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EOD Incidents

R

Rockteer

Well-Known Member
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.
 
Hallo

Personally, i have seen :

In the north of France, workers digged a big hole close near under a Gasoline pump (for reparations) .

1,5 meter deep was a little english bomb (about 15/20 kg) in excellent condition with 90% of the yellow and green paint .
+ and a great part of the tail .


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60mm mortar

Have just recently seen a pic of a south vietmanese soilder with a live 60mm mortar round embeded in his chest I think this one tops the list of strange and unusual will try to get a copy and post a pic
 
there was a case in i think yogoslavia with a soldiier who had a live sub munition inside him , that had to be immunised by the bomb squad before the surgeon could operate
 
Whilst based in Germany I had to go to an RAF base as whilst repairing/inspecting the perimeter fence the workers found a dozen live 40mm Bofors rounds in the undergrowth. All Dated `50`s & in very good condition. Unfortunately moved them to the end of the runway & blew them up - what a waste.
 
have you seen this?

[ame="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=18f_1201000704"]LiveLeak.com - US Army Aco 25 Cav Cis With IED - IRAQ[/ame]
 
Mortar bomb in chest

glevum said:
Here is a link to the Xray of the live mortar bomb in a guy's chest.

I did not post the image due to copyright issues.

http://ats.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/75/5/1366?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=surgeons&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=30&resourcetype=HWFIG

Unfortunately the XRay is rather poor, but it shows a fracture of the head of his humerus bone (the part that rotates in the shoulder socket.) There is also a haematoma (collection of blood) in the front of the shoulder blade and the bomb has incredibly penetrated between the ribs which are intact and the soft tissue of the lower chest, perhaps passing behind the pectoralis muscle (the one referred to by body builders as "pecs"). This may have prevented the bomb from ruptured the skin.

The mortar round would have been relatively easy to remove - but his shoulder would have been a mess and he would have required expert orthopaedic surgery ....

I have also seen a WW2 Australian veteran with a German bullet lodged in his upper spine (second cervical vertebrae) about half a centimetre from his spinal cord. It had been there over thirty years but he was reasonably comfortable.

For a WW1 X-Ray view of an (arrowed) bullet in the eyesocket see a WW1 X-Ray that I have online at http://www.vlib.us/medical/xray/xray10.htm

Geoffrey Miller
Click to expand...
 
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i have a friend who during the war had just imunised a uxb container with an (89)b fuze when the cap detonated as he was extracting the gaine , he thought he was ok , just a slight scratch , but 40 years later he had a twitch in his arm and a small lump , when it was opened he had pieces of copper detonator came out.
 
In the 80s in the Netherlands diggers where almost finished with digging a new grave on a graveyard when they found a British 250 lb. MC bomb with a armed no. 30 pistol.
 
Thanks chaps for all the comments, only just caught up with the latest posts having just got married and coming back from my honeymoon in Cyprus! no bombs but lots of old pottery! (I think my other half went for Cyprus knowing that there was a lack of war museums there!). :xd:
 
hot mills

not sure if ive posted this

My sister lives in Belgium,and whilst I was over there was invited for food and drink by my sisters elderly neibour.
I soon became aware of the Mills bomb siting on the fireplace.

I was just about to have a closer look when the old girl said'carefull it is not empty!'.
Apparently her husband (now deceased) found the grenade and placed it on the fire place above a roaring log fire!!
On closer inspection,the pin didnt look very secure and a little corroded so I convinced the lady to get the local disposal guys out.
I cant tell you how relieved I was that it was dealt with properly,god knows what could have happened if she had knocked it off whilst cleaning!!
Half expected a set of 18pounders suporting the bbq in the back garden.:shot:
 
I have a friend who works at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, where they test all types of munitions. He related a story about one day when an Engineer was doing fuze testing in a pit. A mechanical remotely activated device would hit the fuzes to fire them, with the Engineer outside the pit doing the remote activation. He would enter the pit to change out the fuzes and record the results, and then leave the pit so he wouldn't get fragged. One time when he went into the pit and changed the fuze, the mechanism functioned and hit the fuze to make it explode when he was facing it. That was the only dud fuze in the test lot.
 
Just found this thread - interesting. In 1989 I was tasked to deal with a suspected 2 inch mortar bomb on the North Yorks moors. The gamekeeper who had found the item led me to it and I let him and the policeman with him go away a safe distance while I investigated his find. I was surprised to find that it was in fact a WW2 German 1 Kg incendiary bomb, empty and minus the tail unit. The gamekeeper then went on to tell me about two other suspected mortar bombs he had found, one seven years before and the other fifteen years before. We walked a few miles to the places where he had found them and sure enough they were both 2 inch mortar bombs of WW2 vintage. One was an expended smoke bomb, the other HE. Near the HE bomb was a convenient sheepfold where we could take shelter. When I blew the bomb a piece of shrapnel hit the stone of the sheepfold directly in front of us.
 
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I once recovered 50 Pounds of Nitroglycerin "Ditching Dynamite" and 50 Fuze Type Caps, from the estate of a farmer that had it stored under his bed (apparently for safekeeping)!
 
My turn for a "war story" pull up a sandbag...... In the 1980's whilst at Otterburn Training Area acting as Range Ammunition Technician covering a Blowpipe missile firing detail I was contacted by range control and requested to attend one of the anti-tank ranges to deal with a blind that the unit couldnt manage on its own. On arrival I was shown a blind 66mm LAW HE embedded between the turret and body of a tank target. The range conducting officer from the unit concerned had heard various rumours about how the piezo electric fuze system on these rounds had functioned on blinds with only the slightest move of a shadow and decided that disposal of this was beyond his remit! Send for the AT! The missile was disposed of with gentle application of 2 x 1 ounce CE primers lowered either side of the warhead.
Seem to remember it was raining. It always was at Otterburn!
 
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?
 
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