Man dies cutting bomb open!

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

There was a 22.000lb Grand Slam outside the gates of RAF Manston (617sq) for many years as a 'Gate Gardian'. Sometime in the 60s(?) they decided move it to a museum. Crane strained a bit, couldn't lift it?? Yep, it was still full of explosive. OOOPs

In N.France, along the WW1 trench lines, there are a few of the mines left, where they tunneled under the oppositions positions and pached a space with tons of high exposive. Obviously nobody is interested in digging them up now, far too risky...They just hope one never goes off..The local farmers there are quite used to ploughing up ordanance in the fields.

Then there is the Richard Montgomery in the Thames Estuary off Shoeburyness, packed with exposives and off limites to everybody. I have sailed past it in the past, quite an eary feeling.

Bubble bursting.

It was not full of anything to go bang.
Urban myth.
Sorry.

It was filled with a substance make to look and handle like the Torpex and TNT filling.
It was fitted with dummy fuses, tail and nose cap.

It was one of the training bombs used to teach the ground crews on how to handle it, load it into Lancaster Heavy Bomber.

It was rumoured that the loading difficult as the self destruct fuse was the last to be fitted and it was tight fit against the body in the modified bomb bay and the case.

The urban myth about that bomb was often used in the training videos and how myth becomes blurred with the truth.

The modified Lancaster's were nicknamed:
The Clappers.
As one the bomb was released, the plane went like the clappers.

The rear gunner on those bombers had 1 in 3 tracers, it was meant to give the impression of more rounds were incoming than there was. Normal belts were 1 in 5 tracers.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

One of the few that got away.


The Lützow was attacked by 617 Squadron. Despite intense flak, 15 aircraft managed to bomb the target with Tallboys or with 1,000-pound (450 kg) bombs. One near miss with a Tallboy tore a large hole in the bottom of the Lützow and she settled to the bottom in shallow water. One Lancaster was shot down, the Squadron's last loss of the war.[29] The bomb remained sunk near Świnoujście in the middle of main shipping Piast Canal for 74 years, unearthed during the preparatory works for deepening of the Świnoujście-Szczecin fairway in September 2019[34].

Borrowed from google.

 

[Wedg1e]

I read somewhere that the ammo belts for some anti-aircraft installations were loaded with 50% tracer, 25% incendiary and 25% semi-armour piercing.
To make it easy for the loaders when assembling the belts, all they had to do was remember the order: Tracer, Incendiary, Tracer, Semi-armour piercing.
Or TITS, TITS, TITS...

 

[Wedg1e]

Bubble bursting.

It was not full of anything to go bang.
Urban myth.
Sorry.

It was filled with a substance make to look and handle like the Torpex and TNT filling.

I was involved in a job at a certain facility not too far from the M6 where, during some demolition works, several crates of rounds were discovered buried (if I recall, it was the infill under a lorry loading dock).
We supplied a mobile unit to allow the ammo to be x-rayed once extracted from the ground; they turned out to be training rounds.
Funny thing was, they were (WW2-era or slightly later) Yank rounds that never had any business being in said facility...

 

[KemppiFrog]

Bubble bursting.

It was not full of anything to go bang.
Urban myth.
Sorry.s.

Ah, thanks!
It was said to be real over on a flying historical site.

In the words of Jimmy Stewart in 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance', "Print The Legend!"
KF

 

[bourbon]

That was one bloke. Round here, Lichfield council gave permission to build a housing estate on the edge of an industrial estate. During the war, It was used to store ordinance! everybody round here knew this, we used to find bullets over there when we were kids, The council were surprised when the bomb disposal guys were there virtually every week. Houses have all been sold for lots of money. I hope no one is a keen gardener!

 

[4String.]

 

[brightspark]

I think it was bates that blew the clevo flower mill down at Thornaby or rather didn't and it just leaned over as there was more rebar in it than they thought it fell on the second go /dunno why they just didn't leave it as a tourist attraction saves going to pizzahttps://picturestocktonarchive.com/2016/07/13/clevo-flour-mill-c1970/

 

[Parm]

I was involved in a job at a certain facility not too far from the M6 where, during some demolition works, several crates of rounds were discovered buried (if I recall, it was the infill under a lorry loading dock).
We supplied a mobile unit to allow the ammo to be x-rayed once extracted from the ground; they turned out to be training rounds.
Funny thing was, they were (WW2-era or slightly later) Yank rounds that never had any business being in said facility...

Did the site name have a colour in it?

 

[ibrooks]

Some years back the local park was closed down when some scuba divers doing a charity event found some unexploded ordnance in the bottom of the pond. Apparently at the end of WW2 un-used stuff was shipped to disposal sites by squaddies in trucks but the controls weren't quite what they should have been. Some of the squaddies cottoned on that if they dumped the stuff somewhere and made an illegible scribble on the receipt saying it had been received at the disposal site then no-one would question it and they could spend a weekend at home. The consensus was that one of these bright sparks had decided that dropping it in the pond in corporation park would be a good idea.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

Police raid on a house near me.
Bomb squad was also there.
The Muppet had been going on the local army ranges and collecting scrap.
Not all was safe.

Were is Darwin when you need him.

 

[Melvyn Best]

Maybe 10 years ago there was building work on what was Oakington airfield/ barracks just off the A14 near Cambridge, bomb squad was there on a regular basis .Also just down the road there was a load of mustard gas discovered ,Cambridge science park was built on what was a military dump and further into Cambridge there was a building site where Anthrax infected cattle were buried

 

[Wedg1e]

Did the site name have a colour in it?

Bit late, but you're on the right track