Second World War bomb found at tsunami-damaged Japanese airport

[Wayne]

Maybe the tsunami did a little good. Imagine that thing going off as a plane takes off or lands! I'm sure there's still tons of ordinance scattered across the country and in Britain too!

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...n-airport-bomb

[John the train]

And not just from the ' enemy ' of the time, we still get reports of grenades and mortar bombs being discovered, which are often forgotten Home Guard stores.

There are also believed to be a large number of bombs still buried at the former RAF Fauld site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Fauld_explosion
and a sunken Liberty ship in the Thames Estuary loaded with munitions. If that ever blows it could create a tsunami which would devastate the Essex coast!

[beaker_]

Speaking as a diver, I'm salivating over this one.

[Dan]

Back in my younger years (when I was still an ornery cuss), I used to use a DEWAT 60mm round -- fuse end first -- as a front door stop.

[AlexDudko]

Several years ago three mortar bombs were found in my garden just behind the house...

Originally Posted by John the train

And not just from the ' enemy ' of the time, we still get reports of grenades and mortar bombs being discovered, which are often forgotten Home Guard stores.

There are also believed to be a large number of bombs still buried at the former RAF Fauld site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Fauld_explosion
and a sunken Liberty ship in the Thames Estuary loaded with munitions. If that ever blows it could create a tsunami which would devastate the Essex coast!

Don't forget the cold war debris

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18689132

[Dan]

We're already on the ragged edge of politics here, so I suspect this one will be short lived, but whilst it's still open ...

It seems to me that if Spain simply announced their intentions to allow the highest bidding nation to go into those areas, and retrieve all that contaminated soil/weapons grade plutonium by whatever means they can dream up -- as due and suitable payment for the cleanup costs -- the US State Department might be a wee more inclined to corrective action and bit less flippant with the lip service.

[DBelton]

Now that's a great idea, Dan.

This thread reminds me of an article I was reading just a few weeks ago that was talking about all of the unexploded bombs, and armaments that the US military just dumped in the ocean after WWII, and even kept on doing it for years after that.

Fishermen have had problems for years with pulling up bombs in their nets, and I believe one of the oil companies had an issue with and old bomb close to one of their pipelines a few years back that costed them a big chunk of change to have removed.

[flyingfsck]

Apparently, due to an abundance of caution with fuse design, about 10% of the WWII bombs that were dropped, did not go bang. That is a helluvalot of unexploded ordnance. There are also still underground ammo dumps from WWI under some farms in France. Anyhow, these things do tend to degrade over time, so it slowly becomes less dangerous.

BTW, the Yanks even managed to accidentally drop nukes into the sea. One is lying just off Westpoint Academy. However, these things are more safe than conventional explosives (well, except for the conventional explosives needed to compress it), since the short half-life fuses will have degraded to something inert by now.

[John the train]

Originally Posted by DBelton

Now that's a great idea, Dan.

This thread reminds me of an article I was reading just a few weeks ago that was talking about all of the unexploded bombs, and armaments that the US military just dumped in the ocean after WWII, and even kept on doing it for years after that.

Fishermen have had problems for years with pulling up bombs in their nets, and I believe one of the oil companies had an issue with and old bomb close to one of their pipelines a few years back that costed them a big chunk of change to have removed.

What is even more worrying is that Nazi Germany produced some very nasty nerve gasses - though thankfully they were never used. The western allies loaded most ( if not all ) that they captured onto ships and scuttled them. The drums have now been gradually corroding underwater for nearly 70 years.

[billybob linux]

There are very few reports (if any) of unexploded German ww2 bombs around this part of Scotland that I am aware of.
Then again the first plane shot down over the UK was a HE111 of the Luftwaffe, shot down over Scotland.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/rafhis...meline1939.cfm

29 Nov 1939 - After being attacked by Spitfires of Nos. 602 and 603 Sqns over Lothian in Scotland, an He 111 bomber becomes the first German aircraft to be shot down over the UK.

As a side note to that, the last recorded mission over the UK by the Luftwaffe was also over Scotland.

10 Apr 1945 - An Arado Ar234 makes the last recorded mission by a German aircraft over Britain; its reconnaissance mission takes it from Scapa Flow in the Orkneys to the Firth of Tay, Scotland.

[flyingfsck]

Germany produced some very nasty nerve gasses - though thankfully they were never used

Uhmm, I believe quite a bit of it was used in Birkenau and Oswiecim in Poland - Arbeit macht frei...

[John the train]

Originally Posted by flyingfsck

Uhmm, I believe quite a bit of it was used in Birkenau and Oswiecim in Poland - Arbeit macht frei...

You may well be right about tests on those the Nazis classified as ' untermenschen ', I was thinking of use against enemy troops. I saw somewhere that when the Nazis started to develop nerve gasses they imposed a blackout on any reports of research into nitrous compounds to cover their tracks. In Britain, when the government realised that war was very likely, and remembering the effects on the food supply of the U-boat campaign, encouraged research into chemical fertilizers and suppressed reports of research into nitrogen compounds. The Nazis noticed this, assumed that Britain was developing nerve gasses as well, so never deployed them in battle. At least that's how the story goes.

[brianblaze]

more reason we need to find better ways to fight the bad things in this world... so sad

[Dan]

<....>

Originally Posted by Seen on a T-shirt being worn by an EOD tech:

If you see the man wearing this shirt running, try very hard to keep up.