World War I Claims Two More Casualties ... in 2014

The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | 19 March 2014 | Luke Garratt

[DogByte6RER]

First World War bomb kills two construction site workers 100 years after it was fired at Belgian battlefield

• Armament was disturbed and exploded evacuation works at the site

• Killed two and injured two, all construction workers working in the area

• This area of Belgium is rife with unexploded bombs from the Great War

• It is the former Flanders battleground where many shells were fired

A First World War bomb killed two construction site workers when it exploded 100 years after being fired at a Belgian battlefield.

The bomb had laid dormant for a century at an industrial site in the former area of Flanders battlegrounds, killing two and injuring two more.

Johan Lescrauwaert of the Ypres prosecutor's office confirmed that the armament from the 1914-1918 war exploded near the workers, but did not say whether it was a shell or a grenade.

The circumstances were unclear because there was apparently no digging at the site - the usual cause of such accidents.

Every year the battlefields in western Belgium throw up hundreds of armaments from the Great War, and most are destroyed without incident by a special Belgian army bomb squad.

[ops33]

You might want to check to see if your Loyalist ancestors filed any claims against the US government after the Revolutionary War. Many Loyalists lost property, goods, homes, etc., when they left. There was a method set up after the War to file claims for restitution. Never can tell what you may find but any claims could show exactly where your ancestors lived, worked, etc.

[Little Bill]

As an aside, if you had ancestors that fought as volunteers in the Indian Wars, the National Archives has a list of pension applications from those Veterans.

[ops33]

Thank you. I do not know of any ancestor who fought in any of the Indian Wars. There many have been some but so far I have not found a record. I do have the pension records of my g-g-grandfather who served in the Mexican-American War. That led me to getting his service records from the National Archives, very interesting reading. By following the dates of his company muster records you can deduce which battles he found in.

[mass55th]

Thanks for the info. Wish I'd known that back in the 80's and 90's when I traveled to DC regularly to do research at the Archives. I'll snoop around on the web to see what comes up.

On one my many trips to the Archives, I did manage to find a Revolutionary War pension claim from the children of a collateral relative. Turns out this relative had briefly served at Fort Stanwix in Rome, NY. The Fort was originally built during the French & Indian War. I moved to Rome back in 2000, not having known any of that. There's a reconstructed fort on the site of the original. The Fort was abandoned in 1768, but reoccupied by Colonial troops in 1776. My relative was sent there with a group of other militia men that summer to strengthen the Fort. I'm not sure if my relative was still there at the time of the Battle of Oriskany and the Siege of Fort Stanwix in August of 1777.

[NorthMountain]

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