Posted on 07/29/2007 9:04:43 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
LONDON (Reuters) - Police closed streets near London's Canary Wharf financial district on Saturday after an unexploded German flying bomb from World War Two was found on a construction site.
Bomb disposal experts were called in to make the V1 missile safe after it was unearthed close to the east London complex that houses 80,000 office workers during the working week, police said. At weekends the area is busy with shoppers and visitors.
Police closed several roads around the site in Millharbour, a road in the former docklands.
"Ambulance, fire and police are there and the building site has been evacuated," a London police spokesman said. The area was cordoned off, he said.
Thousands of V1s, nicknamed "Doodlebugs," were fired at the capital during the war, with the docks a prime target.
Hundreds of unexploded bombs from the war are buried across the country, according to government figures. They are unearthed from time to time, often during building excavations.
Canary Wharf's tenants include Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC, the Independent newspaper group and Reuters.
ping
Seems odd that a V-1 would bury itself without exploding. Must have fallen in some tidal muck that got filled over.
My crazy uncle retrieved an unexploded bomb(about 3’ long) in the English countryside and hung it over the cowshed. Stayed there for decades...until they tore down the barn!
Souvenir hunters are a menace;)
We lived in Japan in the 1950s. All kinds of munitions were being dug up as the country remade itself after the war.
The wing tipping technique was in some way safer the shooting them down...
If you shot at them and they bomb exploded a few hundred yards in front of you, you get to fly in to it’s fireball and junk
Ingenious and simple
One Spit did that at just the wrong moment -- the bloody thing fell too close to the Mess Hall on our base and one of the cooks got a broken shoulder out of it.
Your generation is truely awesome, young man.
The first cruise missile, as we know them today. There were earlier attempts, mainly pilotless airplanes.
I think the B-17 was truly the Queen of the Air Force, but I sure didn't envy the guys who flew them. They flew too high, too slow, and too long. If that Scout leader is still alive and kicking, give him the best from this Ninth Air Force A-20/A-26 Gunner. Your generation is truely awesome, young man. Thanks. But not any more so than those who have taken on the job since then. The only difference is that the powers that be let us finish what we set out to do -- or at least most of it -- the parts that Roosevelt didn't give away to Stalin.
Considering what happened after the last "V-weapon" they found while digging the Hobb's Lane tube station, perhaps the authorities should go ahead and call in Dr. Quatermass.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The British worked to counter the guidance. They send powerful DC currents through railroad tracks around London to distort the local magnetic field. In addition, they had captured German spies who were allowed to live if they sent the radio traffic the British dictated. (The Germans did the same thing to British spies in Europe.) The British carefully selected the reports of successful attacks.
The British knew the Germans could verify reported hits, so they knew they couldn’t fabricate them. Rather, they biased the selection of hits to the north of London, so the Germans would adjust their aim to less populated areas of south of London. (Post war, this tactic was not popular among residents of London’s southern suburbs.)
Have not seen that movie in a long time.
Thanks.
Wow. Great picture and great move!
Nice find.
Must have been a different “Vincent Price” than the movie/horror star as per http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001637/
he was in Hollywood during the war making films such as:
Leave Her to Heaven (1945) .... Russell Quinton
A Royal Scandal (1945) .... Marquis de Fleury
... aka Czarina (UK)
The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) .... Angus Mealey
Laura (1944) .... Shelby Carpenter
Wilson (1944) .... William Gibbs McAdoo
The Eve of St. Mark (1944) .... Pvt. Francis Marion
... aka Maxwell Anderson’s The Eve of St. Mark (USA: complete title)
The Song of Bernadette (1943) .... Prosecutor Vital Dutour
... aka Franz Werfel’s The Song of Bernadette (USA: complete title)
Hudson’s Bay (1941) .... King Charles II
Brigham Young (1940) .... Joseph Smith
... aka Brigham Young: Frontiersman (UK) (USA: promotional title)
The House of the Seven Gables (1940) .... Clifford Pyncheon
Green Hell (1940) .... David Richardson
The Invisible Man Returns (1940) .... Geoffrey Radcliffe
Tower of London (1939) .... Duke of Clarence
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) .... Sir Walter Raleigh
... aka Elizabeth and Essex
... aka Elizabeth the Queen (USA: TV title)
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