This weekend was a Bomb, literally!

[bdahunter]

I went hunting at Chaplin Bay on Saturday for the low tide, I had planned to try another beach but I was delayed at work. I caught the low tide and did a little digging and before long I had a large target go off in my headset with some ferrous interference. I dug it up just in case it was a good target being masked by iron. Just as I was scraping against this large target with my scoop I thought 'I wonder if it might be an unexploded shell?'. This area was used as a rifle range and artillery range during WWI and WWII by the Bermuda Regiment located up on the hill above this beach, still there.
Sure enough, what do I pull up but an old mortar round. There are kids playing on the beach a couple of yards away so I can't just leave it there, I can't put it back and I certainly can't put it in the garbage so I decide I better take it home with me. I sweat buckets all weekend knowing this thing is sitting in a pail of water in the corner of my backyard (it can't hurt to keep it wet I figure). Come Monday I put it back in my car, bedded in an old towel, so I can take it to the Bermuda Regiment for disposal.
Sure enough it is a WWII mortar round with 2 lbs. worth of TNT in it. The Quartermaster at the Bermuda Regiment took it off my hands, but that's another story. I've found a lot of wierd things lately and I'll be glad to get back to finding my old standbys, gold and silver jewellery.

Cheers,

BDA

[JohnWPA]

Glad nothing happened there BDA but you found a part of WWII...

John

[bdahunter]

Here's the deal. I swing by the Bermuda Regiment base on my break to get rid of this thing (still not sure if it's a mortar round or an aerial flare).
I drive onto the base (nobody at the guard post), find a couple of guys sitting on a wall and explain to them what I have in the back of my car. "Kewl Man, No Problem, go see dee quartamasta over dere". So over dere I go, get the item out of my car and take it into dee quartamasta's office. Nobody at the counter but I can see a couple of locals chatting in the back office about their weekend, so I try to make eye contact - Good Luck! I set the item up on the counter in it's bed made from a towel so as not to bang it on the hard surface, they keep yakking. Finally after what seems forever with a potential bomb sitting at face level (to interrupt their conversation would be considered rude in Bermuda and I would have to wait twice as long for being rude) one of them says "Good Morning" (very important phrase here, I can talk to them now).
I say "Good Morning, I found something on the beach on the weekend and I think it belongs to you" and motion to the item on the counter. "What is dat?" she asks, so I say "I think it's a bomb" (I'm a little PO'ed at this point). She saunters up to the counter and her friend follows her, he says "That's an old mortar shell, haven't seen one of dose in a while, where did you find it?" I told him I found it at Chaplin Bay on the beach beside some kids making a sand castle; he just smiles and picks it up like it was a paperweight or something. "Yes" he says "that's a mortar shell allright" and THEN HE STARTS PLAYING WITH THE DETONATOR!!
I said "thank you so much for taking that off of my hands" they said "thank you for bringing it in" and dat was dat.
I got the heck out of there as quick as I could before he could figure out how to make it go off, I didn't hear an explosion by the time I was out of earshot so I am assuming it was a dud, either that or he just got bored and put it back down.
I'll have to watch the news tonight and see if there was a terrorist attack on the Bermuda Regiment.
Sometimes living on a tropical island isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Cheers,

BDA

[dri-wash]

Amazing find, you did the right thing by getting it away from the kids...

That would have scared the heck out of me....I was a M-1 Tank commander in the Army....I have see rounds like that one go off,,, it is not pretty..... TNT that old is very unstable.... Good to hear all went well.

Tom

[rip]

Glad ya had a safe weekend BDA,coulda been a real blast ! sorry couldent resist !

[dooby]

I would have panicked, then drank heavily .......... LOL

[Joe(TX)]

All those years in the surf, most likely all the tnt was very wet or contaminated with a lot of salt water and sand. But still who knows.................Joe

[pris]

I just realized that my whole body was tensing up while I was reading your posts. YIKES! s-c-a-r-y. You're a brave man for handling that, even if the TNT were probably wet. You really just never know.

[Toadie]

Reminds me of a story of some Civil War Munitions on Galveston Island that got put around a fire during WWII, the soldiers were thinking they were solid cannonballs and hoping to help trap the heat and the dang things blew up killing a few of them. Something like that..

James

[SATB]

In Europe also we still have many machines explosif Second World War.