Authorities in Florida recently detonated a World War II bomb found by a scuba diver.
Tom Gramlich saw the bomb while coming back to the beach from a dive off Pepper Park in Fort Pierce, Florida. He told a local news station:
“As I was coming in, I looked down and I saw some kind of strange object. I reached down, picked it up, had it in my hand, and I realized this looks like a World War II mortar.”
Gramlich left the bomb just off the beach and called the local authorities, who moved it to another section of beach and detonated it in a controlled blast. He described it as follows:
“They put their explosives around it, filled it back up with sand, and then a short time later, they detonated it. You saw a big explosion on the beach that sent sand and debris sky high.”
Andy Brady, who works for the nearby National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, said the area was used extensively during World War II for training in the run-up to the invasion of Normandy, France. Live explosives were used during those activities, and years later several have been found.
Brady warns:
“If you ever find something like this, retreat, report it, leave it alone, and call the Corps or the bomb squad.”
Just because World War II ended well over half a century ago doesn’t mean all the bombs made during those days are accounted for.
In 2016, military divers from New Zealand, Canada, the UK and Australia found over 50 unexploded bombs off the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific as part of Operation Render Safe, an exercise that lasted about three weeks.
Lt. Commander Muzz Kennett, captain of the New Zealand naval ship Manawanui, told Radio New Zealand:
“We have found 250 pound bombs and smaller ordnance – one village we found up to 52 pieces of ordnance that we removed and detonated some explosives to get rid of them. It’s working really well, we have been busy, and in the last five days we have got rid of approximately 400 pounds of ordnance.”
