The search is on for the owners of 260 name tags belonging to Dutch World War II soldiers which were dug up in a garden in the coastal town of Schoorl.

The men were part of the 21^st infantry regiment posted at Camp Schoorl in 1940 shortly after the Dutch capitulation. The regiment was told to make things as difficult as possible for the German troops and one of the tactics to delay the German invasion was to flood the nearby former Bergen airfield.

The men also handed over their name tags to the military authorities who hid them or burned them along with important papers to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

The camp was later used as a transition camp for the first Dutch Jews to be sent to the concentration camps.

The tags were found in the garden of house which belonged to the commander of the 21^st regiment at the time. The names of the men are still legible and Stichting Egmond ’40-’45 and the Museum Vliegveld Bergen are now looking for clues as to who they were and what they did in 1940.

The son of one of the former soldiers has already been tracked down, local media said.