Another victim of ww2 after 66 years..

[deejay]

Translation of a news bulletin today:


Man dies when dismantling grenade
(Novum) - On Friday afternoon a man died at a company area in Gelderse Hedel (near Den Bosch in Holland) whilst dismantling a hand grenade from the second world war as it unexpectedly exploded.

A police force spokesman says he probably found it himself. Explosive experts also cleared some other grenades.

The accident occurred around 15.30 outside the company which is specialised in assembling partitions and ceilings. The victim is a family member of the owner, says the spokesman.

Sooo stay safe and be cautious!

[Wilhelm]

One can never be too careful with explosives. Sad tale.
Wilhelm

[jiipee76]

Sad story but these things happen almost weekly somewhere in Europe.

Simple rule for old ordnance is: Dont touch(specially if you dont know what to do).

[Johnny R]

One of the jobs I had in the Army was to lay modern charges to destroy WWII explosives. Civilians in Germany and NATO soldiers were killed at least once a year from WWII ordinance during the 1980s.

[odentheviking]

Why?????

My question is "Why???".

Why was he doing this? Or why are so many being killed and injured each year?

Was he a collector, or is there a growing market for these inert objects?
It would seem to me that items that have been in the ground this long would be about worthless to a collector.

Here in the US they find alot of the unexploded shells from the American Civil War,(1861-1865). Just a few months ago a guy in Richmond Va., who many had known as an expert in de-fuseing these shells, was killed when one went off. These shells are made w/Black Powder and become more dangerous over time......but can be easily defused by using oil.

How would one defuse C-4???? It just sounds too dangerous to mess with!

[jiipee76]

ww2 german ordnance have PETN,TNT,BLACK POWDER,AMATOL,HEXANITE,RDX and others inside.

Some of those get very nasty after very long time underground.

[MG-Freak]

Just a stupid man.

[jh-ss44]

this story is not any thing special ! as long as we keep buying this stuff, some one will allways go looking for it. be honest, how many items have we seen all rusted out in some ones collection ? there is a group in russia that do this EVERY day. I bought a land mine a year ago, ww2 german ,excelent condition , still with the fuse. after picking out the one I wanted, & paid for it , I mentioned some scratch marks on top. "oh yea, those are the marks from the tip of a shovel...... they just dug all these out of the ground 2 weeks ago." !!!!!!!!!!!!!
they then ,pulled back the edge on the bottom ,to pull off the plate . then removed the exsplosive mixure out, washed it out, tossed it in a box. then off to germany to this dealers' middle man , then to Az. the complete mine was in near mint condition , camoflage painted,ect., ect. I only paid $100.00 for it. so god only knows how little this guy gets risking his life , so i can add to my collection. in afganistan today , kids run around find all kinds of ordance to take home to take apart for scraping !!! money is money....... j.h.