Unexploded bombs still a danger in Europe

[Caesar1]

Sorry if its already been posted

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...ives-lurk.html

[FloridaLancer]

Always amazing to know that there are still live pieces of aggression found around Europe... I just hope everyone stays safe.. The thing that kills me is no movie or book describes the true chaos created by an artillery bombardment... Unless you've been in war you do not understand how loud and violent just one round is.... No matter what side they were on, you have to respect the soldiers that sat through them waiting for the human attack to come... In the cold, wet, dirty, infested trenches.. I wish the modern population could understand what these guys went through.. Maybe then they would understand why we collect the relics they clung onto like teddy bears during these times..

[David Fettes]

I know in Berlin they unearth 10,000 bits of unexploded ordnance every year.

[lsmilitaria]

talk about dangerous jobs...Someone has to do it though.

[jiipee76]

Its very common to read newspapers here where i live that airplane bomb has been found from building sites in one of the bigger cities here too.Russians bombed allmost all bigger cities,ports,airfields,railroad crossings and so on.

And when you take trip to north,you can find allkinds of bombs/ordnance from allmost everywhere there.

Here is few small ones i saw on last weekend:

First one is german SD2 "butterfly" bomblet.


Second one is german 3,7cm Pak Panzergranate.This is very common type to see.

[pete]

.

I'd suggest you all watch the late 70s UK drama series"Danger UXB" for some sense in the spirit of Munitions Clearance and how they developed procedures from the start, lived and operated. One episode is even soley about Butterfly's! Another good one is "Ten seconds to hell."

Pete

[Marco]

Interesting...
In Italy almost every day you know that some bomb was found. This is the site of a friend of mine who actually work for a company that looks for and disable explosive remnants of war

http://www.biografiadiunabomba.it/fotolavoro.html

[Paulus_Gun]

It is indeed an understatement that the former European battlegrounds are ''minefields'' (especially for conctruction workers). It is not rare to find a German/Allied bomb in a Dutch city. In the North Sea there are still Naval units searching for mines.

[Johnny R]

One of my jobs in the American Army was to detonate older munitions using modern charges, they had collection points on firing ranges where they would bring things people found and items from military preserve and then we would go a couple times a year and blow it up. It was amazing what was found, the larger bombs were dealt with directly by the West Germans but we received smaller items. Whenever they dropped water levels in reservoirs they found many things that were thrown in the water to get rid of after the War ended. We also recovered a MP-40 from a water filled kaserne basement.

[robin morley]

During my time as a Police diver in and around London we frequently found munitions, I once dived the Thames beside Eton college to find when the water cleared that I was surrounded by mortar rounds and .303 cartridges. These had I found out later been dumped there by the local home guard and Eton otc. Relevant authorities knew about hem and had decided they were safer where they were. We also found three german he bombs in the Thames near Henley which as far as I know are still there, and I dont recall a single dive in central London canals here we did not at least find one or two incendiary bombs.

[Greg]

When you live around places that were bombed in the war, I guess you just get used to or kind of ignore the fact that the ground is full of live ordnance still, as you guys are pointing out. I lived on a US Army installation in Hanau, which had been heavily bombed in 1944-45. I was on the installation staff, and got to see some of the stuff that was unearthed whenever the Directorate of Public Works did any digging ... all the way up to US 500 lb bombs. All this buried beneath housing areas, offices, etc.

Then there were the items that some US Army buddies over the years decided to dispose of ... I was stationed on another post that had been a WWII Kaserne and had US armored units there since the 1950s ... they were digging to emplace foundations for a new motor pool when they unearthed all sorts of tank rounds, belts of MG ammo, etc. They were seriously meaning to blame this on the squadron support platoon leader (ammo manager), until he pointed out that the tank rounds were 90mm and the MG ammo was in canvas belts, from long ago ...

Best,
Greg

[anmarlodz]

every year in Poland many live ordnance are undereneath. many woods , lakes, rivers and sea coast in Poland are still full of them. Me and my friends during our metal detecting trips found many any kind munition; one time friend of mine found 155 mm round put in ground with ignition up to surface ( most probably it was used as mine/trap for soldier ) , in the same place few meters away we found another 155 mm round lean on tree.

I know at least 5 places around my hometown ( in city limits ) full of amunition from I WW and II WW in any caliber ( from 7,62 to 20 mm ).

Almost every polish village where the front came have some places where the left live ordance had been buried.

Every year on polish beaches at Baltic sea have been found hundrets of artillery shells ( for example 3 or 4 years ago on Hel penisula, in Hel city , at beach , were found shells washed out by seas , which had been put in line by soldiers and the line had 30 m long ). God knows how many peoples unconsciously was waliking on them.

Whole Euorope ( and not only Europe but also Asia, specialy Korea, Vietnam ) are full of unexploded shells, amunition of any kind and mines ).

There are two ways to solve this problem; live it to decay or find it and detonate/destroy.

[scotty1418]

During my time as a Police diver in and around London we frequently found munitions, I once dived the Thames beside Eton college to find when the water cleared that I was surrounded by mortar rounds and .303 cartridges. These had I found out later been dumped there by the local home guard and Eton otc. Relevant authorities knew about hem and had decided they were safer where they were. We also found three german he bombs in the Thames near Henley which as far as I know are still there, and I dont recall a single dive in central London canals here we did not at least find one or two incendiary bombs.

Quite interesting! Thanks for sharing!

[scotty1418]

I'd suggest you all watch the late 70s UK drama series"Danger UXB" for some sense in the spirit of Munitions Clearance and how they developed procedures from the start, lived and operated. One episode is even soley about Butterfly's! Another good one is "Ten seconds to hell."

Pete

Pete - thanks for the recommendation. I saw the first episode and couldn't get myself to do much else afterwards so I went through all 13 on Youtube in about 2 days. This is a GREAT show!

[pete]

.

Its a great series, accurate as they could make it, with some margin. Its a far cry from the film Hurt Locker in my opinion. The thing about those guys in the beginning was that there was no course, there were no SOP's, there were no fancy robots like today and all the early methods they developed the hard way! If the guy on the other end of the headset said he was doing step 7 based on the info they had for that particular item and boom then that's all they knew.."He was at step 7 and then...". To get to step 8 they learned as they wen and the Germans changed the goal posts regularly, as our people did too on their end. It was very much a war of scientist against scientist in order to get the EOD guy and cause as much damage, disruption and confusion as possible. One final thing, many people just look at the BD sleeve Badge as just a badge saying that this is a BD Officer or team member etc, it is so i am told actually a Battle Honor just like a Regimental Flag designed by Princess Anne if I am correct because they got no special regognition, for the work during the Blitz, and is worn to present day.

Pete

P.S If anyone can tell me where to get "10 seconds to Hell" about the German EOD teams i'd love to see it!