What does another day at work like for you? Maybe sitting in front of your computer, going through documents and attending meetings, or probably dealing with customers and refilling stocks in the inventory. How about diving for wrecks under the sea or digging the soil in hopes of finding unexploded bombs of World War II? As for the crew of Operation Render Safe, that’s what their “another day at work” is like.

WWII Bombs Still Claiming Lives

It’s been almost 80 years since the Second World War had ended. However, its dangers remain today, in the form of the ordnance that remained unexploded, lurking especially in the waters of the Pacific Islands, where most of the battles took place at the height of World War II. In Germany, for instance, more than 2,000 tons of unexploded bombs are still being discovered every year. In the Solomon Islands, where one of the fiercest battles between Japan and the United States happened, unknown quantities of explosives still remained, scattered across the over 900 islands.

Bloody Angle, a scene of the battle of the Tenaru, as seen from the American lines. 700 Japanese were killed in a futile attempt to cross the beach on the left. Artillery fire, concentrated in the cocoanut palms, did tremendous damage. (Archives Branch, USMC History Division, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Many had fallen victim to the uncleared bombs. Just this May, one victim named Charley Noda died at the National Referral Hospital after falling victim to a bomb blast a week prior. According to Solomon Star,

He was one of four people – two male and two female – including his wife, who were injured in the World War II unexploded ordnance when it went off while he and others were attending a youth fundraising drive at Lengakiki in suburban Honiara last Sunday afternoon.