Posted on 12/02/2011 10:15:52 PM PST by Racehorse
Nearly half the residents of the German city of Koblenz are being forced to leave their homes this weekend after the discovery of a 2-ton, unexploded World War II bomb, marking the biggest bomb-related evacuation in Germany's post-war history.
Some 45,000 residents of the Rhineland city—including those in a jail, two hospitals and several nursing homes and hotels—are under orders to evacuate by Sunday, when a bomb-disposal squad plans to defuse the 10-foot bomb dropped by British fliers, most likely in a 1944 bombing raid. Found lodged in the bed of the ebbing Rhine River earlier this week, the bomb has the explosive potential to create a crater 60 feet wide and 16 feet deep and demolish a city block, authorities said.
Six and a half decades since the end of World War II, undetonated aerial bombs from the war are still routinely discovered across Germany, relics of the Allies' nearly five-year bombing campaign aimed at crippling German industry and infrastructure and withering domestic support for Hitler's war. Roughly 2,000 tons of bombs, artillery shells and other World War II munitions are discovered in Germany every year, officials estimate, by construction workers, amateur diggers or even children at play.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Bush’s fault
Maybe Germany can export those to Greece instead of pledging yet more money.
First in - Someone set them up the bomb.
All silliness aside... I’d hate to be the EOD guys that have to go in and diffuse that bad boy. Old, unstable explosives are no fun. Sure, it probably won’t blow. But if it did... It would spoil the whole day.
only for a second. :-)
In the mid-90s in Sasebo, construction crews working on a Saturday about 50 yards from my ship dug up a WWII 500 lb bomb. After the EOD team examined it, it turned out to have been a misfire (it had gone pop instead of boom) and the Japanese threw it in the back of a pickup and drove off to who knows where. Made for an interesting duty day.
235 Lancasters and 7 Mosquitos of No 5 Group attempted to cut the Mittelland Canal at its junction with the Dortmund-Ems Canal at Gravenhorst. The marking force experienced great difficulty in finding the target. The crew of a low-flying Mosquito - pilot: Flight Lieutenant LCE De Vigne; navigator: Australian Squadron Leader FW Boyle, No 627 Squadron - found the canal and dropped their marker with such accuracy that it fell into the water and was extinguished. Only 31 aircraft bombed, before the Master Bomber ordered the raid to be abandoned. 10 Lancasters were lost.
128 Lancasters of No 3 Group to the new target of Koblenz, making a night G-H attack. 2 Lancasters lost. This was a successful raid with most of the damage being caused by a large area of fire in the centre of the town. The British Bombing Survey Unit later estimated that 303 acres, 58 per cent of the town's built-up area, were destroyed.
48 Mosquitos to Gelsenkirchen, 18 to Hannover, 11 to Rheine and 8 to Herford, 32 RCM sorties, 82 Mosquito patrols, 12 Lancasters minelaying off Heligoland. 4 aircraft lost - 1 Mosquito from the Gelsenkirchen raid, 2 Mosquito Intruders and 1 RCM Fortress.
Prayers for those involved!
What? Like Medicare Part D, CFR, No Child Left Behind...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Koblenz_1945.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/US-Luftangriff_Koblenz_19-09-1944.jpg
...city of Koblenz... 2-ton, unexploded... 10-foot bomb dropped by British fliers... lodged in the bed of the ebbing Rhine River... Roughly 2,000 tons of bombs, artillery shells and other World War II munitions are discovered in Germany every year...The RAF must have been trying destroy the bridges over the Rhine 3rd Army got there. :')
http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-WWII-8X10-KOBLENZ-GERMAN-PRE-BOMBING-VIEW-LOOK-/250768064493
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/RARE-WWII-8X10-KOBLENZ-GERMAN-PRE-BOMBING-VIEW-LOOK-/07/!CErMTfgEWk~$(KGrHqEOKjsE0PnUfgcsBNSo+o662Q~~_3.JPG
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WW2-WWII-US-Army-Map-Germany-Koblenz-region-87th-INFANTRY-DIVISION-/250906424002
http://i.ebayimg.com/t/WW2-WWII-US-Army-Map-Germany-Koblenz-region-87th-INFANTRY-DIVISION-/00/s/NzY4WDEwMjQ=/$(KGrHqR,!jgE5)db1gtTBOj5olyoN!~~60_3.JPG
http://www.87thinfantrydivision.com/History/345th/Personal/000030.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Found_a_Million_Dollar_Baby_(in_a_Five_and_Ten_Cent_Store)
http://www.harrywarrenmusic.com/realfiles/ifoundamillion.html
When my folks were stationed in Yokohama in the 1950s, bomb discoveries were almost a monthly event.
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