Richard Montgomery

[FulmarJeddo]

Here's a bit of video I took of a WW2 practice bomb I found on the beach on Sheppey last summer http://www.kentonline.co.uk/sheerness/news/sheppey-controlled-explosion-22598 It was only taken on my Ipad, so a bit wobbly. There use to be a range off Leysdown, and we have found loads of these over the years, they are about 18" long and 8" diameter tapering to nothing where the fins were. I saw one once at a Biggin Hill air display and I think it was labelled as a 10lb bomb.
Some years ago, I found 2 together and a young army bomb disposal officer insisted that they were mortars. He carried them out a few hundred yards over the mud and set a timed charge and retreated back to the beach. As he was struggling to get across the mud he was constantly checking his watch. He reached the beach just before they went off. He turned to me and admitted he was wrong and said there was a lot more explosive in them than he expected.

 

[Niffler]

I saw the effects of a single mine blown up on the seabed off the Dutch coast, there was a 3 mile exclusion zone and from 3 miles the explosion and water plume was enormous; what 3,000 tonnes would be like I dread to think. No wonder they don't want to touch it though, if disturbing it caused some ordinance to fall on others.