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Butterfly Bomb Dangers

siegfreid

siegfreid

HONOURED MEMBER RIP
Premium Member
I was watching a programme on Sky last night . Unusual & Curious Deaths . 1981 , a farmer in Malta was clearing land to plant potatoes . He found a heavy lump of iron , took it home & welded a steel bar to it for use as a sledge hammer . Next day whilst using it to bury fence posts..... Well , it ended badly . A cautionary tale for all you Buterfly bomb collectors [Kev?] . Never , ever mig a piece of scaffold tube to your pride & joy whatever the temptations to do so , it's just not a good idea . Go to the shops & buy a proper mallet...!!!!!
 
I have heard this story before, but the version I heard was that it went off as he was welding it.
 
Thanks Mike!!!
........yes this is quite a well known one, but the second one quoted below I've not heard of before searching out the link - can anyone shed any more light on it? (however the term butterfly bomb covers other munitions also so may not be the SD2...it may even have been an M83 given the location??)

Below information taken from the following link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Bomb

".........
Deaths have also been recorded on the Island of Malta as late as 1981 when Paul Gauci, a 41-year-old Maltese man, died after welding a butterfly bomb to a metal pipe and using it as a mallet, thinking it was a harmless can.[SUP][5][/SUP] The latest find of such a bomb was on 28 October 2009, by an 11-year-old boy in a secluded valley close to a heavily bombarded airfield. This bomb was safely detonated on-site by the Armed Forces of Malta.[SUP][5][/SUP]
In the TV show 1000 Ways to Die, Season 4, Episode 8, in the last section references a young male "artist" who hung up a butterfly bomb as a sculpture, but apparently due to some frustration in failing to obtain relations with a woman, struck it in frustration and was killed when it detonated. The location and date are given by the show as NY, NY (USA), June 11, 2006. The show states names are changed to protect the identity of the deceased. If true, this is probably the most recent recorded death caused by this munition. ...."

regards Kev
 
Kev. That's a new take on "come up & see my etchings" now it's "come up & see my buterfly collection " . I must give that line a try......
 
Real or not . . .i thought of the guy for a moment thinking he was thor:)
 
butterfly said:
The location and date are given by the show as NY, NY (USA), June 11, 2006. "
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure I would know if there was a fatality in that area and time frame and I've never heard anything or seen any reports. That quote from Wikipedia says "Citation Needed" at the end which means that it's unverified.
 
Eodtek said:
I'm fairly sure I would know if there was a fatality in that area and time frame and I've never heard anything or seen any reports. That quote from Wikipedia says "Citation Needed" at the end which means that it's unverified.
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THANKYOU Eodtek

Looking at comments on the show as a whole it definately seems to be pure fantasy, but I just dont get WHY anyone would make something like that up, WHY it was made into this clip and WHO on earth would watch such a series and WHY??
To be honest in researching the SD2's there are some very tragic cases of people being killed by them and also some extremely 'lucky' escapes. Although the clip may be pure make-believe, the concept of it exploding when touched is very real and I find it a little more than insulting to the people who died in such cases.
I too believe that if this was real, it would have been big news everywhere. The report on the boy that found an unexploded SD2 in Malta a few years ago can readily be found with a little search on the internet and he only found one. In New York of all places it would surely make the news, and as Eodtek has just confirmed - nothing.

I guess one thing this shows, is just how easy it is for fiction to become almost fact. This is not unususal in the case of the SD2's, a lot that has been written is incorrect, but once written down something that is 'incorrect' soon becomes taken as fact, especially when someone else uses that same reference as fact in another write up........ and so it goes on.

regards Kev

Kev
 
I too saw this programme the other night, I've got to be honest, I don't believe it.

Surely a farmer (?) would have known about these bombs (and their dangers etc.,) in Malta....

At least he went out with a bang.
 
skull181 said:
I too saw this programme the other night, I've got to be honest, I don't believe it.

Surely a farmer (?) would have known about these bombs (and their dangers etc.,) in Malta....

At least he went out with a bang.
Click to expand...

The Farmer who died in Malta is actually well recorded... see below an article which includes details on the mans death in 1981 (a few years after the war, memories are short - how many people know what an SD2 looks like if you were to ask them??)

see the following link .... http://www.timesofmalta.com/article...finds-lethal-wwii-bomb-in-qormi-valley.279340

regards Kev
 
I think I heard a story about Maltese farmer who inserted a wooden handle into a live SD-2 case (afer removing a defective fuze perhaps?) and used it successfully as a sledge hammer until someone explained about the TNT. Not as exciting but sounds plausible.
 
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