Hi All
All ordnance no matter what age is to be considered safe in fact it can be even more dangerous than when first dropped.
I believe the last casualty from one of these butterfly bombs was in the 1950, s i believe .
Its interesting to note that after the television series Danger UXB a lot of butterfly bombs were reported to the police by members of the public , who had these things for years , without thinking they were dangerous.
If the army were called to a house with one of these , they could if the circumstances right "blow them up where they were" i know of no instance where this happened , but just goes to show how dangerous these things were ?still are
At beltring a few years ago SD2 butterfly bombs were being sold openly as being training bombs that were dropped in a field , these were dug up and sold , the five i aquired from someone who got cold feet about them were found to be training rounds filled with Pitch but still had a live gaine fitted to the badly corroded fuzes , filled with smoke composition they could have caused nasty burns if ignited .
they were safely defuzed and are now in various collections and museums .
Steve