Cannonball!

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Nice Find!

Cannonball washes up on N.J. beach; bomb squad carts it away
By MARGARET F. BONAFIDE, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press

Posted Tuesday, March 6, 2007

A member of New Jersey State Police bomb squad removes canonball in a bucket filled with water.

Asbury Park (N.J.) Press/TIM MCCARTHY
SEASIDE PARK, N.J. — Sean DeGroot hoped that the black powder-filled iron ball he found could be saved for posterity — but the state police bomb squad said "No way."
DeGroot, 33, found what appeared to be a cannonball Friday buried in 2 feet of sand off Crabbe Road in South Toms River while he was combing the riverfront with his metal detector.
Intrigued, DeGroot put the ball in a bucket of water and placed it in his truck. At home, he started tinkering with it and researching its possibilities.
"I was taking the rusted iron off, and then I found a fuse in it," DeGroot said, adding that he had pried away the rust on the ball with a butter knife until he came to a circular hole where ropelike matter was stuffed in the ball. He said he could "smell the gunpowder."
He went to the Internet for help and found instructions to contact the U.S. Navy. DeGroot dutifully made a phone call to a San Diego Navy Ordnance Disposal Unit on Sunday, and on Monday he received a call that a bomb squad from the Earle Naval Weapons Station in Colts Neck was on its way.
The Navy representative who said the bomb squad was coming told him, "Don't touch it and keep it in water," DeGroot said.
Seaside Park police arrived and evacuated the two-story apartment building where DeGroot lives. Police Chief William Biening said police and borough firefighters cordoned off one block in front of DeGroot's apartment.
State police and Earle bomb squads removed the cannonball, which was submerged in a bucket of water as directed, around 1:30 p.m. Monday.
DeGroot said he wanted to save the cannonball, determine from where it came and present it to a museum. But the cannonball's origins will never be known because it was deemed unsafe by the bomb squad and is slated for destruction, according to Sgt. Jeanne Hengemuhle of the state police.
Round cannon projectiles were a common military munition on land and sea in the 18th and 19th centuries. Solid iron cannonballs, or "shot," were used to batter ships and fortifications. Hollow iron balls, filled with gunpowder bursting charges, carried fuses that would be ignited by muzzle flash and explode the munition close to its target.
During the American Revolution, the Barnegat Bay region served as a base for pro-independence privateers who seized cargo ships passing close to shore, according to historians. Pro-British forces sought to squelch that activity and in 1782 mounted a successful raid on Toms River, destroying a local militia base and capturing its commander, Capt. Joshua Huddy.
J. Mark Mutter, a local historian said the ordnance could have been used in 1778 when the British staged an unsuccessful attack on the Toms River, or in 1782 when the British attacked again, this time successfully. Or, it could have been thrown overboard from a ship which was too heavy to move in a low tide on the river.
Mutter said that a cannonball had been discovered during construction on Water Street two decades ago, but it was solid lead and deemed as harmless and was preserved.
DeGroot said he was quite surprised when a Navy representative told him the fuse was called "a cork, and it had a pound of black powder in it and it is highly lethal."
His landlord, Judy Appleby, didn't seem to mind the evacuation of her building. Appleby said it was exciting because the cannonball was a historical piece, and she, too, hoped it could be preserved some way.
Not possible, Hengemuhle said.
"They will render it safe for the arson bomb unit to counter charge it and then they will destroy it," she said.

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Old ammunition discovery halts project
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

SURF CITY -- The discovery of old ammunition from World War II shut down a section of beach replenishment work on Long Beach Island Monday -- the same day an unexploded cannonball a man found elsewhere in the county and took home caused an evacuation requiring a bomb squad.
Following the discovery of five World War II bomb fuses in the sand dredged up from offshore, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has closed a section of the Surf City's beach that's in the process of being restored.
A resident with a metal detector found the first fuse Friday morning. Since then, another resident and beach workers found four more believed to be from American explosives.
"Right now with this, it makes me very concerned about the safety of the beachgoers," Long Beach Township resident Peter Trainor said.
Ed Voigt, an Army Corps spokesman, said there is no danger to the public, but added it could take weeks to check the beach completely. That work should be done before summer, he said.
The fuses are 1 to 2 inches in diameter and 9 inches long. They still contain powder, but would need to be struck to activate, authorities said.
"In Atlantic waters it's not rare," Voigt said. "We do actually have in some projects, in Delaware, where we actually had screens on the intake pipe because we already knew there was a likelihood of finding (ordnance) there."
However, he said there was "no prior evidence of anything like that in this area."