[driftdiver]

Bush’s fault

[chrisser]

Am I alone in wondering where the quality control was on bomb manufacturing back in the day?

If you’re going to build an explosive, it would seem that you’d want to be sure it was going to explode. I guess better late than early.

I’d hate to fly in an aircraft built by the bomb-making workers...

[Theoria]

Every year, disposal squads working for Germany's states defuse or detonate some 5,000 World War II bombs .

[South40]

I've been to Euskirchen. Mrs. 40 and I stayed at the Ameron Park Hotel there. It was a nice hotel in a nice town. But we left the next day and found ourselves in Troisdorf. Liked it there much better.

Unexploded ordnance can and is found in many places including what was formerly Camp Callan in La Jolla, CA. The last time it happened there kids found something and told adults. Thankfully no one was injured or killed.

[FreedomPoster]

EOD ping

[Oatka]

Back in the '70s, I attended a seminar on the threat of Nuclear war. After the talks, there was a Q&A session in which someone asked wouldn't it be feasible to have the Chinese nuke either the US or the USSR and try and start WWIII between the two.

One of the lecturers got up and said, "The first bomb is free" and I gasped, along with the audience. The guy went onto explain that there was an agreement between those two nations that if a major explosion on their soil took place, there wouldn't be an immediate knee-jerk retaliation.

He further explained that the Russians were doing some building outside Stalingrad, when a bulldozer uncovered a big unexploded shell. The military sent their EOD boys out to defuse it and were horrified at what they found. It seemed the bulldozer had uncovered a German ammo dump that had been buried before the surrender - to the amount of 20,000 tons - the equivalent of the first bomb we dropped on Japan. Had that bulldozer hit that bomb the wrong way, there would have been a similar explosion. Word got around and we ended making the "first bomb" agreement with the Russians.

Years later, I told that to my sister, who was a teacher of U.S. Military kids in Italy. She told me that one year they visited France and toured Verdun, which had just lost a couple of farmers who, while plowing, hitting some WWI ordnance and were blown up.

I understand a lot of those countries, including Vietnam and Laos, have the same problems with the millions of mines that were sown and forgotten.

[RobbyS]

Farmers in France are stlll being injured by shells fired during World War I.

[Windflier]

When I was an Army brat in 1960s Okinawa, the bomb disposal squad stayed busy every day of the week disposing of WW II ordnance.

I found an unexploded shell once and hid it under my parent's house. One of my younger siblings ratted me out, and it was removed by the squad one day. I remember getting off the school bus and seeing their trucks parked at my house. I knew right then that I'd been found out.

I still don't know why Dad didn't give me one of his famous Tennessee butt whuppings for that. I should ask him.

[PLMerite]