The Lethal Legacy of World War II

Jack's home sick and making trouble today instead of working. He sent me a link to an article in Der Spiegel:

In the whole of Germany, more than 2,000 tons of American and British aerial bombs and all sorts of munitions ranging from German hand grenades and tank mines to Russian artillery shells are recovered each year. Barely a week goes by without a city street or motorway being cordoned off or even evacuated in Germany due to an unexploded bomb being discovered.

The Lethal Legacy of World War II, Part II

Uncovering unexploded bombs left over from WWII is just part of everyday life in Germany. This one was uncovered on Monday in Munich when they razed the Schwabinger 7 bar.

Usually they can be defused and then hauled off to someplace safe for disposal. This one had some kind of chemical fuse, the same kind of fuse that was on a similar bomb that blew up in 2010 and killed three people when they tried to defuse it. So no, we are not going to try and defuse it, we will just set it off right where it sits.

That's 500 pounds of TNT being turned into kinetic energy. Shrapnel was thrown 300 yards, several buildings were severely damaged, lots of small fires started, windows blown out for blocks around. Preliminary estimates of damage are in the millions. Left a big hole in the ground.

Via Scott.

Update February 2016 replaced missing pictures with ones from my backup files. Never trust somebody else to keep valuable documents for you.