War souvenir

[macelena 1,070]

A WWII hand grenade appeared in a grocery, in a town near Rota, southern Spain in a bag of potatoes imported from France. The greengrocer noticed that the UXO, covered with sand, was kind of heavy and metallic for a potato. After reporting to the authorities, a Navy EOD team took care of the object. It seems something like that happened in Naples, Italy weeks ago, and in Oviedo, northern Spain, some time ago. Both times, those seem to be Mk2 Fragmentation grenades, the model used by the US armed forces in WW2

 

Link in English

 

In France, the UXOs from both World Wars are still a severe trouble wich takes an undisclosed (kind of censored) number of farmer´s lives every year. Imagine yourself mowing your lands and awakening one of these.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2012 by macelena

[Nesher 629]

dangerous stuff..

no EOD teams checking fields that might have a great amount of explosives or anything?

[JediMaster 451]

Just a year or so back they found that a local school was built on a WWII arms proving ground here in central Florida. It had passed thru a couple of owners inbetween and they didn't realize. I believe at least one if not more unexploded bombs were found.

[macelena 1,070]

dangerous stuff..

no EOD teams checking fields that might have a great amount of explosives or anything?

 

I guess they would have to cover the whole of the country. France is too large, and the Allies didn´t occupy any place if they didn´t puond any inch of ground with explosives beforehand. I don´t know much about the efforts being made by the French government on that matter, it seems to be that several farmers get killed every year, but i heard that the numbers and the whole issue remains undisclosed by Paris. Not an easy task.

 

I guess that, despite all efforts by French EOD teams, UXOs will keep appearing for years. Look at other places in the wich there was not such a massive pounding, wich are still loaded with unexploded explosives for years after the last shot was made.

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

As a child, I often went wandering (for some times, each week-end) on the Plateau de Craonne, once one of the hottest and most pounded spot of the Chemin des Dames. Between the 2nd and 3rd Battles of the Aisne, some limited offensives, and the long attrition war on this ridge, the place may have seen millions of shells fall. No wonder that thousands of them were duds, or even lost in action before they could be used. I remember a place lining our usual trail in the woods, where several rusted shells, about one dozen each time, were casually stored. From one outing to the other, their numbers, sizes, and shapes changed, so I suppose I could see each time the new harvest for one or a few weeks from the surrounding area! Anyone could have picked up as many shells as wanted - but without the guarantee that these "souvenirs" be fully neutralized! I remember of various shells, even heavy mortar shells, but no hand or rifle grenades, which were probably more carefully stored. Which kid could resist playing with a rusted frag grenade?

 

In 1919, 120,000 hectares (300,000 acres) of French soil were classified "Red Zone", areas with too many bodies, unexploded shells or unsecured rubble, which couldn't be used for agriculture, pasture or settlement ("the flattened grounds", a writer called them). Less than 10 years later, due to influence of local representatives and the memory of war softening, the superficy had been divided by more than twenty. No wonder that many fields returned to mechanized agriculture with deep plowing could give some lethal surprises. In the first decades after the War, many countrymen died that way in the département of Aisne, where Craonne lies.

 

In my present province of Normandy, the danger rather comes from the unexploded big Allied air bombs from WW2. Even in the heart of my once heavily pounded city of Le Havre, it can happen from time to time that a full district be evacuated, to let the experts neutralize a RAF 1000lbs dud exhumed on a building site.