Danger UXB

UXB

The answer to that, is that one of the aircraft must have suffered a hang up. Itself not an unusual occurance.

They are not unusual. I was in Malaya at RAF Butterworth, thee Canberra’s had just returned from a sorty and we were bringing them in, I turned mine into the line, stopped him and signal him to stop and open bomb doors with an armourer standing by in case of hang ups. No hang up but a dirty great thousand pounder crunched onto the tarmac. The pilots were wondering why the ground crew were wondering around counting their worry beads and no, it didn’t go off or I would’nt be typing this!!!

Ken

I watched the video a couple of times as well, and I’m not convinced either. There appears to be a house in the background and the magnitude of the bang says to me that either it was something much smaller, or that this was a controlled explosion just to crack the blighter open for later clearing-up.

Of course I’m no expert – but the bang and the debris thrown up seemed less than my SC50 made all those years ago.

Adrian

I’ve just read Bomber Harris’s post – war memoirs. He mentions that Bomber Command was very short of bombs at the period of the war when these aircraft crashed.

Maybe they were ordered to bring bombs back if the couldn’t find the target for some reason?

Instead of the blame culture on the finder we should be praising him !! at least nobody got killed !!

I watched the explosion on local TV news three times, and despite there being some contraption on the top of it and the lack of reference points to give the explosion a sense of scale, I’m not convinced that it was a heavy bomb.

The detectorist (correct concrete noun?) was ever-so apologetic!

Loud explosion about 12.10 today. I am not far away but I had a phone call from some one in the centre of Howden. This thing realy went with a bang.

As I understand it (from the Goole Times) the gentleman who found the bomb is also responsible for the memorial to the lost airmen at this site. He is a local resident so I am sure had permision to be there.

If by chance any one knows the man who was searching this site. Please get in touch. I would be very intrested in helping out

Ben

Well if he had permisson before to dig there with posession of a ministry of defence licence, which he would require:rolleyes: not just from the land owner its now withdrawn

I think the chance of you assisting with a spade will now be some what slim as i would think the site will be under great review. He would now be better off looking for hoard of gold coins and insurance just incase people start asking for loss of earning::mad:

Maybe Nick could point you in the direction of a Proctor to look for, least then you wont find anything dangerous buried:D

Happy Digging

Loud explosion about 12.10 today. I am not far away but I had a phone call from some one in the centre of Howden. This thing realy went with a bang.

As I understand it (from the Goole Times) the gentleman who found the bomb is also responsible for the memorial to the lost airmen at this site. He is a local resident so I am sure had permision to be there.

If by chance any one knows the man who was searching this site. Please get in touch. I would be very intrested in helping out

Ben

Black and red stripes do refer to a Target Indicator, but the shape was wrong for that to be even a 250Lb device. The 250Lb’er had a much blunter front end. Cant seem to find any images in my files that would match the one shown in the BBC image.

Well, at least I now know why the chap at naval EOD who the Coastguard called way back in 1992 was so keen to know whether my bomb had any stripes on it… Pink stripes? Bizarre!

Adrian

the mod detonated the uxb in question an hour ago, the m62 has reopened, hopefully the metal detector wont find any more

I have just plugged a mouse into a laptop and crashed the machine

In this case it should be Danger USB 😀

Well Nick, ime sure you are pritty well up on the protection of military remains act. It would be my guess he may get some stiff questioning if unlicenced unless they operate a diffrent one up north:rolleyes:

my memory is a little vague on the act so perhaps you could fill us in:rolleyes:

http://www.goolecourier.co.uk/news/HOWDENBOMB-SCARE.3635397.jp

Yes I know this piece of legislation rather well! 😉 and no its the same rules even way up here! :p I was trying to give the finder a little slack in case he was just an inept detectorist unaware of what he could be letting himself in for 😮 But the following quote from the local paper + the proximity of the memorial to the find + the rather knowledgeble landowner – all does seem to rather suggest otherwise! 🙁

Source: Goole Courier, Published Date: 03 January 2008

“Phil, who has carried out 20-30 digs on the site before, said: “I have had one or two digs in the vicinity before when I have found engine parts that have shattered on impact and I was looking for more fragmentation when my metal detector went ballistic around one area.”

We may all be mistaken and he perhaps does have a licence??? Either way I suspect, as you say, he will be having to answer a few awkward questions.

The detector group I mentioned seriously had no idea they were on a crash site and apparently spent half the day theorising on how the site ended up covered in aluminium cornflakes, before the penny dropped and they asked me! The Lanc in question was unmanned when it made an almost perfect belly landing! ripping most of the skin from its underside, hence the fragments – the aircraft was substantially intact and recovered and no substantial wreckage remains at the site.

my memory is a little vague on the act so perhaps you could fill us in:rolleyes:

And you being an ‘aviation archeaologist’ too… tut tut, you should really be more aware of the regulations:p

Doesnt look like anything near a “500 pounder” and for a detector find, that is pretty deep 😉 Only a few of us have access to Forsters :diablo:

Nice of them to include a map of the location too – should be crawling with detectorists soon :rolleyes: Seriously though – a local Lancaster crash site near me has a roman road running through it and the local detector club told me they had identified the site as prime ground for their hobby – without knowing about the Lanc! 😮 They arranged one of their group meets there and were soon disgusted by the contamination with thousands of “aluminium cornflakes” – it ruined their day and eventually they were forced to give up as modern detectors, being set up to find a tiny roman coin at 12″ down, just could not cope! They said ferrous is easy to distinguish with these machines and disregard, but not quality aluminium.

Perhaps the comment that a machine gun had been found there in the past was why someone would want to persist digging 2 feet down on a large ferrous contact!?! Most detector users I know wouldnt even stick their spade in on such a signal. From the evidence it would look like he knew what might be buried there???

Well Nick, ime sure you are pritty well up on the protection of military remains act. It would be my guess he may get some stiff questioning if unlicenced unless they operate a diffrent one up north:rolleyes:

my memory is a little vague on the act so perhaps you could fill us in:rolleyes:

http://www.goolecourier.co.uk/news/HOWDENBOMB-SCARE.3635397.jp

Thanks Portagee

Well who would have thought that a Halifax’s bomb would be painted pink and black!

Tragedy for the crews and family:(

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/7168373.stm

Still photo with the story and linked video to detonation

UXB in Yorkshire – army about to blow up dummy?

Hi
I was half-watching the BBC local news (Look East). Was it a red painted “wartime bomb” with black stripes or a black painted one with red stripes?

It’s not a safe game, detecting near crash sites…

I once walked home from a days detecting across a “cleared” (at least three times!) site, and turned the detector on for a giggle, assuming that it would go nuts with all the aluminium – which detectors love. Damn things can find a coke can at 100 yards!

One SC50, under half an inch of mud. Nearly soiled myself, considering the clout I’d just given it with the shovel…

Looking back now, I don’t even want to think about the legality of doing it, never mind any of the other consequences. On the bright side, got a unique paperweight out of it. No, not an SC50 – I’m dim, but not that dim! Nice bit of shrapnel.

Adrian

CHECK THIS OUT, HARDLY SEVERAL METERS DOWN IS IT. TYPICIAL PRESS JUNK WHICH GETS PRINTED IN SOME PAPERS
http://www.goolecourier.co.uk/news/Unexploded-bomb-found-in-a.3634276.jp

Doesnt look like anything near a “500 pounder” and for a detector find, that is pretty deep 😉 Only a few of us have access to Forsters :diablo:

Nice of them to include a map of the location too – should be crawling with detectorists soon :rolleyes: Seriously though – a local Lancaster crash site near me has a roman road running through it and the local detector club told me they had identified the site as prime ground for their hobby – without knowing about the Lanc! 😮 They arranged one of their group meets there and were soon disgusted by the contamination with thousands of “aluminium cornflakes” – it ruined their day and eventually they were forced to give up as modern detectors, being set up to find a tiny roman coin at 12″ down, just could not cope! They said ferrous is easy to distinguish with these machines and disregard, but not quality aluminium.

Perhaps the comment that a machine gun had been found there in the past was why someone would want to persist digging 2 feet down on a large ferrous contact!?! Most detector users I know wouldnt even stick their spade in on such a signal. From the evidence it would look like he knew what might be buried there???

THE DEVICE

CHECK THIS OUT, HARDLY SEVERAL METERS DOWN IS IT. TYPICIAL PRESS JUNK WHICH GETS PRINTED IN SOME PAPERS
http://www.goolecourier.co.uk/news/Unexploded-bomb-found-in-a.3634276.jp