Eighty years after VE Day, 60 WWII bombs a year are still being found | UK | News

Eighty years later, the munitions threat from World War II is still with us. And Blitz Spirit too. When one of the 60 or so unexploded bombs (UXBs) unearthed each year in the UK was discovered on the site of a former retirement center near East London’s Tower Bridge in 2015, a local councilor boasted that it showed “our OAPs are tough as nails and have been drinking tea on top of a 1000lb bomb for 70 years”.

In Germany the threat is even greater; More than hundreds of tons of millions of bombs dropped by Allied air forces are uncovered each year. In 2010, several disposal officers died while trying to defuse a device in Göttingen. Three years later, 20,000 people had to be evacuated when an 1,800kg RAF “blockbuster” was spotted by authorities in Dortmund. While the Blitz was inextricably linked to the capital, with Londoners bearing the brunt of the attack, which lasted from September 1940 to May 1941, the scope of the Luftwaffe offensive was much more widespread and devastating; It took close to six years and now, 80 years later, it is still a clear and present danger.

My hometown, North Shields, on the banks of the River Tyne, eight miles east of Newcastle, was a regular target of Luftwaffe bombers because of its heavy industry. In the final months of 1940, Norman Christenson and his friends were having the time of their lives, quickly developing an enthusiastic interest in wartime souvenirs made from bomb fragments. “Each child had a box or bag in which he kept his prized collection of twisted metal pieces that could be heard hitting the tiles and roads at the height of the raids,” he recalled.

“These, like so many other useless things we accumulate and value, would be constantly examined, evaluated, traded and traded.” The pride of Norman’s collection were the tail fins of a German incendiary bomb. This desire for wartime plunder was not limited to North Shields and quickly became a double-edged sword. Two men were killed while walking on a northeast beach when a mysterious “container” suddenly exploded. The friends left behind two widows and nine children.

In fact, by September 1940 the number of UXBs identified was approaching 4,000. They came in all shapes and sizes, from 50 kg to 1,000 kg, nicknamed “Hermann” after Luftwaffe chief Goering, and the 1,800 kg “Devil”, which could create a crater the size of several double-decker buses. The heaviest tank to fall on Britain during the war was the “Max”, with its massive weight of 2,500 kg. More common were the 250kg and 500kg squat devices. These air-launched weapons were surprisingly complex, adapting and evolving throughout the war.

Generally speaking, it consisted of an anaerodynamically shaped metal casing equipped with stabilizing fins, filled with high explosive via a screwed plate in the base. There was a separate tube running lengthwise inside the bomb, containing more explosives to assist in the main explosion.

Positioned transversely, the metal “fuse pocket” contained an electrical fuse held in place by a metal “fuse ring” and screwed on like the lid of a jam jar. There were different fuses as well as bombs. When the “No. 15” fuse hit the ground, it released an electric current and instantly detonated the gun. The “No17” long-delay version also released a charge on impact, but ignited enough thermite to melt a pellet of wax and release another clockwork fuse to detonate the explosives for up to 96 hours. “No50” was designed as a booby trap and anti-tamper device. The internal inertia switch, which arms itself after hitting the ground, was sensitive enough to be triggered by a passing truck.

During the war, approximately 8% of these high-explosive bombs dropped on Britain failed to explode due to defect or design, making them no less lethal. The Department of Homeland Security soon began issuing stern warnings: “The public should stay away until notified by police or military that the danger is no longer present.”

The majority of UXBs were faulty pulse bombs, but the presence of long delay fuses created further uncertainty. The bombs, many still in place years later, have buried themselves 20 or 30ft deep in fields or parkland, in the basements of houses, under social clubs, as in Southwark in 2015, or under city pavements. Before the war, UXBs were given surprisingly little thought. It was wrongly assumed that most of them were out in the open, easy to spot and handle.

Royal Engineer Sapper Henry Beckingham, 19, was among those sent on a one-day demolition course. After their “training” was completed, he and his teammates were helpfully handed out “a drawing showing how to deal with an unexploded bomb” and sent on their way. The proposed technique involved the use of sandbags to create a sheltered “crawl path”; The engineer would lurch along this path before placing an explosive charge next to the rogue weapon to “detonate it in place.”

The initial destruction units were almost equally rudimentary: three Royal Engineers, two pickaxes, two shovels, a vehicle, 500 sandbags and some explosives. These were later expanded to teams of around 15 people. In the early days, most relied on tools found in their garden shed. A hammer and chisel can be used to loosen the threaded ring that holds the fuse in place. The rope, removed by pliers or by hand, could then be attached to the fuse and pulled from a safe distance.

As experience was gained, specialist spanners were designed to assist with the task of removing various components. The bomb could then be rolled to remove the explosive from the “fuse pocket” before the whole thing was loaded onto a truck for removal.

Newly trained Henry Beckingham found himself in the middle of this. “There are airstrikes every night and most during the day,” he said. “There was no free time; we worked from morning until late at night, seven days a week.” For two weeks that September, his unit of 100 Army engineers handled 470 UXBs. On one occasion, Henry spent several days digging in the backyard of a house in East London.

“Eventually we found the tail fin and we knew the bomb weighed 250kg. This encouraged us to dig more frantically because we knew it couldn’t be very far away. Luck was not on our side; it was at a narrow angle and was under the fuse pocket or pockets. It was decided to call it a day and return the next morning.”

“You can imagine our shock and horror when we arrived the next day to find four houses badly damaged. It had exploded an hour after we left the scene.” In another incident, a bomb fell on the cemetery. “We had to start digging. The bodies smelled so bad and the only way to remove the smell was to pour creosote around the holes.

“We removed the bodies with shovels, but they shattered as soon as they hit the air. We set them aside, went down to the ground to defuse the bombs, and shoveled them in.” [the dead] Then go back in.” In the case of UXBs, there were three main challenges: locating buried bombs, securing fuses, and then safely removing the explosive filling. Ideally, disposal teams would remove the fuse and transport it elsewhere for examination and detonation, but this was not always possible.

Royal Navy officer Lieutenant Jack Easton was one of the heroic bomb disposal men who did his best to cope with this unique stress. “Behind [our] “There was an acceptance in the minds that there would probably be a last one,” he wrote. “We did not dwell on this possibility in order to preserve our sanity. It was there. But it was suppressed. If ever the ‘last’ parachute mine has arrived, then it has arrived.”

He was haunted by a colleague who died on his first mission. “No part of it was found, not even the uniform button or badge. It was just torn apart.” In the autumn of 1940, Easton and his colleague, Ordinary Seaman Bennett Southwell, went to a house in East London where a parachute mine had not exploded. Easton cautiously opened the front door. “The dense dust now seemed familiar and meaningful to me, and I was treading carefully in case a very heavy footfall might set the mine mechanism in motion.” Through a window he saw the huge parachute mine “swaying slightly in the middle of the room.”

Resembling a cross between a bomb, a domestic boiler, and a giant black squid, the parachute mines have been redesigned as naval mines equipped with a 25-second timer. Powerful enough to destroy an entire street, these bombs had powerful nose cones that could penetrate buildings before exploding.

Easton climbed in through the window as calmly as he could. “The metal was hanging from a hole in the ceiling and its nose was six inches off the ground,” he recalled. “I stood next to it and looked up and saw that the parachute was partially wrapped around a chimney and caught on an old iron bedstead in the room above.”

He began the process of neutralizing it with the light of a flickering candle. While I was temporarily removing the fuse ring, the mine suddenly began to slide. “As the chimney above our heads collapsed there was the sound of falling bricks and I heard the whir of the bomb mechanism. Unless I could get clear, I had a few seconds to live.”

“In such a job, it was necessary to plan in advance. When I discovered that the door could not be opened without damaging the mine, I decided to make a series of movements in case the mechanism was activated. Since it was no longer important to interfere with the mine, I grabbed the door, pulled it and ran. I crossed the corridor in two jumps.”

Running towards the air raid shelter across the road, Easton threw himself onto the far side of the road. All he remembered later was that he was “blinded by the flash seconds before the explosion.”

When he regained consciousness, “I knew I was buried deep in bricks and mortar and suffocated. My head was between my legs and I guessed my back was broken, but I couldn’t move an inch.” He was right to break his back, and his skull and legs were also broken. Six streets were damaged or destroyed.

Bennett Southwell, 27, wasn’t so lucky. The man who died in the explosion left behind a young wife and a young son. Both Easton and Southwell will be awarded the George Cross, one of the highest awards for bravery. However, bomb disposal was a deadly job that would cost the lives of approximately 600 practitioners throughout the war.

The average lifespan of a bomb disposal officer during the Blitz was later estimated at 10 weeks. Their sacrifices were not in vain. More than 50,000 bombs were destroyed between 1939 and 1945. The traditions of these units, forged during the Blitz years, are still alive and well today; countless wartime UXBs are still out there – now with terrorist devices still waiting to be found here in the UK and abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fortunately for us, the current generation of bomb disposal experts is always ready to deal with them; men and women are still brave enough to “walk alone” towards an explosive device.

• Excerpt edited by Matt Nixson from Blitz: When World War II Came Home by John Nichol, published by Simon & Schuster, priced at £25 and on sale now