
London City Airport Shut as WW2 Bomb Found in Thames - IntronExon
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-43027472
======
BattyMilk
There's a lot of this stuff around! About 10yrs ago, my dad caused a lengthy
shutdown of the channel tunnel after a piece of metal (he'd assumed it was a
machine gun barrel) he picked up on the Somme battlefield was found in the
boot of his car during a random search. It was a live WW1 mortar. They closed
the tunnel and detonated it at the terminal.

As farmers work on the fields in northern France they regularly find artifacts
from the war and just toss them aside as an annoyance.

~~~
steve19
I am very surprised given how little machine gun barrels resemble a motar
round!

Was your father prosecuted?

Edit: see stefanfisk comment, there is a surprising similarity between one
type of wwi motar and wwi machine gun barrels.

~~~
BattyMilk
He was, yes. He received a 9 month sentence suspended for 2yrs.

~~~
steve19
I am sorry to hear that. That must have been a terrible experience for him and
you.

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ridgeguy
There is a WW2 shipwreck [1] in the Thames estuary that apparently still has
1400 metric tons of explosives aboard. Remaining explosives include 286 2000lb
bombs.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery)

~~~
coffeeacc
And also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort%27s_Dyke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort%27s_Dyke)

~~~
grumblepeet
My father was in the Royal Engineers and after WWII he was part of the unit
dumping this stuff. He claimed there were also tonnes of mustard gas and very
dodgy dynamite dumped too. The dynamite was sweating and gave them all
headaches. Terrible job dumping this stuff in the Irish Sea off of a heaving
ship.

~~~
ridgeguy
My father used dynamite in his work (geological exploration). He was
susceptible to migraine headaches.

I could always tell when he'd been personally setting charges, because he'd
come home with a killer headache on those days. Not because of overage
'sweating' dynamite, but because of his high sensitivity to headache triggers
like minute amounts of nitroglycerine vapor.

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gmueckl
In Germany, around 5000 bombs from WW2 are discovered and disarmed or
detonated each year still. Most of these don't make news. Some of them make it
to regional news when they need to evacuate parts of towns or cities for
safety. Other than that, this massive effort is mostly under the radar.

edit: the number I remembered was lower than the actual count.

~~~
donjoe
The authorities had to detonate a bomb in Munich (Schwabing) back in 2012
which did not work out as planned:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwjmf5wwLL0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwjmf5wwLL0)

~~~
narrowtux
In another video
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRccXqD5KsY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRccXqD5KsY))
some of the people involved were interviewed and they all say that it went
exactly as planned, because a detonation with a radius of 300 meters was
planned.

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SideburnsOfDoom
The last time that this happened in London was 2-3 years ago:

[https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/army-explosives-
exper...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/army-explosives-experts-
prepare-to-defuse-and-detonate-500lb-wwii-bomb-dug-up-under-bethnal-
green-a2463316.html)

"The bomb is 10ft from my flat on the other side of a wall and I’ve had so
many parties here if it was going to blow up, it would have done so by now."

~~~
oldcynic
They're pretty common. More like one every month or three and it's only the
big ones that make the news. From a 2015 BBC piece[0]:

"A guide on dealing with unexploded devices was released by the Construction
Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) in 2009."

"An estimated 15,000 items, ranging from unexploded bombs to small mortar
rounds and grenades, were removed from UK construction sites between 2006 and
2008, the association said"

[0] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
england-33861431](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-33861431)

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Given that there was no fighting on the ground in the UK during WW II, why are
mortar rounds and grenades found?

~~~
robin_reala
Practise ranges on greenfield sites that are now being built over.

------
Tepix
Here in Germany in an average large city we get this every other week or so.
Luckily so far these duds don't seem to self-ignite after more than 7 decades
in the dirt.

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teachrdan
There's a great book about this phenomena, "Aftermath: The Remnants of War."
Apparently unexploded ordinance in Europe from WWI is very common because
trench warfare lasted for years and, due to relatively primitive manufacturing
techniques, mortars, bombs, etc. often failed to detonate. That explains a lot
of the comments below about French farmers getting killed by ancient munitions

[https://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Remnants-Landmines-
Warfare-...](https://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Remnants-Landmines-Warfare-
Devastating/dp/067975153X)

------
KMag
Here in Hong Kong last week, two different American 1,000 lb. bombs were found
a couple days apart during construction on reclaimed land (Wan Chai), dropped
during the Japanese occupation. Presumably, they fell in the shallow bay, sank
in the mud, and were later covered by lasdfill as one of the densest populated
areas on earth expanded.

------
BDGC
If you’re in to this kind of stuff, I recommend “Aftermath: The Remnants of
War,” by Donovan Webster.

------
tombrossman
A related recent post: "Bomb Sight – Mapping the World War 2 London Blitz Bomb
Census"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16141839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16141839)

------
tedeh
This thing seems to happen once in a while and all the times I can remember
the bomb is safely disarmed, which obviously is the best outcome.

Does anyone know how long ago it was that one of these things actually
unintentionally exploded?

~~~
anvandare
In Germany at least as recently as 2014:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/105...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10550492/Construction-
worker-dies-as-World-War-II-bomb-explodes-in-Germany.html)

Unexploded ordnance is a sad thing, causing continued death and misery (mostly
land mines) long after whatever war it was meant for has ended.

~~~
sschueller
Cluster bombs are also horrific devices and should not be used by anyone
including the United States.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/cluster-munitions-
pent...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/cluster-munitions-pentagon-
south-korea.html)

------
cafard
During WW I, what is now American University in Washington, DC, had a chemical
warfare station. Once the war was over, the unit disposed of the ordnance
using standard operating procedures: they dug holes, rolled the shells in, and
filled the holes. About 70 years later, when the fields around AU had been
developed with expensive houses, people (including I think the Korean
ambassador) started finding the shells in their gardens. A lot of money has
been spent since on the cleanup.

------
Graham24
there's a lot of it about. We sometimes hear sea mines being blown up the
Royal Navy, or hear about them being caught in fisherman's nets. Must be way
worse in Germany.

~~~
docdeek
Reasonably regular occurance in France, too.

~~~
k33l0r
According to Wikipedia “the French Département du Déminage (Department of Mine
Clearance) recovers about 900 tons of unexploded munitions every year”

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest)

~~~
paulmd
And, in the most heavily-impacted areas such as Verdun, they estimate that it
will take not less than 700 years to clear the areas, at the present rate.

------
dboreham
Where I grew up in Scotland the problem was ww2 mines (the spiky kind you see
in submarine movies).

------
konschubert
Maybe they should leave it shut.

This airport means that a good share of the east londonders have to live their
lives under noise so the 1% can get to their meeting a little bit more easily.

To me it's an example of social oppression.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
The Green party had a fairly good plan for London City Airport:

Close it down, replace with "thousands of new homes within easy reach of
central London"

[http://www.sianberry.london/news/pollution/our-plan-to-
redev...](http://www.sianberry.london/news/pollution/our-plan-to-redevelop-
the-london-city-airport-site/)

Which seems fair to me - surely a better site for an airport would be larger,
further out and well-connected by rail? This applies to Heathrow as well.

~~~
gaius
Not very Green, tho’, is it? If it is closed it should be replaced with
something, well, green, like a public park or a nature reserve.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
> Not very Green, tho’ ... green, like a public park

I refer you to the same site for actual green party policies

[http://www.sianberry.london/the-power-of-good-
ideas/manifest...](http://www.sianberry.london/the-power-of-good-
ideas/manifesto-for-london/)
[https://london.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/londonfiles/Lo...](https://london.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/londonfiles/London_Green_Party_Manifesto_2016_Final_Web_Single_Pages.pdf)

I think their conception of what is "green" for the inhabitants of London is a
little wider than just "public parks", though that is mentioned. But not
specifically for that site.

