World War II bomb disposal in Europe

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Technicians inspecting a British bomb unearthed in Koblenz, Germany in 2011

The United States Army Air Forces and Royal Air Force dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Europe during World War II.[1] In the United Kingdom, the German Luftwaffe dropped more than 12,000 metric tons of bombs on London alone.[2] The British Ministry of Defence reported that 450 World War II bombs were made safe or defused since 2010 by disposal teams.[3] Every year, an estimated 2,000 tons of World War II munitions are found in Germany, at times requiring the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents from their homes.[1] In Berlin alone, 1.8 million pieces of ordnance have been defused since 1947.[4] Buried bombs, as well as mortars, land mines and grenades, are often found during construction work or other excavations, or by farmers tilling the land.[5]

Belgium[]

  • February 2020: Hundreds of people were evacuated after a discovery of a World War II bomb was discovered by construction workers in Maasmechelen, Limburg.[6]

Great Britain[]

  • 1 October 1969: A German parachute mine was defused by a team led by Major George R. Fletcher MBE, Royal Engineers. at Burghley Road, Camden.[7][8]
  • 5 March 2010: A 100 pounds (45 kg) unexploded German bomb was found in Southampton and was blown up in a controlled explosion by the Royal Navy.[9]
  • 11 August 2015: A 550 pounds (250 kg) German bomb was found and defused by British Army experts in East London.[10]
  • 12 May 2016: 1,100 properties were advised to evacuate and three primary schools were closed after a 500 pounds (230 kg) German bomb was found under a school playground in Bath, with the bomb being safely deactivated the following day.[11]
  • 2 March 2017: A 500 pounds (230 kg) German bomb was found and defused by a British Army disposal team in Brent, north-west London.[12]
  • 16 May 2017: A 550 pounds (250 kg) German bomb was found at Aston Expressway, near Birmingham, and destroyed by British Army experts with a controlled explosion. Hundreds of homes were evacuated and businesses were closed, and London Midland rail services suspended.[13] Two buildings were damaged by the blast.[14]
  • 29 November 2017: A 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) German ‘G’ parachute mine was discovered offshore at Falmouth and was detonated safely.[15]
  • 14 February 2018: A 500 pounds (230 kg) German bomb, found during works in King George V Dock, near London City Airport, was removed from the area and detonated at sea off Shoeburyness, Essex, by British Army experts.[16]
  • 24 May 2019: 1,500 houses were evacuated at Kingston upon Thames after a German bomb was found and defused by a controlled explosion by a disposal team.[17] The blast shattered windows along Fasset Road.[18]
  • 3 February 2020: A number of streets were evacuated in Central London when a 1,100 pounds (500 kg)[19] World War II bomb was found in the district of Soho.[2]
  • 1 December 2020: Royal Navy experts were called after the discovery of a World War II German submarine-laid, moored influence, mine in the River Clyde, Scotland, which contained 770 pounds (350 kg) of explosives and a controlled explosion to dispose of the mine was carried out.[20]
  • 15 December 2020: A 42-foot trawler, the Galwad-Y-Mor, was utterly damaged and disabled by the explosion of what could be, according to the experts, WWII discarded ordnance off Cromer, Norfolk.[21] The wheelhouse was completely wrecked by the shock wave, and the captain and the rest of the seven men crew, two Britons and five Latvians, were injured, some of them suffering "life-changing" wounds. The trawler, low in the water but still afloat, was towed by the tug GPS Avenger to Grimsby where she was laid up to assess damage; the crew had been already rescued by the offshore support vessel Esvagt Njord.[22]
  • 26 February 2021: 2,600 households and the University of Exeter halls of residence were evacuated after the discovery of an unexploded 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) World War II bomb in Exeter and a controlled detonation was carried out.[23]
  • 22 July 2021: Eight homes were evacuated and a section of the M62 motorway was closed after the discovery of a 500 pounds (227 kg) World War II bomb on a new housing development in Goole.[24]

Germany[]

  • September 1994: On a building site in Friedrichshain, Berlin a bomb exploded, many houses were damaged, 3 people died [25]
  • June 2010: 7,000 people were evacuated in Göttingen after a 500 kg bomb was found. Three members of the bomb-disposal unit died after the bomb exploded.[26]
  • January 2014: A construction worker in Euskirchen was killed and two critically wounded after hitting a buried bomb with an excavator.[27]
  • September 2017: A bomb dropped by the USAAF during World War II led to the evacuation of 21,000 people in Koblenz.[28]
  • September 2017: 70,000 people had to leave their homes in Frankfurt after a British bomb was discovered.[28]
  • April 2018: A 1.8-ton bomb found in Paderborn forced the evacuation of 26,000 people.[29]
  • April 2018: 12,000 people were evacuated in Berlin after a bomb was discovered just north of Berlin Hauptbahnhof.[4]
  • August 2018: the discovery of a World War II bomb required the evacuation of 18,500 people in Ludwigshafen.[30]
  • April 2019: 600 people were evacuated when a bomb was discovered in Frankfurt's River Main. Divers with the city's fire service were participating in a routine training exercise when they found the 250 kg (550 lb) device.[31]
  • July 2019: 16,500 people evacuated in Frankfurt when a 500 kg bomb was found during construction.[32]
  • January 2020: Two 250 kg (550 lb) World War II bombs were found in Dortmund forcing the evacuation of 14,000 residents and the closure of the city's main train station.[33]
  • April 2020: A discovery of a 230 kg (500 lb) World War II bomb in Bonn was successfully defused but caused the evacuation of 1,200 residents and 200 patients at a local hospital, including 11 people critically-ill with coronavirus.[34]
  • October 2020: 10,000 office workers were evacuated, along with 15 residents in Neukölln, Berlin when a 500 kg World War II bomb was discovered.
  • January 2021: Over 8,000 people were evacuated in Göttingen after the discovery of four World War II bombs were discovered in the city centre.[35]
  • May 2021: 16,500 people were evacuated when a bomb was discovered in Flensburg. Construction workers were excavating nearby when they found the 250 kg (550 lb) device.[36]
  • May 2021: Around 25,000 people were evacuated in Frankfurt after the discovery of a 500 kg (1100 lb) unexploded bomb.[37]
  • October 2021: 10,000 people evacuated in Munich after the discovery of a 75kg unexploded aerial bomb.[38]
  • December 2021: 3 injured during the construction of Trunk Line 2 after a bomb exploded. [39]
  • December 2021: 15,000 people evacuated in Berlin after the discovery of a 250 kg unexploded aerial bomb.[40]

Italy[]

  • October 2016: around 1,300 people evacuated in Rovereto after the discovery of a 500 lbs American bomb; less than one year earlier, a 1,000 lbs bomb was found in the same town.[41]
  • March 2018: 23,000 people were evacuated in Fano after a British-made bomb was discovered.[42]
  • July 2018: 12,000 were forced from their homes after a 250 kg bomb was discovered in Terni.[43]
  • October 2019: 4,000 people were evacuated and a nearby highway was closed after a discovery of a World War II bomb in Bolzano, which was removed and blown up in controlled explosion.[44]
  • December 2019: 10,000 evacuated in Turin upon discovering a British 65 kg bomb, and Mayor Chiara Appendino reported that the device was defused by the Italian Army.[45]
  • December 2019: 54,000 evacuated in Brindisi in a radius of 1,617 m after discovering a World War II bomb.[46][47]
  • November 2020: The Italian army was called to AS Roma training ground after the discovery of as many as 20 devices were found underneath the turf during work to build new pitches at their training complex.[48]

Poland[]

  • October 2020: Around 750 people were evacuated in the port city of Swinemünde after the largest ever unexploded World War II bomb in Poland, a Tallboy bomb, was discovered in the Baltic Sea shipping canal, with the bomb detonating during the defusing process.[49]

See also[]

References[]

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  8. ^ "Major George Fletcher". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
  9. ^ Law, Peter (5 March 2010). "Royal Navy detonated WW2 bomb in Southampton". Daily Echo. Retrieved 7 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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  25. ^ Tote, Schreie, Verletzte – die Explosion von Friedrichshain
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  27. ^ "WW2 bomb kills German digger driver". BBC News. 2014. Archived from the original on 2017-09-09. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
  28. ^ a b "Koblenz residents move out as World War Two bomb made safe". DW.COM. Archived from the original on 2018-04-09. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
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  48. ^ Fordham, Josh (28 November 2020). "WWII devices found at Roma's training ground". Talksport. Retrieved 17 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  49. ^ "Unexploded bomb detonates during defusing process in Poland". BBC News. 13 October 2020. Retrieved 12 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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