It`s apparent that there are still hundreds of these waiting to be discovered but what I didn`t know until recently is that there is a list of known U.X.B`s in the London area which haven`t been dealt with yet.Locations vary from sewage works,swamps & even someone`s garden.Go to contaminatedland.co.uk.
There is undoubtedly a further list for the rest of the country but this remains classified.
That's interesting and not unexpected. Here in the States, there are occasional reports of WWII armaments being found in unexpected places (two were found near the tunnel in Baltimore) and there is a neighborhood in Washington DC that's contaminated with arsenic and other metals because the area was used as a proving ground during the First World War.
shareTrawling through a few more sites I came across a story in Germany that a British UXB was found in 1998 under the surface of the Dortmund football pitch;quite remarkable that it hadn`t gone off as it was only a metre down near the half-way line.
share
When I was an infantry LT with U.S. Army in Berlin in mid-1970's, my infantry platoon was on alert (immediate reaction force), and called out to provide perimeter security of a UXB found during construction digging next the U.S. PX.
We were not in any danger, we were just on the perimeter to seal off the area.
At that time, I was told that there were about 500 bombs still found a year as part of routine construction. As the Russians reversed the tide and overran German airfields on the eastern front, they found bombs and fuses. Often, German fuses were used with Russian bombs, and Russian fuses were used with German bombs. And, of course, there were UXBs from British and American bombing.
I don't know if there were any deliberate efforts to drop booby trapped bombs to take out German UXB teams, but the Russians were certainly pretty sloppy about what they dropped. Their motto, "perfection is the enemy of "good enough"."
In Berlin in the mid-70's, there were U.S. EOD teams, and German teams, I think I was told that the Germans handled UXB's. Though that was the mid 1970's, I'm sure they still find quite a few bombs in Berlin, even today.
This one was discovered earlier this year in the Mersey:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/england/merseyside/4988294.stm
[deleted]
One found today under the camel enclousre at the German Zoo in Hannover.
shareand another last week
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7017240.stm
I worked on a huge engineering project in Kent and East london. Magnetometer surveys of the ground were made before any excavation could commence.
It's ironic that bombs weren't designed to last and yet these UXB's seem to outlast the buildings that have been built over them.
I wonder if an undetected 60 year old bomb has ever just 'blown up'?
There was a story in the local press a few months ago where a guy found what looked like a fin-shaped object sticking up from a flower bed.Army engineers confirmed that it was indeed the tail fin from a German bomb that had broken off, but after an extensive search couldn`t find the rest!Time to move house!
Not the same thing, but similar.
One of the mines that were dug under the Messines Ridge in France in WW1 didn't go off as planned and was totally forgotten about. It finally blew up in 1954, taking some cows with it.
They still find Civil War ordinance in Charleston, SC here. Some of it is live. They were excavating a street and sidewalk and found it was a dock with a semi-submersible 'ram' boat buried in the mud underneath. A friend of mine worked at the College of Charleston on changes to the physical plant and unearthed a large shell while they were excavating near the old Garden Theater. I think some people tried to get their hands on it but it was taken away by the bomb squad.
share
A gentleman in Virginia was killed last year by a shell from the Civil War. He was a collector who was attempting to demil it and apparently mistook the fuse for another, similar type. Hammer and chisel, that sort of thing. Anyway, it went off in his driveway, taking him with it.
Battlefields in France are loaded with unexploded ordinance to this day.
shareAn excellent book is "Aftermath - The Remnants of War" by Donovan Webster. It describes the life of today's demolition experts in France - dealing with explosives dating back to the 1850's war with Germany to WW2.
Google Bermondsey bomb which will provide more info about the latest UXB found in London on Monday.
shareEurope and Asia still have live bombs and land mines all over the place. In Vietnam near the boarder that divided the North from the South 85% of the land still is contaminated by bombs ad landmines mostly put there by the US. Remember this was a big cause for Princess Diana. I hope her sons are carrying on where she left.
share