EOD Incidents

[exat808]

just one more before bed time....... Again back in the 1980's I was tasked to an incident in Hull where a local sub-aqua club had brought to the surface the forward gun of an armed merchant ship sunk off the east coast in WW1. (Sorry I have no details of the weapon concerned). When the gun was brought to the surface it was taken on a truck to a transport company yard for the members to investigate. It was here that after some preliminary work the breech was opened and yes there was a shell in the forward end of the chamber. Send for EOD!! I remember making calls to EODTIC and confirming that the shell was liklely to be base fuzed. The gun had been promised to a local authority for placement in a marina project in the old fish docks and they wanted it intact. OK, so cunning plan. I had it taken to some local wasteground, tipped it back to about 75 degrees, filled the barrel about 3/4 full with water, placed an electric det and about 6" of det cord into the water, plugged the muzzle with a sand bag.....bang.........shell pops back out of chamber.....weapon intact.........remember ( or dont remember) getting very drunk that night courtesy of the divers. Anyone in Hull, is that gun on the dockside?

[motorcityman]

A friend of my dad's (a cop) was responding to a domestic abuse call in Detroit back in the early 80's, my dad's friend was a vietnam vet. So he gets to the house and sitting on both sides of an old console TV set were two 155mm projectiles, they ended up being live and bomb disposal was brought in. They had fuses in them and were ready to go so the story goes.

[satan18]

One for all those ex or current EOD chaps, and might be interesting for the rest of us.

Does anyone have any stories of strange or unusual places where bombs have been found. For example I have read about one that was found still in side an old Gas Container since the war and had to be dealt with in the 80's.

Over to you.

Quite close to me as i have two friends who lived and worked at the gas holder site were this SC 500 was found,i believe in the late 1980s or early 90s.

It had fallen to the bottom of the holder and broke in two,which was preventing the gas holder from closing right down.

Three RE officers were awarded the Queens medal for working on this bomb as it was in total darkness and in about 8 feet of liquid sludge.

The bomb was restored and put on display next to the Gas museum until it closed.
I was in negotiations to aquire the bomb for preservation and all the Gas officials were on board with the idea for me to have it and keep it local to were it was found.

Unfortunately the bomb had been removed for scrap and has been lost for good,as i was to late.

A good read in After the Battle.

Best phil

[headspace]

hi guys,i have heard a story about some fishermen who while fishing off the coast of cornwall, hauled a live torpedo to the surface,rather than call E.O.D and lose valuable fishing time and income they decided to return it to the mirky depths,the resulting explosion caused four of the crew on deck to suffer broken legs !.

[Antoon]

Quite close to me as i have two friends who lived and worked at the gas holder site were this SC 500 was found,i believe in the late 1980s or early 90s.

It had fallen to the bottom of the holder and broke in two,which was preventing the gas holder from closing right down.

Three RE officers were awarded the Queens medal for working on this bomb as it was in total darkness and in about 8 feet of liquid sludge.

The bomb was restored and put on display next to the Gas museum until it closed.
I was in negotiations to aquire the bomb for preservation and all the Gas officials were on board with the idea for me to have it and keep it local to were it was found.

Unfortunately the bomb had been removed for scrap and has been lost for good,as i was to late.

A good read in After the Battle.

Best phil

What type of fuzes where on this SC 500?

[EODONE]

During the early 60's we sank a 14' x 8' timber shaft 25'deep through 3 x family graves in Loughton Cemetery, this was a very messy job because the main make up of the ground was London Blue clay(No worms) this when back filled makes the coffins air tight so the contents rot in the box.
When it can to lifting them out the coffin bottoms fellout and the liquid contents flowed out into the shaft making digging very smelly.Good job though removed a 250 Kg , GP and were given 2x free pints of milk a day, had to change before going back to the lodging though.
Note the shaft was called a "Bastard Shaft" due to the fact that it required a Walling at the 7' centre making earth moving great fun.

Happy Sapper , REgards John