Military History

WW2-era bomb explodes in German corn field

Staff Sgt. Joseph Schmidt, 380th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal team leader, stands in a crater left by a Mark 84 general-purpose bomb controlled detonation May 18, 2019, on Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates. The crater measured approximately 10-feet deep with a circumference of 25 feet. (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Jocelyn Ford)

German citizens in Ahlbach were unpleasantly surprised at 4 AM one day earlier this week as they were awakened by an explosion. Police were called to inspect the crater. Fox News reports:

…It “almost certainly” was a 550-pound dud.

“With the former railway depot, we were quite a bomb target at the end of the Second World War,” city spokesman Johannes Laubach told the German news website Hessenschau. “We can be glad that the farmer was not in the field.”

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German citizens in Ahlbach were unpleasantly surprised at 4 AM one day earlier this week as they were awakened by an explosion. Police were called to inspect the crater. Fox News reports:

…It “almost certainly” was a 550-pound dud.

“With the former railway depot, we were quite a bomb target at the end of the Second World War,” city spokesman Johannes Laubach told the German news website Hessenschau. “We can be glad that the farmer was not in the field.”

Undiscovered bombs can often explode without outside forces acting on them, experts say, as their detonators decompose over time.

Unexploded ordinance remains scattered across Europe from World War II, including at the bottom of lakes and rivers, not to mention scattered weapons caches buried by spies and commandos during the Cold War. Over the last two years, police defused leftover munitions from WW2 in Hanover, Berlin, and Frankfurt.

 

About Jack Murphy View All Posts

Jack served as a Sniper and Team Leader in 3rd Ranger Battalion and as a Senior Weapons Sergeant on a Military Free Fall team in 5th Special Forces Group. Having left the military in 2010, he graduated from Columbia with a BA in political science. Murphy is the author of Reflexive Fire, Target Deck, Direct Action, and Gray Matter Splatter. His memoir, "Murphy's Law" is due for a 2019 release and can be pre-ordered now.

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