Posted on 01/03/2014 1:14:02 PM PST by Dave346
Edited on 01/03/2014 2:19:43 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
A bulldozer struck what authorities believe was a World War II-era bomb in a western German town Friday afternoon, causing a blast that killed the bulldozer driver, injured 13 other people and damaged homes, police said.
The blast occurred at a rubble storage site in Euskirchen, Germany, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) southeast of Cologne, police spokesman Helmut Conrads said.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Bush’s fault
Am I alone in wondering where the quality control was on bomb manufacturing back in the day?
If you’re going to build an explosive, it would seem that you’d want to be sure it was going to explode. I guess better late than early.
I’d hate to fly in an aircraft built by the bomb-making workers...
“Every year, disposal squads working for Germany’s states defuse or detonate some 5,000 World War II bombs.”
15 a day?
Wow.
I thought he was in the Pacific theater................
Unexploded ordnance can and is found in many places including what was formerly Camp Callan in La Jolla, CA. The last time it happened there kids found something and told adults. Thankfully no one was injured or killed.
Belgium still has full time EOD teams clearing munitions from the First World War.
It was war.
Build them fast and in huge quantities...................
In any mass produced mechanical device, there will be a certain percentage that do not function.
We dropped many thousands of bombs and fired many thousands of artillery shells, if not millions.
Same with computers, there will be a certain percentage that are dead on arrival, it is just a matter of statistics and numbers.
Teddibly English. Strong silent types disarming big duds and delayed action bombs with trick fuses dreamed up by those cleverly fiendish NAZI swine.
BTW, farmer turned up a live one around Sharpsburg, MD. Army came and blew it on site. Not an unknown occurrence. Over in Euroland, farmers still turning up WWI duds by the hundreds and WWII stuff all the time.!
They still dig up WWI ammo in the fields of France, including some chem weapons shells.
Yes, you read that right.......WWI munitions.
Hitler’s fault.
I saw that series and really liked it. Also there was another British series called ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’ I think both were early ‘80’s. They were very well done.
I like your tagline. Did take me a second or two for complete comprehension though...
Considering the immensity of what was accomplished in a little more than 3 1/2 years I’d say these folks did a damned fine job.
.
EOD ping
One of the lecturers got up and said, "The first bomb is free" and I gasped, along with the audience. The guy went onto explain that there was an agreement between those two nations that if a major explosion on their soil took place, there wouldn't be an immediate knee-jerk retaliation.
He further explained that the Russians were doing some building outside Stalingrad, when a bulldozer uncovered a big unexploded shell. The military sent their EOD boys out to defuse it and were horrified at what they found. It seemed the bulldozer had uncovered a German ammo dump that had been buried before the surrender - to the amount of 20,000 tons - the equivalent of the first bomb we dropped on Japan. Had that bulldozer hit that bomb the wrong way, there would have been a similar explosion. Word got around and we ended making the "first bomb" agreement with the Russians.
Years later, I told that to my sister, who was a teacher of U.S. Military kids in Italy. She told me that one year they visited France and toured Verdun, which had just lost a couple of farmers who, while plowing, hitting some WWI ordnance and were blown up.
I understand a lot of those countries, including Vietnam and Laos, have the same problems with the millions of mines that were sown and forgotten.
Unexploded bombs were common in Japan though the 1960s.
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