Imagine you’re digging in your garden one day and you hit something. You lift the sod and expose a metal cone some inches in diameter - the rest is still covered by dirt. Should you stop at this point and call the Bomb Squad or should you wait until you’ve exposed more to verify that it is a genuine UXB? Of course, most of your tools are metal, and sparks and sudden disturbances might be a bad idea…
I should note that I’m in the U.K.
Paging Lust4Life.
Please note that I have not actually uncovered one! It’s just a question brought on by reading something.
Depends where I lived - my neck of the woods was not bombed during WW2, nor was there ever a military base here, and this isn’t an old artillery range, so my first though wouldn’t be “weapon” although I might still be careful and call anyhow.
Parts of the UK, however, got plenty of ordnance dropped on them during WW2 - German bombs, Allied AA shells that fell to the ground unexploded, munitions dumped by Allied bomber crews accidentally or to lighten the load on a returning/damaged aircraft (generally done over the water but that’s no guarantee). I’ve read that in certain locales it is still not unheard of to dig up old weapons, so I’d play it safe and call the bomb squad. Whacking an old 1000lb bomb with a pickax could really ruin your day, along with all of the neighbors’.
It goes back even further than WWII, or even WWI. Back in the early 1980s, when I was an abortive history grad student, I went to an historical society museum in Lewisburg, WV, to do an inventory of their artifacts. Lo and behold, they had a couple of artillery rounds, one round, one a shell, that had suspicious corrosion that looked to me like they still had their explosive charge. I talked to the museum director, a call to the State Police followed, and the 120+ year old munitions were removed and detonated in a safe place.
Always, ALWAYS call your local police or fire department if you were to find any unexploded ordinance. Even things that have sat there for 50 years can go off if they are disturbed in the ‘right’ manner. They will get a bomb squad out and properly dispose of the device.
You stop digging, close off access to the area and call the authorities, of course. Probably a call to the police on a non-emergency number. Let them take it from there.
If it’s not a bomb, and you call the police, the worst that can happen is that you end up with a red face.
If it is a bomb, and you keep digging, the worst case is still a red face, but not attached to the other parts of your body.
From what I read on bomb finds in Germany they mostly are defused - exept in a minority of cases where the fuse is too badly damaged or corroded.
For example, defusing a 1-ton bomb in Stuttgart on Sunday last week (a perimeter of radius 325 m was evacuated beforehand - if the bomb were on surface level it seems 1.5 km would have been necessary):
After the bomb is safe I assume the explosive would not neccessary be needed to be blown up - there surely would be more environmentally friendly methods. After all armies would need to dispose of large quantities of ammunition past the use-by date every year, wouldn’t they?
Anecdotically: almost 40 years ago, when I saw, playing at damming in the woods, what my father identified as an unexploded grenade (he had been a soldier so he would know), we just notified a passing forest service employee. He said they came up occasionally :eek: - no particular notice to the public at the entrances to the forest…
You should call the police or the fire department, but they’re going to call a military ordnance team in. Bomb disarming and disposal is a job for experts.
I’m well aware of this: I know some. I currently can’t ask them. My OP is a question about what the point is before one should contact the authorities / experts.
A few weeks ago a new play was premiered at the Belgrade Theatre Coventry about the 1940 air-raid that devastated the city. A couple of nights into the run they had to cancel a performance because a UXB, possibly from that actual raid, was found during construction work taking place next to the theatre. There’s irony for you.
BAck in, I think, 1996 or 1997, construction crews in Roseville, CA found ordinance that had fallen off of a train while the train was exploding back in the 70’s. The explosions forced a handful of bombs into the earth unexploded.
Construction was halted, and EOD teams were called in. They located a total of 5 bombs, which were detonated on site, at about 1:30 in the morning(if memory serves). It was pretty cool hearing, faintly, the bombs going off several miles away.
Also, I read a bit in a National Geographic when I was a younger man about a special government team in France that goes around collecting and disposing of ordinance going all the way back to Napoleon. Most of the surface stuff is cleaned up now, but every spring farmers get some during the first plowing. Interesting stuff.
Yes, they are part of the Royal Engineers They deal not only with ordinance left over from the war butl with unexploded bombs planted by present-day terrorists. I have a feeling that the Royal Navy have a similar organisation that mainly deals with such things as old sea-mines trawled up by fishing boats.
Not the same situation but sort of relevent. Here at work some years ago (about 5 I think) the old labs were being cleared out prior to demolition here, a largish quantity of very old picric acid was discovered in the back of one of the fume hoods. The site manager had a brief discussion with the fire-brigade and it was decided that the ordanance disposal unit would have to be called. Several hours later they turned up in an Army lorry, donned some protective gear, and loaded the picric acid into a safe container and took it offsite to dispose of it.
Both the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force have ordinance disposal teams. The big boys are the Royal Logistics Corp Ammunition Technicians. Those guys can deal with everything from IEDs to nuclear weapons. They also provide Royal and VIP security details.
Years and years ago me and some pals, all of us aged about 6 or 7, were messing about near an old bomb site when we found a belt of machine gun bullets that had obviously been chucked out of an airplane to lighten the load.
Anyway, off we toddled along the road carrying these bullets and chortling merrily as you do when quite oblivious to any danger…up screeches cop car and our prize was taken from us.