WWII bomb unearthed in France

[digger242j]

News story: http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16191527

Up to 1,000 people have been evacuated from the city of Marseille in France after a one-ton World War II German bomb was found buried nearby.
Boat traffic into the port city has been halted and access to several coastal roads blocked.

Officials were set to remove the bomb and take it to a military base where it could be detonated.

It was discovered a week ago by construction workers who accidentally pierced the explosive with their back hoe.

The regional government says the bomb's ignition system no longer works but the sheer amount of explosives - 1,400 pounds (650 kilograms) - made it dangerous.

The bomb was apparently buried by German soldiers, who had planned to destroy the city's port, as they retreated near the end of the war.

(Emphasis added.)

If you follow the link, the picture shows that what pierced the case was apparently in fact a hammer point.

[JDOFMEMI]

He nearly got a bang out of finding that little "present"

[DirtHauler]

like a woodpecker on a hand grenade.

[CM1995]

Wow! It would take more than a few beers to calm my nerves after that one if I was on the hoe.

[OzDozer]

You haven't experienced extreme seat-puckering until you've unearthed live 155mm shells with an IH TD15, or pulled up landmines with a Euclid paddle scraper, as I have in 'Nam.
WW2 ordnance is absolutely deadly, because corrosion has often made the detonating mechanism more shaky, or in some cases, the explosive itself, more unstable.
There's been a number of construction workers killed in Europe, by accidentally setting off buried WW2 ordnance.

We lost a lot of construction equipment in 'Nam to mines, and IED's/boobytraps. Examined a Euclid S7 scraper where one of our operators hit a 10lb shaped charge with the drive wheel right behind the operator.
The shaped (armour-piercing) charge exploded the wheel, tyre, the entire planetary hub assembly, the brake drum - and bored a hole into the bottom brake lining.
The explosion tore the fuel tank apart and the diesel in the tank set the area on fire. The operator was sent airborne (we never wore seatbelts, you've be cut in half if you did), and ended up suffering from multiple injuries, including burns.

I can recall doing a pioneer cut widening one of the old French roads, and the Lieutenant waving me down. He stepped up on the step and said, "You'd better stop here, you've pulled the top off a mine!"
I looked back and saw wires sticking up, from out of a black round shape in the ground!
A couple of field engineers stepped up and worked on the find, digging with bayonets and carefully excavating, to see what I'd uncovered. After 10 minutes, I saw them grab the item, start laughing, and throw it in the air!
I'd pulled the top off a big old French oil filter, that was buried standing upright in the ground! The wires were wires that were threaded through the centre of the filter to hold it together!!

[diggerop]

This is from a post I made in stripmine about 10 months ago.

Cameby (came_bee) Downs is one of the newer mines to open in Q.L.D. Australia. They started to rail coal out in late November 2010. It is export coal which I think is going to China. Production is expected to be 1.4 million tonnes for stage 1.
What they didn't plan on was finding some WW 2 ammo that was buried there that no one knew about. As far as I know the Australian government has resumed and cordoned off the affected area and the US government will destroy /clean up the area. The thing is nobody knew it was there and no one knows what else may be there. There was a U.S camp near there in WW2.

These pictures are from the Chinchilla News , Nov ,2010.

[Dozerboy]

They didn't just pierce that bomb they tore it up. I think I would go by a lotto ticket after finding out the thing I had been beating with my hoe for the past 5hrs was an unexploded bomb.

[Greg]

And to think I was just there not long ago

[digger242j]

They didn't just pierce that bomb they tore it up. I think I would go by a lotto ticket after finding out the thing I had been beating with my hoe for the past 5hrs was an unexploded bomb.

Well, if you think about it, if it didn't go off after the first minute or two...

[Dozerboy]

Well, if you think about it, if it didn't go off after the first minute or two...

So you would of dug it up the rest of the way and made a badass mailbox out of it? I bet they would have second thoughts about hitting that one.

[wnydirtguy]

I would have like to listen in on the phone call to the boss!!

[digger242j]

So you would of dug it up the rest of the way and made a badass mailbox out of it?

I hadn't thought of that! I'd have probably taken it to the scrapyard....

I would have like to listen in on the phone call to the boss!!

Speaking of that, many of you probably remember Bob Newhart from his two hit TV sitcoms, but before that he had some pretty funny standup routines. You just reminded me of one that absolutely fits: Bob Newhart--Bomb Disposal.





(Gotta love the internet.)

[Dozerboy]

Lol