down to cook some tea

when Mitchell notices something in the grass.

[tense music]

- [Don] He spots a bulky envelope.

He picks it up

and inside there are three cigars

bundled up in an official looking sheet of paper.

Mitchell unrolls the wrapper, glances at the heading,

and then calls Bloss over.

His voice is shaking.

- [Martin] The document is dated September 9th, 1862

and it carries a heading that says

Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia, Special Order 191.

[tense music]

- [Danny] This isn't just routine correspondence.

It looks like the Confederacy's strategic blueprint

and now it's in Union hands.

- [Don] The order outlines Lee's plan

to divide his army into four groups to secure garrisons,

seize supplies, and capture federal forces at key locations.

Then they plan to reunite for a final march north.

- The discovered document is rushed up

the Union chain of command,

but it seems too good to be true.

They decide it's a ruse.

This is some kind of confederate trick.

They need some kinda confirmation.

- [Andrew] The document bears the signature

of Colonel Robert Chilton, who is Robert E. Lee's adjutant.

One Union officer who worked with Chilton

in a bank in Detroit

recognizes Chilton's handwriting.

[tense music]

That seals it.

This is authentic.

- [Danny] Once confirmed, the plans are quickly sent

to General George McClellan.

[tense music]

- [Don] He sends a wire to President Abraham Lincoln

that says, "I have all the rebel plans

and we'll catch them in their own trap."

[tense music]

- [Danny] But news of the discovery reaches Lee,

so he scrambles to launch a counter move of his own.

- [Paul] Lee quickly begins to mobilize all of his forces

heading for Antietam, Maryland.

- [Don] Then at dawn on September 17th,

more than a thousand Union soldiers

advance through a cornfield.

When they emerge, Georgia troops rise and fire.

[tense music]

[cannon booms]

[guns popping]

- [Andrew] Antietam becomes the single bloodiest day

in American history with over 23,000 casualties.

[tense music]

- [Don] The battle was a stalemate with no clear victor,

but the Union Army under McClellan forced Lee

to retreat to Virginia.

This gave Abraham Lincoln the win he'd been looking for

to issue the emancipation proclamation,

which freed the enslaved in Confederate territory.

- [Paul] The victory at Antietam,

the Emancipation Proclamation,

and ultimately, the Union victory in the Civil War

all began with those two Union soldiers taking a break

in that farm field where they found order 191.

- [Danny] Next, another Civil War discovery is

made 150 years later near one of America's most

famous battlefields.

[keyboard clacking]

- [John] August 4th, 2011,

maintenance crews at the Gettysburg

National Military Park have a big job on their hands.

A massive oak tree has fallen at Culp's Hill

and the crews have to clear it away.

- [Andrew] One of the workers fires up his chainsaw

and begins cutting the tree into pieces,

but the chain hits something hard.

Comes at it again from a different angle and same result.

They quickly realize what it is that's jamming the chain.

Two bullets buried deep in the trunk of this tree.

- [Paul] The maintenance crew calls in the experts

and they find a 54 caliber bullet and a 58 caliber.

They're on the east side of Culp's Hill

and so, it's clear where the bullets are from.

The turning point of the American Civil War,

the Battle at Gettysburg.

[tense music]

[explosion booms]

- [Sami] Culp's Hill saw some of the most intense fighting

of Civil War.

The Union Army was holding the higher ground of Culp's Hill

and were fighting off wave after wave of Confederate forces.

You had over 20,000 soldiers

that were fighting at Culp's Hill,

each of them carrying about 60 rounds of ammunition,

and every round was shot.

[gun pops]

- [John] When it was over,

thousands of soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing,

but the north held the hill and the momentum.

- [Danny] After the discovery, the section of the tree

containing the bullets is moved

to the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center

where it joins other remnants

that bear the scars of war.

- [Sami] A hundred years ago, it wasn't all that unusual

to find bullets lodged in trees in Gettysburg,

but not so much today

because many of those trees didn't survive.

Some of them would die off due to lead poisoning.

Others were lost due to either age or storms.

These two bullets prove that this tree was there

for some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.

[tense music]

- [Danny] In the French countryside,

a routine dig takes a dark turn

when workers uncover something

that hasn't seen daylight in nearly a century.

[foreboding music]

- [Don] It's October, 2010.

Road construction is underway

in the small town of Carspach

in the Alsace region of France.

As workers start grading and leveling a site

known as Lerchenberg Hill,

they hit something unexpected.

Timber.

- Digging deeper, the crew finds

what looks like the remains of a wooden tunnel.

[tense music]

They then start finding artifacts,

a cigarette tin, empty wine bottles,

newspapers, and a rusty camp bed.

- Work grinds to a halt.

They call an archeologists to begin

an excavation of the site,

and as they do that,

[sinister music]

they discover a vast underground complex.

20 feet underground, 450 feet long.

- [Andrew] This structure is remarkably well-preserved.

It's eerie.

It's like a time capsule that was sealed yesterday.

- [Martin] As they continue digging,

they find a much more sobering discovery.

[sinister music]

21 skeletons.

- [Don] The team doesn't need to conduct extensive

identification research to understand who these bodies are.

They're wearing tattered military uniforms

that identify them as German soldiers.

[sinister music]

In the sixth company, 94th Reserve Infantry Regiment

from World War I.

- [Danny] That's when they realize

this is a famous World War I mega structure

known as the Kilian Shelter.

[tense music]

- [Andrew] Built by the Germans in 1916,

Kilian Shelter was a massive barracks.

The shelter could house as many as 500 men

with wartime luxuries like heat, electric light,

a telephone, and crucially, 16 exits.

- [Danny] So how did a place built

to protect these soldiers become a sealed tomb?

[sinister music]

- [Don] By early 1918, World War I had settled

into a deadly stalemate across 475 miles of trench warfare

and to hold their lines on the Western front,

the Germans dug an extensive network of tunnels and bunkers.

The Kilian shelter was among the largest.

- Then on March 18th, 1918,

the Germans launched a brutal gas attack.

The French retaliated with artillery,

and most likely one shell hit an ammunition dump

in the Kilian Trench,

[explosion rumbles]

sealing it off for years.

- [Andrew] With the tunnel sealed by soil,

air and moisture aren't able to get in.

Archeologists compared it to Pompeii

frozen in an instant preserved for all time.

- [Danny] For decades, the Kilian shelter

and the remains of the trapped soldiers stays hidden.

But in 2013, upon the construction crew's discovery,

the bodies are finally laid to rest.

- [Don] The remains of all 21 soldiers are buried

at the German military cemetery of Illfurth

in a simple but dignified ceremony.

The book on these missing soldiers is finally closed

95 years after their deaths.

- [Danny] Relics of war aren't always unearthed

by the professionals.

Sometimes all it takes is a little curiosity

and a kid with muddy knees.

[keyboard clacking]

- [Andrew] On July 15th, 2018, eight-year-old Saga Vanecek

is savoring her summer vacation

on the shores of Lake Vidostern in Southern Sweden.

It has been an unusually hot summer

and a drought has brought the lake level down

lower than anyone can ever remember.

- [Austin] She's in a shallow area,

her hands and knees in the mud,

and she's searching for smooth stones to skip.

But then she bumps into something

and it doesn't feel like a stone.

- She reaches down and starts to try to figure out

what this thing is.

She thinks at first that it's maybe a stick.

It's long so she starts pulling on it

and when she finally manages to pull it out of the muck,

she realizes it's something much more important.

- It's heavy and solid, and there's rust on it,

and the end is pointed.

Saga pulls it out of the water, lifts it up,

looks at it, and yells, "Daddy, I found a sword."

[tense music]

- [Danny] For confirmation on where it came from,

Saga and her dad bring the object to a local archeologist.

- [Andrew] The archeologist takes one look at the sword

and gets goosebumps.

[tense music]

This artifact isn't just old, it's ancient

and more incredibly,

it still appears to have pieces

of its leather and wood scabbard affixed to the blade.

These are things that would normally rot away

over time on swords this old.

- [Alex] So the archeologist begins combing

through reference material

to try to date it more precisely.

She notices a similarity between the sword's hilt

and those of the vikings

between the eighth and the ninth century.

Carbon dating of the scabbard in the hilt

confirm the dates.

This really is an ancient Viking sword.

[tense music]

- [Danny] Hoping to find more Viking treasures,

divers searched the rest of the lake

where Saga found the sword.

- [MJ] They find a few other ancient Viking relics.

One of them is a broach that they believe

to be about 1,500 years old.

They also find a fibula, which is a sort of clasp

that they think is dated between 300 and 400 AD.

- [Danny] The more researchers learn,

the clearer it becomes.

Saga's sword is a remarkable piece of a much older story,

and with that in mind,

she decides the discovery belongs somewhere

it can be shared with everyone.

- [Andrew] Saga decides to donate her sword

to the Jonkoping County Museum.

When the story finally comes out,

Saga becomes a media sensation.

She's called the Queen of Sweden,

a kind of modern day take on the King Arthur myth.

King Arthur having also famously

pulled a sword from the lake

and among the most impressed are Saga's classmates

who celebrate her discovery

with cake and balloons at school.

- [Danny] It's just another workday is Savannah, Georgia

until a team pulls up something lost a long time ago.

[foreboding music]

- [Andrew] It's February of 2021

and the US Army Corps of Engineers

is dredging the Savannah River in Georgia.

[tense music]

This is part of a nearly $1 billion upgrade

to deepen a key shipping channel

to make it passable by modern super tankers.

- [Martin] One day they dredge up an object

that's about five feet long.

It's metallic.

It's covered in rust and it's covered in mussels

but despite that,

they can still see the general outline of a cannon.

[cannon booms]

[tense music]

- Soon the team finds another,

and then another,

and then another.

So the Army Corps stops the dredging

and they start calling in archeologists,

sonar techs, and divers.

- [Danny] But in the murky river,

finding answers isn't easy.

- [Martin] Divers are working blind in pitch black water

with strong current pulling at their gear.

They only get brief windows

during which they can conduct a search.

Between the turning tides and the passing freighters,

every dive becomes a sprint.

[tense music]

- [Andrew] The team keeps at it

and eventually recovers more of these rusted cannons.

19 in all.

- [Danny] When Army Corps archeologists

study the cannons up close, the mystery deepens.

- [Martin] At first, they think these cannons belong to CSS

Georgia, a Confederate naval vessel that was active

on the Savannah River during the Civil War.

- [Sami] When Navy historians take a look at these cannons,

they don't exactly match up

with that particular time period.

These cannons look a little bit older.

They look more like 18th century weapons,

which means that it's possible that these cannons

didn't come from the Civil War,

but from the American Revolutionary War.

[cannons booms]

- [Paul] In 1778, the British captured the city of Savannah

and then shifted their offensive to the south.

They felt that the region was more loyal to the crown

and that the people would rise up against the rebels.

But the following year, in a daring move,

George Washington moved to retake the city.

[cannon booms]

- [Martin] In October 1779, American and French forces

launch a bloody campaign,

the siege of Savannah.

The French Navy pushes up the Savannah River

with a force of 33 warships.

In contrast, the Royal Navy has 1/5 that number.

- [Danny] To prevent the French Navy's advance,

the British sink their own ships to block the river.

- [Sami] And by sinking these gun ships,

that means everything goes down under the water.

That includes cannon, that includes ammunition,

basically everything on the ship except for the crew.

- [John] Well, the scuttling of the ships worked.

The French fleet can't make it into Savannah.

They turn around and with hurricane season coming,

they have to get out of the way.

As a result, Savannah stays under British control

until the end of the war.

- [Danny] Over time, most of the ships rotted away,

but the cannons remained

until the salvage operation unearthed them

over 200 years later.

- [John] Finding a cannon from the Revolutionary War is rare.

Finding 19 of them is a jackpot.

[hammer clinking]

- [Sami] Today, American, British, and Georgia officials

are working together to properly restore these cannons,

and once restoration is complete,

these cannons will go on display

at the Savannah History Museum.

- [Danny] Next up, an even older form of ammunition

is uncovered in England.

[keyboard clacking]

- [Hugo] In June 2024, Kenilworth Castle

near Birmingham, England is undergoing a major renovation.

Workers are expanding some of the walkways

around this 900 year old fortress,

making them more accessible.

- [John] It's routine work, but one day the crew digs into the

lawn and hits something solid.

It seems like a big rock, nothing unusual,

until they try to move it.

- [Hakeem] It's round, smooth, and way too heavy for its size.

This isn't a typical garden stone.

It's more like an ancient bowling ball.

- [Danny] For more insight,

the team calls in the castle's archeologist.

- [John] The archeologist begins an excavation.

One stone becomes two and then three.

Eventually eight of them are found

all perfectly spherical and well-preserved.

- That's when it clicks.

These aren't rocks, they're weapons.

They're catapult shot left over from the middle ages.

[tense music]

- [Danny] Their discovery ties directly

to one of Kenilworth Castle's darkest moments

when a violent rebellion nearly topples

England's very young king.

- [John] King Henry III rose to the throne at only

nine years old.

His father had died during a feud with his barons.

The official cause was listed as dysentery,

but many suspected that he had actually been poisoned.

- [Hugo] The early years of the young king's reign

are defined by rebellion.

The barons are fed up with taxes,

endless wars, with the crown itself,

and so they rise up in rebellion.

- [Hakeem] The rebels were led by Simon de Montfort,

the king's own brother-in-law,

and his base of operations was Kenilworth Castle.

- [Danny] The rebellion carries on for decades

and culminates in 1266

when the king's troops try to take back the castle

in a decisive last stand.

- For 172 days, King Henry's forces surround the fortress.

Nine siege engines, which are basically massive catapults,

hurl stone after stone at the walls.

- [John] The rebels fired back.

Hundreds of pounds of massive rocks flew both ways.

- [Danny] But the rebels in the castle

don't fall to firepower.

They are brought down by something else.

[chilling music]

- [Hugo] Eventually, starvation and disease

weaken the rebels inside Kenilworth.

Six months later, they surrender

and the king takes the castle.

- [Paul] Today, Henry III is best remembered

for rebuilding Westminster Abbey

and founding the first three colleges of Oxford.

But the siege Kenilworth remains

one of his most dramatic accomplishments.

[tense dramatic music]

- [Danny] Imagine taking a walk with a friend.

It's the perfect time to catch up and enjoy the scenery,

but for one pair, it connects them to a lost tale

of war and concourse.

[sinister music]

- It's 2016 in the remote village of Kokorya in Siberia.

Two friends are walking through the woods

when they notice something strange.

- In the face of a nearby cliff,

they notice this crack.

And luckily enough, it's wide enough to step into

so they figured they're gonna go and investigate.

They pop their heads in and look around

and they see arrowheads on the ground,

lots of them.

So, naturally they go in to investigate further.

- [Andrew] They see a large rectangular wooden box.

They manage to pry off the lid,

and as they peek inside, they are shocked.

[tense dramatic music]

Inside is a pouch of some kind,

couple of engraved plaques, and human bones.

This box is a coffin.

[tense dramatic music]

- [Danny] Realizing they've stumbled

on something extraordinary,

the friends notify the authorities.

- Officials from the museum

of the Gorno-Altaysk State University arrive

and they confirm this is a major archeological discovery.

- They catalog iron arrowheads, arrow shafts,

silk ribbons, and a birch bark quiver.

And they date it to between the 13th and the 15th century.

Based on these arrowheads, archeologists surmised

that this person was probably a hunter.

- [Danny] But as the archeologists examine

the size of the arrowheads,

they realize they might not be for hunting prey.

- [Adam] The person in the sarcophagus isn't a hunter,

it was a warrior.

[tense dramatic music]

- [Metin] The discovery makes headlines around the world

and the warrior is dubbed the Siberian Robinhood.

But when the researchers investigate further,

they figure out that this warrior's quiver

doesn't match those typically found in Siberia.

- [Andrew] As they compare the quiver to samples from other

regions, they determine that it much more closely resembles

quivers found in the Altai region

across the border in Mongolian.

Archeologists then wonder whether the man buried here

might have been part of the Mongol empire

believed by some to have conquered this part of Siberia

in the medieval era.

- [Metin] During the 13th century,

Genghis Khan's ascendants swept through Central Asia

absorbing vast swaths of land,

including this part of Siberia.

- [Nicola] By 1240, this entire area is under

the occupation of General Batu Khan.

He's actually the grandson of the great Genghis Khan.

- [Andrew] Artifacts from this era are exceedingly rare

and the careful placement of them around the body

suggests that he was a high ranking officer

or even a general.

- [Metin] Today, that 13th century warrior's bow, quiver,

arrows and arrow shafts are still being studied

by researchers at Gorno-Altaysk State University.

Finds that are as complete as that one are incredibly rare,

and we're gonna be learning

about that warrior for years to come.

[sinister music]

- [Danny] Next up, another arrowhead points

to a different kind of battlefield mystery

on a small Polish farm.

[keyboard clacking]

- [Andrew] In the fall of 2023,

a Polish farmer named Jaroslaw Lipiec

is finishing up a long day

of plowing the field on his commune.

He hops off his tractor

and pauses to admire the neat rows

of dark overturned soil.

- As he looks over his handiwork, something

catches his eye.

It's the glint of a small, sharp object

sticking out of the dirt.

Curious, he walks over,

picks it up out of the ground,

and realizes it's a small arrowhead.

He thinks it's a nice keepsake,

so he decides to put it in his pocket

and then he just keeps walking.

- [Andrew] A few steps later, something else catches his eye.

It's also protruding from the dirt,

but this is a little different.

It's gray brown, chunky and has some flecks of white.

- [Danny] Unsure what he's found,

he brings both items to the local conservator of monuments

for more information.

- [Adam] He takes a look at the arrowhead first

and determines that it's not actually an arrowhead.

It's the flint tip of a spear or a javelin,

and it is ancient.

[tense dramatic music]

- [Danny] Analysis dates the weapon to the Bronze Age,

between 1900 and 1500 BC.

- [Andrew] The farmer's second find is even more interesting.

It's part of the blade of a multifaceted ax

crafted for power and precision.

Thousands of years ago, these had many purposes.

Clearing land, butchering animals,

and settling arguments the hard way.

[tense dramatic music]

- [Hugo] Further analysis reveals that the ax

was crafted by members of the Funnelbeaker culture,

a neolithic people who were known

for their distinctive pottery,

especially their funnel-shaped beakers.

- [Danny] The Funnelbeakers were the first farming society

across Northern Europe, thriving from 4000 to 2800 BC.

But until now, no trace of them had ever been found

in this part of Poland.

[tense dramatic music]

- [Adam] Up until this point, experts thought that no one

lived in that area of Poland during the Neolithic period.

And now as it turns out,

there was a proper civilization hunting and farming

and probably fighting in this area

thousands of years before anyone thought possible.

- [Danny] The discoveries are currently being prepared

for exhibition at the local museum in Bilgoraj,

but the search for more isn't over.

- [Hugo] Researchers are planning excavations

to explore the area further

because once the earth gives up one secret,

you never know how much more it's hiding beneath the soil.

- [Danny] The spoils of war are often forgotten.

But when one family takes a closer look

at a World War II trophy,

it ignites a remarkable and emotional journey.

[keyboard clacking]

- [Nicola] It's September 1945 and the war is over,

but Joseph Kasser, who's known to his friends as Benny,

is waiting for his transfer from his base in Okinawa.

And in order to clear his head

he takes a walk along the beach.

- [MJ] As he's taking his walk,

he sees something strange in the sand.

As he gets closer, he realizes

that half buried is this ornate Japanese sword.

[sword zings]

So, he does the natural thing.

He digs it up and decides to take it home with him.

- [Andrew] The sword ends up in Benny's basement in Chicago

where it remains for decades.

Benny's grandsons love hearing

their grandfather's war stories,

and he'll often bring down the sword

as a exciting prop to augment storytelling.

But after the stories are over,

the sword always is carefully returned

to its place in the basement.

- [Martin] In 2021, one of his grandsons named Kevin

is visiting.

He's now in his 30s.

During this visit, he takes a closer look at the sword.

- [Danny] Now an adult, Kevin takes an interest,

not just in the sword,

but also in the wooden tag attached to its hilt.

- [Andrew] Written in English it reads,

"I am very glad to have the honor to ask your favor

to send my sword to my home.

It has been handed down from generation to generation

to keep my family safe and comfortable."

- [MJ] On the other side of the tag is a name,

Colonel Tomesuke Umeki,

as well as the name of a town in Japan.

[tense dramatic music]

- [Danny] Recognizing the sword's importance,

Kevin anxiously approaches his grandfather.

- [Andrew] Kevin has an idea.

What if they try to return the sword to its owner.

When he proposes this idea to his grandfather,

Benny doesn't hesitate.

He's all in.

- [Danny] Kevin digs in determined

to track down Colonel Umeki.

- [Nicola] A Japanese family friend suggests to Kevin

that maybe they can contact the local government

and they might know.

- [Martin] To his surprise, the town of Takaharu replies

quickly, but disappointingly, Colonel Umeki is no

no longer alive.

However, his son Takemitsu is still alive.

- [Andrew] Benny and Kevin send letters to Takemitsu

in both English and Japanese,

along with photos of the sword.

Eventually, Takemitsu responds,

tells them that he is now 96 years old.

He writes that he still remembers his father's sword

and is incredibly grateful at the idea

that the sword might be returned home.

- In July of 2022, Kevin travels the 6,000 miles to Japan.

Benny, now 99, unfortunately can't make the trip,

but he sends his love and blessing.

[airplane screeches]

- [Paul] When Kevin finally gets to Japan, he meets Takemitsu

and he sees that Takemitsu has actually created

a little bit of a shrine.

There's a picture of his father,

there's flowers, and there's a display case for the sword.

Takemitsu has invited his family and friends

and there's journalists there to document

this really historic occasion.

- [Nicola] Back in Illinois, Benny watches a live stream

of the ceremony and he reflects that really

there probably wasn't very much difference

between Colonel Umeki and himself,

only they happened to be born

on opposite sides of the world.

- [Danny] Cannons buried in a river,

a forgotten World War II bomb,

and medieval weapons built to crush a castle.

These relics lost in battle tell the real stories

of the fights that forged our past.

I'm Danny Trejo.

Thanks for watching "Mysteries Unearthed."