Oops.....

[Wuzak]

http://www.gunnies.pac.com.au/gallery/grand_slam.htm

[:0]

[Mark J]

The bomb may well have arrived at the base near the end of the war, ready packed with explosive but not fused. They were reasonably safe like this. It would have been in a bomb dump, a make shift bomb dump, close to the aircraft dispersals because of it's size, being a little large to fetch for a mission on short notice. With wars end, it would have stayed put, again because of its size. Most RAF personnal were 'demobbed' after the war and new peacetime recruits as well as some old hands staying on, would have populated the bases left operational. Staff changes, records being 'lost' into private collections or scooped up for book research then discarded and a possible ignorance may have reulted in the live bomb being used, as well as a real Lancaster, as gate gardians. Perhaps a new base CO could have found it fitting for the bomb to be used.....who knows.
Interesting read, thanks Wuzak.

Just a thought.......[8D]

cheers

[Groggy]

quote:Originally posted by Mark J

The bomb may well have arrived at the base near the end of the war, ready packed with explosive but not fused. They were reasonably safe like this. It would have been in a bomb dump, a make shift bomb dump, close to the aircraft dispersals because of it's size, being a little large to fetch for a mission on short notice. With wars end, it would have stayed put, again because of its size. Most RAF personnal were 'demobbed' after the war and new peacetime recruits as well as some old hands staying on, would have populated the bases left operational. Staff changes, records being 'lost' into private collections or scooped up for book research then discarded and a possible ignorance may have reulted in the live bomb being used, as well as a real Lancaster, as gate gardians. Perhaps a new base CO could have found it fitting for the bomb to be used.....who knows.
Interesting read, thanks Wuzak.

Just a thought.......[8D]

cheers

Hi Mark /Wuzak
They were so expensive they were under orders to bring them home if they could not find the designated target? Tallboy for certain and I think Grand Slam as well, £24,000/ $100,000 1944 (about x 200 for to days costs) based on what a Pilot/Navigator said, his comment was “You Knew when you had dropped it!”

My first long range expeditions as four /five year old were to the back of the satellite? air field/ bomb dump (But not in use post war when I made my visits) A little earlier I do remember banging examples of both at a RAF open day….
At about the same time I remember being told about dozens of factory fresh crated Merlins being dumped in a gravel pit at the back of a neighbours farm,

[Mark J]

Groggy, about 2 hours drive from where I live there's our local bombing range (hardly used now with our present govt' cuts). It's in sand dunes and is isolated. At wars end, large bulldozers dug long trenches in the sand and convoys of surplus equipment, mostly American, was simply driven in, the trucks turned off and the whole lot buried!
Back in the 80's, while with our airforce, doing UXB searches, we often came across large 'globs' of heavily rusted steel in the shifting sand. I was told they were the remains of this equipment. Artillary pieces, tanks, engines, bomb casings, small arms and ammo and other heavy military gear.
Some of it escaped and we see it today in museums and collections but most was destroyed or buried.

cheers

[Oli]

Nice. That Lanc and the bomb were part of my childhood - as a kid I always knew we were nearly home when we passed it. The road seems bare since they took it away...:(
But: quote:Apart from the entire RAF Station, most of the northern part of the City of Lincoln, including Lincoln Cathedral, which dates back to 1250, would have been flattened. seems unlikely considering the distance from Scampton's main gate to Lincoln (easpecially since from Scampton the Cathedral is on the down slope of a hill).

[Ricky]

Most of the woods in Bedfordshire were used as storage dumps, generally for ammunition or petrol. People still occaisionally find nasty surprises when out walking their dogs, including cannisters full of Mustard gas...

[Wuzak]

There have been rumours over the years that a number of planes, including several Spitfires, were bulldozed into a pit dug in the ground, along with other equipment, and buried in the Northern Territory of Australia after the end of WW2.

My former boss claimed he had in idea where it was, but he didn't have sufficient funds to be able to go off and look for and salvage them.

[Ricky]

And UXB's are still found now and then in England...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5037196.stm

[PMN1]

And some have been buried and forgotten about

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4934102.stm

Large bomb found at ex-Navy base

Solent Coastguard uses HMS Daedalus for its helicopter fleet
A 60ft World War II pipe bomb has been found under a runway at a former Royal Navy air base.

The device is believed to be one of a number of explosives planted at HMS Daedalus, Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire, to be set off in case of invasion.

Hundreds of homes may be evacuated when the bomb is detonated in June.

Solent Coastguard and Hampshire police air unit, which both use the site, are still in full operation, but a glider club has been ordered to stop flying.

A spokesman for the police unit said it used a runway that was not affected.

Flying instructor Tony World, of the Portsmouth Naval Gliding Club, said the 18m bomb had been confirmed at the site during two months of recent survey work.

He said: "They are saying they are not sure that it is the only one.

"We have even been told we cannot walk on the grass."

The base was the headquarters of the Fleet Air Arm during the Battle of Britain.

Several explosive devices were found there about 15 years ago and were blown up.

Much of the base was recently handed over to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), which had previously rented the site.

An MCA spokesman said: "As new landlords we are particularly keen to reach agreement with the gliding club based on new methods of operation we will be using the airfield for.

"We need to come to the agreement before allowing them to use the airfield."

[montanamotor]

Hi, folks:

About ten years ago, my younger brother during his summer holidays from the University of Düsseldorf worked for the "Untere Wasserbehörde" (local water authority) of Düsseldorf for his living.

He and his colleagues had to drill holes into the ground, to assess the pollution of ground water with industrial residues (Düsseldorf has been, for well over 120 years, homebase for huge parts of the german chemical industry - in addition to a large area right in the middle of the city, occupied by the "Rheinmetall" bomb-, and guns-factory during WWI AND WWII...)

At the perimeters of the "Rheinmetall"-area, once they were drilling another hole into the ground. But suddenly the drill stopped going down, only to resume it's vertical movement, after the "drilling master" had increased the downforce put onto the drilling device to near maximum.

When they finally arrived at the planned depth, they finished drilling and pulled back out the drilling probe from the hole, to make their chemical measurements in the collected water-specimens.

But when they got the drilling probe back to daylight, they found out that, at the tip of the drill, there would be clinging steel chips and a somewhat sticky, green-greyish substance resembling plastic play-doo.

Seeing this, someone got nervous, and so they contacted the german local "Bombenräumkommando", to find out, if they had hit something dangerous.

AND IF THEY DID! Close examination and assessment of the local "Bombenräumkommando" soon revealed that, with their drilling probe (luckily enough, a water-flushed one...) they had direcly hit a 3-ton-blockbuster (Luftmine)! It's barometric fuse must have failed during one of the raids of the RAF on the worker's quarters of the "Rheinmetall" factory, which back then were, according to german habit, closely surrounding the factory, in which the workers were doing their jobs.

The unfused blockbuster must have hit an already collapsed house, on top of the generally very soft ground in this alluvial area (not far away from "Father Rhine's" banks), and must have dug it's way down 15 meters (50 feet) deep through the rubble and into the soft soil of Düsseldorf, before coming to a halt. Due to the vast destruction around the "Rheinmetall"-area inflicted by over a dozen of air raids on this spot, it simply had gone down totally unnoticed so far by the german "Luftbild-Auswertestellen" (photographic reconnaissance units), as well as by the german "Bombenräumkommandos".

But - the best is yet to come: After detection and identification of the bomb down in the ground, it was found out that, it couldn'd be removed! That is, for economic reasons. After WWII, the area had been rebuild for the inhabitants by the landlord and owner of the houses. During this reconstruction, the corner of one house was put right on top of the blockbuster-bomb, in a way they first would have to tear down the entire building, before they could have retrieved the bomb.

And NOW for the best: Having found this out, the owner of the area and the buildings on it - which, coincidentially, happens to be "Rheinmetall" itself... - together with the "Bombenräumkommando" decided to - leave it where it was...!!!!! And the Düsseldorf authorities, which - according to german laws - would have had to pay for the efforts of retrieving the bomb, as well as for rebuilding the house standing on it - agreed to that! So, they unanimously shrugged their shoulders, covered the hole above the bomb with some more soil, planted some flowers on top of it, put up a small sign reading "Nicht betreten!" - and went home!

Yep, Gents: These are the reasons why, still today, under the corner of a 5-stories-tall city-bulding in the middle of Düsseldorf, Germany, at the perimeter of the famous (if not: notorious...) "Rheinmetall"-armoring-factory, lies buried under 50 feet of cold, humid clay - a british 3-ton-blockbuster-bomb.

This story is no fake, Gentlemen, and no joke. This is dead-real!

I don't know if the rent in this building was considerably cheaper than in the close vicinity. But on top of a 3-ton-bomb, it doesn't really matter, if you live on top of it, or if you live one or two doors away.

Last fact: My brother left the "untere Wasserbehörde" of Düsseldorf the next following Monday after they had detected the bomb.

Clever rascal...

Cheers!

Montanamotor

P.S.: Yust for clarifying things a little - back from the 19th century to the 70ties, in Germany it was common habit for factories, to dump chemical waste and what-ever in pits on their own factory-ground (no anti-pollution-laws in existence back then). To seal the ground - and to protect the poisonous pits from detection (and to avoid extremely costly removing of the waste) - afterwards, on top of the waste-pits often were factory-owned buildings erected.

But the "untere Wasserhörde" (local water authority) of course was informed of this habit. So, they ordered scanning-holes to be drilled AT ANGLES from aside of the buildings, to right under the buildings, to detect waste-pits hidden underneath.

In one such occasion, the detection of the blockbuster occured. That's why, the bomb still lies hidden under the building until today (maybe they removed whatever fuse was still in place, prior to resealing the hole. But I am not informed of this.)

Cheers again.

Montanamotor