How WW2 bombs across the Pacific are found and destroyed, decades after war(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
How WW2 bombs across the Pacific are found and destroyed, decades after war
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/05/ww2-hidden-bombs-clearing-disposal-pacific-marshall-islands-unexploded-ordnance-uxo
76 comments
"In 2018, the British Ministry of Defence reported that 450 World War II bombs were made safe or defused since 2010 by disposal teams"
and
"In Berlin alone, 1.8 million pieces of ordnance have been defused between 1947 and 2018."
and many other European countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_bomb_disposal_in_...
and
"In Berlin alone, 1.8 million pieces of ordnance have been defused between 1947 and 2018."
and many other European countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_bomb_disposal_in_...
There’s a strip across France, the zone rouge, that’s too contaminated to farm because of WW1. There’s not even any effort to remove un exploded ordnance because the contamination means the land is unusable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge
If you look at google maps on images, there is farmland over much of the "red" zone, for example east of Arras.
The zone rouge was defined immediately after the end of the war at a time when a devastated country was trying to rebuild. At the time, it made sense to say, "don't even waste your time here." In the intervening century, some of it has been cleaned up and rehabilitated. There are still areas that are too poisoned to grow food, though.
I am in data center business and
People wouldn't believe how many times we get a notification that WW2 bomb was found where the colo is building their new hall. It's not only an issue for a new build but also for existing data centers in the same campus. If you're running HDDs in your servers they are in for a ride in case bomb goes off
People still find unexploded WW1 munitions on the Isonzo front in the Alps. Regular iron harvests in Verdun too.
In France and Belgium, they dig up something like 900 tons on WWI munitions per year. At this pace they estimate that they're done in another 300-700 years. And the decomposing shells leach nasty stuff like mercury and arsenic, poisoning the soil.
https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/26/the-real-no-go-zon...
https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/05/26/the-real-no-go-zon...
Fishermen coming in with old naval mines in their nets are a pretty common occurrence in Denmark. Those things are just crazy and it seems like dumb luck that almost no people aren't killed by them.
(Aside on why I appear blasé: I grew up riding across a heavily trafficked bridge to get to school that was aggressively but unsuccessfully bombed by the allies. They once found a big one and closed the bridge for a few days while they removed it, but there's no reason to believe that there aren't more to be found buried in the mud.)
Well they didnt go off when they were supposed to and haven't gone off in 80 years -> there's a good chance there's something about them preventing them from going off.
The main danger is that disturbing them could remove the inhibitor. Also, age can make them unstable.
This is why we blissfully ignore the known unknown bombs that are everywhere in Europe but are extremely careful when we discover and try to remove one.
Well they didnt go off when they were supposed to and haven't gone off in 80 years -> there's a good chance there's something about them preventing them from going off.
The main danger is that disturbing them could remove the inhibitor. Also, age can make them unstable.
This is why we blissfully ignore the known unknown bombs that are everywhere in Europe but are extremely careful when we discover and try to remove one.
Major annoyance in Germany: If you find a mortar or a hand grenade in your garden. Do not try bring it to the police. Transporting it is a federal crime for citizens.
Leave it in place and call them.
Leave it in place and call them.
For a second there I thought you meant it was an annoyance that you couldn’t just pick it up and bring it on the bus to the police!
> Major annoyance in Germany: If you find a mortar or a hand grenade in your garden. Do not try bring it to the police.
That's not an annoyance, that's common sense.
I mean, I get it, it's not like in Croatia or Bosnia where every child ever since the 90s wars gets "the talk" not about condoms but about "this is how ammunition looks like, and remember that the enemy also placed mines in everyday waste like cola cans or in children toys, DO NOT pick up random stuff you find while playing and stay THE FUCK out of fields and forests marked with 'Pažnja mine' signs"... but hey even in Germany everyone should know that picking up ammunition is one of the dumbest ways to off yourself.
The only ones actually dumb enough to do that are people harvesting leftover ordnance for its explosives or to sell it on to "memorabilia" collectors [1], and headlines like [2] are routine whenever one of these collectors/harvesters either mishandles one of the items or they go off on their own.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWWGdxhSsS4
[2] https://www.rheinische-anzeigenblaetter.de/rhein-sieg/c-blau...
That's not an annoyance, that's common sense.
I mean, I get it, it's not like in Croatia or Bosnia where every child ever since the 90s wars gets "the talk" not about condoms but about "this is how ammunition looks like, and remember that the enemy also placed mines in everyday waste like cola cans or in children toys, DO NOT pick up random stuff you find while playing and stay THE FUCK out of fields and forests marked with 'Pažnja mine' signs"... but hey even in Germany everyone should know that picking up ammunition is one of the dumbest ways to off yourself.
The only ones actually dumb enough to do that are people harvesting leftover ordnance for its explosives or to sell it on to "memorabilia" collectors [1], and headlines like [2] are routine whenever one of these collectors/harvesters either mishandles one of the items or they go off on their own.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWWGdxhSsS4
[2] https://www.rheinische-anzeigenblaetter.de/rhein-sieg/c-blau...
Are you one of these persons who like to have cops on their property?
I despise cops as an institution, but I'd rather have someone actually trained and especially equipped deal with that mess than risking to blow myself up.
The level of PPE and training required to safely dispose of explosives far surpass what I can afford financially.
The level of PPE and training required to safely dispose of explosives far surpass what I can afford financially.
Compared to your prior "Major annoyance" descriptive (for having the police visit), how would you rate being maimed or killed by exploding ordnance?
As unlikely.
Your funeral. Quite literally.
If you grew up in the US and didn't have the background "pensioner dies after discovering WWII ordinance in field" story every couple of years, it must seem unlikely indeed. But for those who do, they're not as stupid so as to think so.
If you grew up in the US and didn't have the background "pensioner dies after discovering WWII ordinance in field" story every couple of years, it must seem unlikely indeed. But for those who do, they're not as stupid so as to think so.
> If you grew up in the US
Yeah which isn't the case.
Yeah which isn't the case.
feel free to add "or any other country where that is the case" at the appropriate place in my comment so that it applies to you, if you need to be spoonfed.
Hey, you may have not intended it, but your response comes across with a bit of a condescending tone. Please help promote HN as a place for continued civil discourse.
Thank you for pointing that out. Too late to edit, unfortunately. What response would you have given to the comment I replied to?
I’m not sure what they meant, so tbh I probably just wouldn’t have replied. You made a good point that for someone in the US (or any other country that hasn’t experienced modern war), unexploded ordinance isn’t even on their risk radar, despite the US being a major contributor to the problem. It’s unfortunate how many people continue to face that reality.
The argument relies on the insinuation i would not live in an affected area. Right now from where i sit i can see a rubble pile from USAAF/RAF bombings.
I’ll take some police briefly on my property over that gamble any day.
Letting cops on your property is not a gamble to you?
In Germany?
If you hate the cops so much, that's all the more reason to let them deal with the sketchy bombs!
If you hate the cops so much, that's all the more reason to let them deal with the sketchy bombs!
If you call them to pick up dangerous material, in Germany? No. Plus, if you have neighbours, it's not only about you anymore.
All alternatives are a gamble. In many cases letting cops supposedly trained in the matter is the least risky gamble - if they are trained as they are supposed to be there is no risk.
Very few industrial countries where that is a gamble.
Certain DIY things reliably cause questioning or even an investigation by the police despite being legal.
*May depend on race
True. OTOH - I suspect that OD specialist officers, summoned to your property by your "I found something in my garden that looks a lot like that WWII mortar shell in your Call-us-immediately-if-you-see Guide" phone call would be far more benevolently inclined than regular police officers coming to your property for most other reasons.
Gosh, [2] there is annoying with the line breaks or perhaps paragraph elements breaking up sentences.
It really hinders my browsers’ built in translation trying to translate these sentence fragments as sentences.
It really hinders my browsers’ built in translation trying to translate these sentence fragments as sentences.
The tl;dr is basically some 51 year old dude had a laaaaarge cache of weapons and other explosives (e.g. from parachute emergency openers), of which some exploded for unknown reasons, firefighters and police showed up and found the remainder of the stash.
Ammunition is generally not an issue, at least not small arms ammunition.
Shells, grenades, and bombs are.
Shells, grenades, and bombs are.
I'm not a native English speaker, in Germany "Munition" also encompasses this kind of stuff.
Besides you should not deal with "small arms" ammunition either, the explosive charges are no joke either and can seriously hurt you if you manage to accidentally ignite them, additionally lead is an issue.
Besides you should not deal with "small arms" ammunition either, the explosive charges are no joke either and can seriously hurt you if you manage to accidentally ignite them, additionally lead is an issue.
Small arms ammunition is a tiny pop if you get it off outside of a gun. Grenades are designed to be dangerous, but small arms ammunition needs a gun barrel otherwise it just pops. The gun barrel confines the charge and forces it to accelerate the bullet to get out. Without a gun barrel the bullet pops of the casing but doesn't have enough energy to be dangerous and then the charge takes the path of least resistance. You can get some nasty burns and lead is still a neurotoxin, but unlikely to do anything more.
That doesn't mean I'd pick up small ammo in the field. If it is there there is probably something more around it - grenades, land mines, bombs, explosive artillery shells and so on - all of which can explode and be deadly.
That doesn't mean I'd pick up small ammo in the field. If it is there there is probably something more around it - grenades, land mines, bombs, explosive artillery shells and so on - all of which can explode and be deadly.
> You can get some nasty burns and lead is still a neurotoxin, but unlikely to do anything more.
Yeah but I was talking about children here, the ones most likely to end up playing around with stray ammo, ordnance and IEDs.
Children can be pretty ... let's call it "innovative" or "experimental" in playing (up to and including improvising guns out of pipes), and it's best to teach them that all kinds of stuff associated with weapons should be left very well alone and that they should call in their parents or the police directly if they discover such items. I do not expect a child to be able to make a qualified decision if that's "just" a relatively harmless 9mm round or some sniper munition with a serious explosive charge.
Maybe at age 16 or whatnot, the kids get a real gun safety talk and what they can, should and absolutely should not do, but until that all ammo should be considered unsafe to touch, much less play.
For reference, I'm half-Croat half German, I got the "don't play with shit" talk, I reasonably know how to deal with guns and I know of more than just one road in the backwaters of Croatia where almost three decades after the war, there are "warning, mines" signs plastered alongside the fields. In 2022, a Redditor created a very illustrative map, a lot of areas are still marked as "suspected mines" [2]. The fighting back in the 90s was very extensive, the only places it didn't hit are the northwest and Istria. And even what has been nominally cleaned up isn't safe for children either, there are a lot of farms, sheds and underground ammo caches from the army where children can pick up instruments of war.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/vt39zf/minefields_...
Yeah but I was talking about children here, the ones most likely to end up playing around with stray ammo, ordnance and IEDs.
Children can be pretty ... let's call it "innovative" or "experimental" in playing (up to and including improvising guns out of pipes), and it's best to teach them that all kinds of stuff associated with weapons should be left very well alone and that they should call in their parents or the police directly if they discover such items. I do not expect a child to be able to make a qualified decision if that's "just" a relatively harmless 9mm round or some sniper munition with a serious explosive charge.
Maybe at age 16 or whatnot, the kids get a real gun safety talk and what they can, should and absolutely should not do, but until that all ammo should be considered unsafe to touch, much less play.
For reference, I'm half-Croat half German, I got the "don't play with shit" talk, I reasonably know how to deal with guns and I know of more than just one road in the backwaters of Croatia where almost three decades after the war, there are "warning, mines" signs plastered alongside the fields. In 2022, a Redditor created a very illustrative map, a lot of areas are still marked as "suspected mines" [2]. The fighting back in the 90s was very extensive, the only places it didn't hit are the northwest and Istria. And even what has been nominally cleaned up isn't safe for children either, there are a lot of farms, sheds and underground ammo caches from the army where children can pick up instruments of war.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/vt39zf/minefields_...
In the US Munition covers ‘big stuff’. Like tank shells, artillery, grenades, etc.
Small arms ammunition doesn’t have explosive charges? (20mm is about the smallest ammunition that does, with exceptionally rare exceptions, and that is generally considered ‘cannon’ ammunition, not small arms).
Or do you mean primers? If so, those are exceptionally unlikely to hurt you or anyone else.
Safety glasses are sufficient protection from literally setting small arms ammunition on fire.
Small arms ammunition doesn’t have explosive charges? (20mm is about the smallest ammunition that does, with exceptionally rare exceptions, and that is generally considered ‘cannon’ ammunition, not small arms).
Or do you mean primers? If so, those are exceptionally unlikely to hurt you or anyone else.
Safety glasses are sufficient protection from literally setting small arms ammunition on fire.
50 BMG had API rounds, I'm not sure how dangerous those might be today but I wouldn't be eager to risk it. Also it wasn't common, but snipers on both sides of the eastern front did have explosive rounds for their rifles and those can apparently do some damage. Probably enough to take off your hand if one went off.
API rounds are generally pretty innocuous except for some minor fire danger, same with tracers in general. Possible to get burned if someone insists on holding it when it’s going off, I guess.
Raufoss/Mk211 50BMG should be more dangerous, but that is pretty modern stuff.
Exploding sniper rounds yeah could be a danger, but I haven’t found much concrete info on them. Being on the eastern front (or in Finland) though, plenty of really nasty stuff mixed in around them probably.
Edit: found something! And damn that does look downright nasty/awesome. [https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/7-62-x-54r-explosive...]
Raufoss/Mk211 50BMG should be more dangerous, but that is pretty modern stuff.
Exploding sniper rounds yeah could be a danger, but I haven’t found much concrete info on them. Being on the eastern front (or in Finland) though, plenty of really nasty stuff mixed in around them probably.
Edit: found something! And damn that does look downright nasty/awesome. [https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/7-62-x-54r-explosive...]
Well its supremely dumb to transport rotten corroded 80 year old munition that will kill you & others if it explodes just by yourself.
I see it in countries eastward from Germany that from time to time some old fool brings such things to police station (either 'heritage' from previous generations or found in the field), with corresponding panic reaction (its not like your local police station are bunch of old bomb defusal experts).
I see it in countries eastward from Germany that from time to time some old fool brings such things to police station (either 'heritage' from previous generations or found in the field), with corresponding panic reaction (its not like your local police station are bunch of old bomb defusal experts).
I love German humour
Related topic that I dug into was “how long did destroyed equipment lay around during WW2?”.
There were tank battles (especially in Russia) where hundreds of tanks on both side were effectively destroyed. Now add in trucks, towed and mobile guns, etc.
I was curious. Were they abandoned and scavenged for money after the war? Did they stay there and rust until years as the war? Did militaries take them for spare parts?
Turns out that equipment was very quickly cleaned up when possible. Usually within days/weeks.
Came across this incredibly detailed website with some amazing pictures and in depth information: https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/cleaning-up-a...
There were tank battles (especially in Russia) where hundreds of tanks on both side were effectively destroyed. Now add in trucks, towed and mobile guns, etc.
I was curious. Were they abandoned and scavenged for money after the war? Did they stay there and rust until years as the war? Did militaries take them for spare parts?
Turns out that equipment was very quickly cleaned up when possible. Usually within days/weeks.
Came across this incredibly detailed website with some amazing pictures and in depth information: https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/cleaning-up-a...
My father as a kid, when playing in the forest where his aunt lived, came upon a huge pile of WWII ammunition just slowly rotting away. Mortar shell, grenades, tons of ammo, even pretty huge aircraft bomb. It wasn't some fenced area far away with massive warnings and guarded, nope just random place in forest. I mean literally small boy sitting on top of some 200kg bomb. Glad he didn't do something stupid wiping me out of existence.
This was around 1960, former Czechoslovakia, eastern tip where heavy fighting occurred during WWII as soviets were rolling over german army. No idea how locals didn't go there, for small boys such things are like magnets.
This was around 1960, former Czechoslovakia, eastern tip where heavy fighting occurred during WWII as soviets were rolling over german army. No idea how locals didn't go there, for small boys such things are like magnets.
There's a great description in Naples 44 of a destroyed roadside tank "melting away like ice" as locals gradually break it up with hand tools to sell it for scrap.
The burned out hulks were usually dragged to a nearby tran station and tranported for scrapping over time. Heard from someone a while ago how they played in them as children, before all were eventually gone from the tran station.
There's a bit of family lore that during WWII my grandfather worked on building tow trucks for tanks. He was in the trucking business and knew a bit about towing large vehicles. Never been able to find out much about it, though.
Spent way into the evening reading everything I could find on that link. Thanks for sharing. Woke up wondering how we preserve incredibly niche write-ups like this. Feels very much like Geocities the way it's hosted on a Wordpress subdomain. Obviously can verify it is indexed by the IA and archive.today, but what else can we do to preserve it past the next two decades?
That blog is incredible. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing this blog, it’s awesome
Much worse are cluster munitions. In Laos alone there are tens of millions of the 'bomblets', dropped in the 60s and 70s - without any war declared on Laos, still regularly killing and maiming thousands of people, primarily children. [1]
[1] - https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186949348/us-cluster-munitio...
[1] - https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186949348/us-cluster-munitio...
BTW, this is the reason why many countries consider cluster munitions illegal. It's not about their effect during the conflict, it's about how long after the conflict these are still a problem.
Unfortunately this type of weapons is hard to replace, and so many countries do not partake in the ban. They are just too good at eliminating soft targets, like trucks or infantry caught in the open. This includes countries like the US, Russia, or Ukraine. The latter will require many decades to clean up once the current conflict is over, there are millions or even tens of millions of small mines / bomblets scattered everywhere there had been fighting. They will have to tech children in schools how do common types (like the PFM-1) look like, from a very young age.
Unfortunately this type of weapons is hard to replace, and so many countries do not partake in the ban. They are just too good at eliminating soft targets, like trucks or infantry caught in the open. This includes countries like the US, Russia, or Ukraine. The latter will require many decades to clean up once the current conflict is over, there are millions or even tens of millions of small mines / bomblets scattered everywhere there had been fighting. They will have to tech children in schools how do common types (like the PFM-1) look like, from a very young age.
Generally when you find munitions illegal it is because the country is allied with some other one that keeps them legal and is willing to take the heat for using them should they be needed. The other possibility is generals find the munition on worth the bother.
Still preferable to living in russia.
Crazy fact is this;: That works out to an almost incomprehensible one planeload every eight minutes for nearly a decade. how???
The US dropped more bombs on Laos than all countries combined in WW2. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barrel_Roll]. Waves and waves of fully loaded B52s.
260 million bombs, over half a million bombing missions. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37286520]
260 million bombs, over half a million bombing missions. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37286520]
[deleted]
And then countless tons of ammunitions are dumped in seas all around the world (and in Swiss lakes). This Google map has info on chemical weapons dump site, stating 1.6 million tons dumped:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ll=5.36829237857024%2C0...
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ll=5.36829237857024%2C0...
As well as unintentional dumps, such as the SS Richard Montgomery:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery>
Tom Scott did a great segment on this, and why it just sits with 1.5 megatons of explosives off the Thames estuary:
<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=R9u41aeItss>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery>
Tom Scott did a great segment on this, and why it just sits with 1.5 megatons of explosives off the Thames estuary:
<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=R9u41aeItss>
There are 1.4KT of bombs sitting onboard just 1 ship at the bottom of the river Thames today[1]. As for free fall bombs, my great grandfather recounted to me the time he stood on the banks of the river at Battersea and watched them fall "like raindrops" into the dark waters. There they all sit, deep in the mud[2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery
[2] https://theworld.org/stories/2015/04/10/map-shows-where-all-...
The Richard Montgomery is quite a mess. I hope there is ongoing research somewhere about using robots to incrementally reduce a cache like this.
Here's one from last week, way way across the Pacific in Ireland:
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cx2yxkpj3ryo
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cx2yxkpj3ryo
Do the explosive compounds decompose into more or less volatile things with time? Or are they relatively shelf stable and the bulk material has roughly the same potential as when it was dropped?
More volatile, actually. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231344
It's a big reason why ordinance has a shelf life and has to be destroyed once it hits that age.
It's a big reason why ordinance has a shelf life and has to be destroyed once it hits that age.
As I kid I spent much of a day playing with a Mortar shell in a rock pool on a beach in France. Despite knowing it was a bomb, I assumed it must have decomposed. Was probably not very smart.
AFAIK the major problem are the detonators potentially triggering as they decompose.
It might be nice if they had a chemical decay trigger that required regular replacement, or else they'd self-detonate. That should simplify cleanup.
> It might be nice if they had a chemical decay trigger that required regular replacement, or else they'd self-detonate
I doubt anybody would want that in their storage bunkers. It’s worse enough to have munitions that may self-detonate if kept alone, but ones that are designed to do that?
Also, such a system would have to be very robust. It would have to survive impact and explosions around it.
I think this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_munition#Unexploded_or...) would be more reliable:
“In the 1980s the Spanish firm Esperanza y Cia developed a 120 mm caliber mortar bomb which contained 21 anti-armor submunitions. What made the 120 mm "Espin" unique was the electrical impact fusing system which totally eliminated dangerous duds. The system operated on a capacitor in each submunition which was charged by a wind generator in the nose of the projectile after being fired. If for whatever reason the electrical fuse fails to function on impact, approximately 5 minutes later the capacitor bleeds out, therefore neutralizing the submunition's electronic fuse system.”
That comes close. You shouldn’t toss unexploded ones in a fire or run around with it to get its fan spinning, but it would make them fairly safe to handle.
I doubt anybody would want that in their storage bunkers. It’s worse enough to have munitions that may self-detonate if kept alone, but ones that are designed to do that?
Also, such a system would have to be very robust. It would have to survive impact and explosions around it.
I think this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_munition#Unexploded_or...) would be more reliable:
“In the 1980s the Spanish firm Esperanza y Cia developed a 120 mm caliber mortar bomb which contained 21 anti-armor submunitions. What made the 120 mm "Espin" unique was the electrical impact fusing system which totally eliminated dangerous duds. The system operated on a capacitor in each submunition which was charged by a wind generator in the nose of the projectile after being fired. If for whatever reason the electrical fuse fails to function on impact, approximately 5 minutes later the capacitor bleeds out, therefore neutralizing the submunition's electronic fuse system.”
That comes close. You shouldn’t toss unexploded ones in a fire or run around with it to get its fan spinning, but it would make them fairly safe to handle.
If that shouldn’t be called “technical debt” I don’t know what else.
They do the opposite these days - they decay to something that cannot explode after a short time. However the chemistry of this is complex and has trade offs: it isn't always appropriate for the needs. Even though some munitions do decay to harmless it isn't safe to assume anything is or will unless you are a trained expert in bomb disposal. It prevents a few accidents (or would - I don't know if any of these have been used in an actual war and so they may just be in warehouses waiting to get the final charge and be used)
It's not really all that desirable to have explosives detonate at unpredictable moments. Not all these bombs are in rural areas, many of them are in the middle of cities or otherwise in locations where it would be really really nice to warn surrounding citizens of any upcoming explosions so that they can make sure not to be nearby.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery : approximately 1,400 tonnes of explosives in shallow water close to London.
[deleted]
From what I've heard from my Vietnamese colleagues the situation there is similar.
https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/909216/a5448dd84ac14a...