German Parachute Mines - WW2 Killers Still Found Today
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ค. 2023
- Known as 'The Silent Killer', the Germans dropped modified naval mines on Britain during the war, these huge weapons descending silently by parachute and had enough explosive power to level entire city blocks. Today, they are still being found and remain just as dangerous as when dropped eight decades ago.
Dr. Mark Felton FRHistS, FRSA, is a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers 'Zero Night' and 'Castle of the Eagles', both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Mark also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte. His books have formed the background to several TV and radio documentaries. More information about Mark can be found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fe...
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Credits: US National Archives; Library of Congress; Bundesarchiv; Mersea Seafood; Forces.net; Royal Navy; Ministry of Defence; HM Coastguard; SilkTork; Victoria Cross Online; Mark Milburn.
Mark keeps indiscriminately dropping fascinating videos on civilians targets
He targets them well, so it's hard to call it indiscriminate.
A lot of collateral damage... to ignorance
Hear, hear!
saturation informing of the general population
He’s throwing down knowledge bombs.
For those wondering about the bomb that went off while being defused - nobody was hurt. It was undergoing a slow-burn deactivation which sped up somewhat. Thought that was worth mentioning!
Thank you, I was wondering why I'd not heard about it as headline news at the time, which I suppose would have been the case if there had been any causualties. Fortunately, these guys don't take any un-necessary risks.
yeah my 1st thought was of the brave men and their familys having to deal with losing a loved one.
That was a helpful fact
@@lifeindetale I'm surprised Dr Felton forgot to include that nugget. 'Exploded while being defused' does create instant thoughts of tragedy, or those who will never again participate in a Mexican wave.
Thank you, like many others, I too was wondering.😂
I live in Sentani, Papua, Indonesia. This area was occupied by both the Japanese and subsequently US forces during WWII. Last week, we were warned that a 250-kg WWII bomb had been found and on 13 July, '23 it would be blown up. My home is about 1.7 kilometers away. That noise even here was super loud! It shook the house and startled the dog. I can well imagine how awful that bomb in England was. After 80 years, WWII ordnance is still quite potent.
They still find several bombs each year in Berlin, never witnessed one beeing detonated unfortunatly, if I may dare to say that.
Hope the dog is OK 👍
Imagine being in war time London during the blitz,with hundreds going off .
And that’s a rather small bomb, imagine something bigger, hope the areas alright
@@connycontainer9459how do they get rid of them than?
My father was nearly killed by a parachute mine in Charlton, London. He was saved by running indoors to get his older brother to “come and see the Jerry parachutist”. The houses that stood there were still missing when I was a kid in the early 1960s.
Jerry parachutist lol
Close shave! It's similar here in Hull, particularly so in East Hull. Numerous green spaces that were never redeveloped after bomb damage clearance. There's such a site where my great great grandparents lived in Estcourt St. They were staying with my great grandmother when their street was levelled (unbelievably lucky) Both next door neighbours were killed including a mother & toddler. There's really good history resource on the Hull blitz so you can see where all the HE bombs fell. You can see the rebuilding work and scars in the brickwork in many places if you know where to look
Those houses were still missing, eh?
They finally built a pub with car park and outdoor beer garden on the site. Those mines cleared a hell of a lot of ground!
#@@paulbriggs3072
@@bigtrev9043 Liverpool is the same. Birkenhead too in places. Google earth is great for this. There are some 1945 pictures on there from aerial photos after the blitz. Pretty shocking actually.
Several years ago I was working for an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle company. We were doing a demo for the Royal Navy with a new side scan sonar. You could hear the gasp when we found one of these. Ended up shutting down the port for a day or two while EOD dealt with it. The Royal Navy continues to use these UUV's to this day.
Best demo run in the world
Best sonar demonstration ever.
Undeniably worthwhile product 😂
I bet they ordered 3x as many after that demo lol
i mean what better luck could you have in demonstrating it's utility?
You really have to admire the skill and bravery of those EOD people....think of the lives they have no doubt saved
A particularly selfless lot they are. Thanks to them.
I’m surprised they even try to diffuse them. Figured they would blow them all up in place, but I guess that is too dangerous much of the time.
Try reading "Seventeen Seconds" by RN officer from Australia they were tasked with dealing with mines while bombs were an Army problem dealt with be REME.
As s former combat engineer, I can say the pucker factor rises severely when deactivating any mine, even "in situ" demolition of explosive items.
@@owen368
Thanks Owen. That book is a later version of Ivan Southall's book. 'Softly tread the Brave.'
(1960) I still have 2 copies. The parachute mines, whether dropped on land or into the Ports and Rivers and UK coastline were far more deadly and difficult to defuse than any conventional bomb. Having magnetic sensors, acoustic and light detecting cells could detonate these mines in an attempt to defuse them. They also had a counter so minesweeping wouldn't explode them on the first, second third pass by the minesweepers.
Same here in Germany - civilian EOD teams never run out of work here. Basically the same hassle as you have. A bit more of it actually, as the strategic bombing campaing lasted so much longer.
War sucks on every level.
I live in The Netherlands and our bomb squad are getting called out for WW2 left over explosives on an daily basis. Same with the Navy Mine Sweepers. It's mind blowing really. And a special team is still working on identifying human remains of service men died 80 years ago. People buried in a rush are still being found and the army is doing everything to sent the remains back home to the remaining family.
What an horror , industrial scale murdering , i hope we will never face that again.
Same in Poland , there is still a loot of unexploded mines and bombs , and often retreating Germans have left buried whole stockpiles , there is on average 800 unexploded mines and bombs in Poland , and that is 78 years after war end , and in 2019 3 Polish sappers have died when they defused a ww2 explosive ... and after ww2 1945-56 627 sappers have died and 674 was wounded they have recovered 14 763 514 mines and 58 805 852 bombs and othere explosives , and estimates say based on German & Soviets documents there can still be 9 million mines and 25 million othere explosives in Polish lands ...
More planes were shot down in WW2 than fly the skies of the world today. Plus the population was considerably smaller than it is today. You are right, the scale of the conflict is mind blowing.
To the Dutch people, thank you for taking care of our fallen.
Just for the record: the british word for this type of bombs is blockbuster and describes well the devastating effect of this weapon. The RAF used more than 68.000 of these over german cities. One of the first of these killed both my greatgrandparents and their maid in April 1941 in Emden, Lower Saxony.
With the hundreds and hundreds of hours of video watching, documentary watching, book reading that we've all done on this topic, how is Mark STILL coming up with topics and facts that we either know little or nothing about? It's absolutely brilliant
Agreed!
It is absolutely brilliant.
Thanks Mark for all your hard research, narration and video clips! 👍
Well actually Mark has a time machine and goes back and forth, just kidding.
Hard to believe in that six year span of WWII. So much was going on all over the globe, you can spend a lifetime studying it, and still never learn it all. Obviously Mark has enough WWII content to last until the cows come home.
@@mr.naughtypants7069 such a fascinating time/topic
In addition to all your brilliant comments, I feel I must add that his audience probably keep him engaged with wit and occasionally a deserving idea. I came late to the channel and still have an infinite supply of earlier videos. Brilliant.
"Danger UXB" with a young Anthony Andrews is a great show about the bombs/mines that fell around England during the war.
I remember that series, it was shown here in the US around 1980 or so. Great series!
Every episode is based on a real incident. There’s also an episode about parachute mines, which were the responsibility of RN teams.
There’s also a great biography about an RN mine disposal officer. It’s entitled “All Mine”…
I remember that series. It was good.
Danger UXB was on American TV while I was trying to finish my PhD dissertation. It was the only TV show I allowed myself to watch during that time!
Still a great show to watch.
My grandfather was a fireman in WW2 and he walked right up to a land mine that was hanging from a railway bridge.On Green Lane in Birkenhead.The parachute had draped over the lines and became entangled in the signals and an advertising hoarding....he couldn't work out what it was in the dark of the blackout...He commented that he could have beaten Jessie Owens that night. 😮
I remember reading about Aerial Mine Delousing back in the 1960s.
As they were improved, by Germany, they got Selenium Light Sensitive Cells inside the body under the access cap. Several Deminers died before they used a Field Telephone link to describe step by step C everything done to access the Mechanism.
Eventually, they realised the Light Cells were the cause of Detonations during Delousing...so a Dark Room Tent was placed over the Mine and the operation carried out in Darkness!
All a completely unnecessary waste of life, as breaking the shell with a shape charge is the best way to disarm a bomb of any kind. The UK will send people to their death for no reason it seems.
A parachute mine/bomb exploded above my town during WW2, in a town which received very little bombing.
Perhaps the bomber was aiming for the railway station, a mile distant. Flattened lots of houses.
I spoke with an old bloke whose schoolfriends were killed in the blast.
In the 1980s, lots of houses nearby still had WW2 slit-trenches with corrugated iron covers.
Nothing makes you keener to dig a shelter than experiencing a near miss.
bombing civilians is the lowest thing a country can do AMERICANS would literally NEVER do that OMG
I have seen reminders when vacationing in Calabria such as small Nazi pill boxes lining some roads along and the sea and also heading up towards the mountains.
@@Wooargh = So I'll take it then that you ARE being deliberately facetious - (rather than naive)
Oh, Allied pilots, especially US pilots fired with machine guns at everything , what moved in Germany. Civilian vehicles, farmers on their fields, playing children... The Allied pilots had been NOT the honourable heroes, as they are allways portrayed. Also the Bomber pilots threw their bombs on totally undefended and Military unimportant villages.
@@Wooargh That is so low.
A few years ago, a 1 ton mortar was discovered in downtown Warsaw and I found a small Soviet mortar about 100 yards from my home in the woods. I did NOT touch it and I called the police.
I have never found a channel which is better at detailing WW2 than Mark Felton's.
Well said W7DSY
I notice that Mark didn't mention the GC variant which was found off Brixham. The Type GC mine utilized a non-contact fuse mechanism, which typically employed a combination of pressure and time delays to ensure the mine would detonate at a certain height above the ground. The purpose of the non-contact fuse was to create a larger blast radius and increase the potential damage caused by the explosion.
I read a book "17 Seconds" by Ivan Southall, who was working to make these mines safe in the war. Oh, the stories...
There was a panic, and the unit and techniques were improvised in no time, even their name "RMS" - "rendering mines safe"-unit was quickly made up.
He said the safety distance was 400m, and if you messed up and the mechanism started ticking,you had 17seconds. According to him, defying all olympic records, some guy managed even that.
Their main "specialised equipment" was an inflatable ball,stuck in the gears that would block the mechanism until you disarmed it.
One guy noticed his ball was leaking in the middle of it, and had to keep pumpimg, while disarming the mine with only one hand.
If you can find it, I strongly recomend that book.
Yep, I remember that book well, read it when I was a kid. Quite crazy what those men went through, keeping up with the developing technology, the situations they had to work in and the improvisations they had to come up with are truly astonishing.
"....One guy noticed his ball was leaking in the middle of it, and had to keep pumping, while disarming the mine with only one hand."
Probably the most action packed sentence I have ever read.
Nothing makes a person run faster than a hungry wild animal… or a now ticking bomb!
I have the exact book! Just finished reading it this morning
"Hang on. What's this wire...."
- Famous last words, bomb disposal expert.
On 16 April 1941, singing star Al Bowlly had given a performance at the Rex Cinema in High Wycombe. He was offered an overnight stay in town, but Bowlly took the last train home to his flat at 32 Duke Street, London. He was killed by a Luftwaffe parachute mine that detonated outside his flat at ten past three in the morning.
"Hang Out the Stars in Indiana". (thanks to Withnail & I)
Glad you related that tale - (I knew it already, here's why) - Back in 1971, I was building an Airfix Hawker Typhoon whilst my Dad had the radio 'on' listening to "Alan Dell's Big Band Sound" & he was also tape-recording it.
Replaying the tape (after) I got to hear several tracks TWICE & they stuck inside my 'musically clever' head.
One was "Living In Clover" sung by Al Bowlly & the other TWO were "What A Perfect Combination" and the beautiful 1934 x 78rpm 'single' known as "May I ?" by Roy Fox & his orchestra, two of my favourite tracks of all time.
Given I was a Led Zeppelin fan (back then) the contrast couldn't have been any more sharp than it was !!
The names Al Bowlly, Roy Fox & Denny Dennis (who sang the latter) have stuck in my head ever since 1971
It was my Dad who told me how he died & later research, I found out yet more depth - (as you do)
It was remarked that when Al Bowlly died, there was not a single scratch or mark on him, yet he was dead.
His bedroom door blew clean off it's hinges, hit him in the head, killing him instantly - such is fate.
At least he wouldn't have had chance to comprehend it, so was killed "in his sleep" & pretty much instantly.
I read that he fell and banged his head , not blown to bits kind of thing.
My mother told me that when she was about 7 or 8 years old, a parachute mine came down in a field just outside the town in south Yorkshire where she lived. All the locals were warned not to go near it. A few days later, my mother and grandmother were shopping on the high street when the mine went off, the blast pushed them both through a shop window.
It's difficult to imagine just how big and powerful those mines, both A and B types really were. I guess you get some idea from the clips in this video, those things were brutal!
Those things were really nasty. I know of two that fell near my town. One to the north and one to the south, both in fields so went undetected until they detonated during daytime after the night raid. The first one blew out all the windows in my mum’s street and presumably all that half of town. Bizarrely, my grandmother immediately assumed my uncle (then a young scamp) had done something typically daft and was to blame for the damage. The second one did much the same on the north side of the town, that one was described by an old boy I worked with in the eighties who lived on the long lane that side of town. I don’t know where the things landed but they’re no doubt documented somewhere in the records, they must have left quite a mark.
It's a bomb.... they tend to be on the nasty side of things. I am sure Hiroshima victims have many similarly humorous anecdotes.
There is a massive hole in the ground near where I grew up in Suffolk, once when walking past with my father, he casually mentioned it was from a mine. I was totally bemused until the concept of a 'parachute' mine was explained.
Presumably it had drifted from its intended target of Felixstowe, Ipswich or maybe Harwich docks.
This was when I really realised why we also had a Morrison shelter slowly rusting away in the garden - the sheer indiscriminate nature of bombing accuracy and specifically the V weapons meant you couldn't make it to an Anderson shelter.
As a german I have to ask you whats the difference between a morrison and an anderson shelter? Im asking for a friend
Didn't the V weapons carry the same volume of explosive as the parachute mines?
@@S4ngheli05- An Anderson shelter was like a tin shed, half buried in the ground, and could accommodate a family, whilst a Morison shelter resembled a low metal table, was used exclusively indoors and could accommodate a couple and a small child.
@@AtheistOrphan Ahh okey, thank you for your answer! 🙂
@@S4ngheli05 - You’re very welcome 👍🇬🇧🤝🇩🇪
I was a coastguard when the HMS London mine was discovered. We were involved with the EOD at Shoebury. The detonation was spectacular.
The guy at 11:52 seems to think so too.
My hat is off to the bravery of the EOD/UXB technicians of all countries who continuously risk their lives disarming ordnance from the wars. Be it bombs, shells, gas shells, underground mines from WW1, or mines. The courage of these technicians is so underappreciated by the public. Bless the technicians!
Dr. Felton, I'm a great fan of British Drama. I remember that back in 1979, there was a British Drama ("Danger: UXB") that aired. It was Episode Nine (9) ("Seventeen Seconds to Glory") that the "Luftmine B" was highlighted. "Danger: UXB" is one of my Favorite British Drama Series. Thanks Very Much For This Video!!!!! Keep Up The Good Work!!!!!
In Germany, it is estimated that up to 100 000 up to 300 000 tons of unexploded bombs are still in the soil. Every single year about 5 000 bombs are found and defused.
Unexploded ordnance of whatever type are a menace in so many countries. One story which amazed me was that a V2 rocket landed in a road in suburban Essex but actually failed to detonate in 1945. Obviously houses were damaged by the arrival of this supersonic missile but at least the residents were able to get away to tell the tale. Even when London was experiencing a welcome relief from most air attacks in 1942 an undetected unexploded bomb which had fallen during the blitz just over a year earlier detonated without warning amidst tenement buildings in Gurney Street, Walworth, London. It killed eighteen, many of them children, and injured over sixty and when you see your footage of the bomb being detonated in Exeter you can understand the power of such things. Bomb disposal experts....well.....their bravery is incredible.
Hi Mark, you maybe interested to know that I have some remains of the Zeppelin that came down on Mersea Island. One of my past relatives was guarding the site.... He also guarded the crash site of Alcock and Brown's forced landing site in Ireland after their trans Atlantic flight (I am also in possession of one of their's leather/fur flying hat as it was given to my relative by one of them!)
My grandfather as a teenager was acting as a messenger for the ARP during the Cardiff Blitz.
He was one of first people of on the scene after one went off in the Grangetown area of Cardiff.
He never forgot what saw and 70 years later could describe in real detail what he saw. I wish I had had the foresight to record him talking about his wartime memories before he passed away
Here in Denmark it is much more common to find the equivalent British Type A Mk. I-IV Parachute mines
Sometimes here in England,Danish armaments are found,occasionally the former owners are found with them,although they tend to be a lot older than WW2 era😀
Yeah they did the same thing, funny how mark didn't mention that
@@davetravers4621 But our silver is in Denmark!
@@brandongardner9829 : Winners of wwll did never bad things, don' t you know this?
@@brandongardner9829. Probably to do with the title - ‘German Parachute Mines’ 🤔
My father was in the ARP during the war. He was part of a team that "cleaned up" after bombs had caused mass casualties. One incident resulted in the deaths of over 60 people in an air raid shelter. One day, in the 1950s, when I was 12,, he described to me, in detail, how he gathered up the body parts.
Thats one loving caring father there, I betting he told that as a bed time story. Lol
My grandfather told me a story about a dozen or so men handling a blimp airship, which got blown away by a gust of wind. The more who fell off, the lighter it got.
A healthy relationship with reality is the desired result. Not the delusion that reality does not exist.
My grandfather also told me stories of the war but unfortunately he was an and Italian soldier in Libya. When he got word of the Allies landing in Africa, he went awol and hid out the remainder of the war in Africa before going back to Italy. That's why he never got a military pension but he never killed.
@@govinda102000 hey there is no shame in not wanting to participate in war. It takes a lot of bravery to go against the grain and refuse to be a part of the "big show" so to speak. Not saying that there is no honorable time to fight, there is and have been many times. However if you know in your heart that the reason given for fighting is thin and doesn't hold water....well...I wouldn't want that on my mind for the rest of my life. So props to your Grandfather for following his heart on that.
if there was ever a good reason to be an alcholoic, thats it right there.
Danger UXB was a favorite television show I watched on public broadcasting in the 1980s
One of two stations I could pick up. The parachute mine episode was one of the best.
"17 seconds to glory"
One correction here. On the 23rd September 1940 my grandmother was killed in Risinghill Street by a parachute bomb. (A street between the Angel and Kings Cross Islington, London.) 30 people were killed on this occasion, including the Warden of the local shelter.
Mum was ARP at the Angel Rawston street? and mentioned that event and the local shelter under the school which took a direct hit at the back of her house. Dead laid out in the playground very visible from her bedroom window. Whole families and friends gone. She was clearly upset recounting it in the mid 60s. Dad got his dads house demolished around him by mine in Homerton Paragon road while on embarkation leave. Apparently it was save his rife first then family.
during my time in Okinawa, we came across a lot of UXOs. all our mil families were always briefed and reminded often especially kids, dont pick up strange items, call police asap. Farmers always finding UXOs as welll.. War never seems to just "stop at peace"..it has such a long lasting effects. Thank you EOD for what you all do!
Think of the cluster bombs being delivered to the Kiev regime today by the USA and the harm they will do to children generations from now.
@@jean6872think about all the Russian attacks on civilians the longer the war goes.
Think these will be dropped primarily in highly mined areas they will have to sweap anyway to clear.
Think about all the Ukrainian soldiers your asking to die in order to not use cluster bombs.
Think about how the cluster bomb thing distracts from all the other unexploded weapons that need to be cleared.
The lie that cluster bombs were mine laying devices when I was trained in using them in 80’s we were expected to use them to clear defenses and then move though that area did not even warn us officers of unexploded bomblets. It not a mine laying device all bomblets are hoped to explode.
No nation that actually wants to win a war banned them only the minor powers country who no longer wish to remain free and hate their soldiers
Ukraine only held because they used mines early war.
War is a horrible thing but wanting to lose and your own soldiers to die to avoid a nasty side effect is wrong.
Also wrong the poor cleanup attempts of battlefield
And plus side cluster bombs are more reliable and in the future a new trigger mechanism that prevents detonation if they don’t go off immediately developing.
In the mean time a secondary trigger that goes off say 20 seconds after dropping would solve some of problem.
@@jean6872 and Russia hasn't been using them all this time?
@@philipbair4795 Correct. But if the Kiev regime uses them once, the Russians will shower them with tons of cluster bombs like a Biblical deluge.
@@jean6872think of the harm the Russians are doing to Ukraine and Ukrainians right now with all weapons.
Unfortunately, it’s sad and tragic to think that some of these parachute mines are being found the hard way
"Parachute "minds".
Lol.
@@Shinzon23 Oppos, thanks auto correct, lol
Now think about the situation in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
The newest- Ukrainian battlefield.
They still find bombs and mines from world War I all over Europe to this day and Germany has an agency dedicated to locating identifying and disposing of ww2 ordinance all over the country.
Once again Dr. Felton has opened another chapter that was largely forgotten, much thanks..... excellent work!!!!!!
Thanks again Dr. Felton!
I didn't know Mark was from Colchester. I worked with the 16th Air Assault Brigade at Colchester when they were in and out of Afghanistan. Mark should do a video about those guys. Wonderful working with them at home and abroad.
16 air assault , or 2 ear assault more like. Fly the things any lower and I wouldn't need to mow the lawn ;-)
He wouldn´t be doing this at all.
How interesting, the amount of potential damage these could cause is absolutely enormous, deadly.
Thanks Mark for another great video
One of your best Mark
Excellent video Mark. Your work is much appreciated!
Very interesting and sad, watching from Colchester. I've been next to that Parachute mine in the IWM London and it's an absolute monster. When you're left alone in the exhibition with just you staring at it; it is rather scary
I'm currently on holiday in Saumur, France. A few days after D-Day, 617 Squadron dropped 18 Tallboy "Earthquake" bombs on the railway tunnel here. Each one of them dwarfed those German parachute mines as they weighed around 10 tonnes and contained 2.4 tonnes of Torpex high explosive. They were designed to reach supersonic speeds as they fell from high altitude, burrowing deep underground on impact before exploding and causing a local earthquake to destroy hardened buildings. It had a bigger brother in the "Grand Slam" bomb which was of similar weight but contained 4.3 tonnes of explosive. If there are any unexploded examples of those lying around in France/Germany, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them...
@@TheRoybeasleyI understand in France gas shells are still being found in farms from WW1.
@@TheRoybeasleym afraid you got your facts mixed up. The Tallboy bomb was around 5 tons or 11,000 lbs. Tall boy's big brother, Grand Slam was the ten ton bomb weighing in at 22,000 lbs or ten tons. You can see an example of both of them at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight visitor centre at RAF Conningsby in Lincolnshire . That is well worth a visit and taking the guided tour. I did so around 6 weeks ago
That SC1000 aerial bomb blast in Exeter gave me the shivers!
It helps us understand what the people went through all those years ago.
Myself and my housemates used to walk past an old Rolls Royce factory in Coventry.
A few years, later when it was being demolished one of these bombs was found there - literally a few feet away from where we used to pass.
Scary as a really scary thing !
Incredible piece of history! Thank you Dr. Felton!
Thank you so much for sharing this!
Its terrifying how you could accidentally trip a mine from 8 decades ago
*9★* decades ago. You count from when the war ended.
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Wait till they hear about still live unexploded ordinance from WWI in France
People are still finding live ordinance from WW1.
@@viktormadman You don’t understand counting, so let me help. I listed 9 decades, including the 1940s, as the war ended in 1945.
And the modern era of the world in terms of calendar dates, started January 1, 1AD. You have to have 100 years for a century, so 1-101AD is the 1st Century AD, 101-200 is the 2nd Century AD, etc., until you reach the 21st Century AD, which is where we are now, which started in 2001 and will end December 31, 2100 @ 11:59:59PM, and at Midnight January 1, 2101 the 22nd Century AD will begin.
Hope that helps.
@@toddwebb7521 Most of that is bombs though, and not the more easy to accidentally detonate mines. Important distinction to make there.
Anyone interested in this part of WW2 history, I can recommend the Series: Danger UXB.
It shows how, because of constant evolving German engineering, Brit Army Engineers were always a step behind, and had a hell of a job, finding out how to disarm these bombs.
Great series
Good episode of it involving a parachute mine, too.
HMS Vernon occasionally had help from the Germans, according to 'Softly Tread The Brave', Ivan Southall's book about RMS crews! Several times, when a new variant of the naval 'land' mine was first deployed, it would land on a concrete surface and break apart, rather than exploding, and HMS Vernon would collect the bits to assess the beast.
And more than once, a new mine was dropped somewhere remote, on land, and the wire that would pull out the arming pin as the mine dropped from the bomber was found to be deliberately cut, not accidentally broken, so the mine never armed! This meant that both an armorer on the ground, and a crew in the bomber were complicit in giving the RMS crew a free look at how the new weapon worked. Apparently, not everyone in Germany was in favor of Adolf's war.
Kevin Whately, later of Auf Wierdersehen Pet and Morse fame, starred.
Fascinating...not only does Dr. Felton provide detailed commentary but unique photographs and video to compliment his research. The amount of work involved in producing every episode is just amazing.
Great Video! As a German & Historian I also got to add that British and American Bombs are found constantly here in Germany to this Day. (And that's just the Bombs, Mines etc. of course as well)
According to Statistics, 5000 US Bombs have to be defused and removed each Year in Germany, and that's just the American Bombs.
This also includes the heaviest Bombs that the US and Britain used in WW2. Basically Bombs that can level a whole Part of a City.
Basically you grow up here with this around you and even get used to it.
"British/American WW2 Bomb discovered during Construction of a House/Maintenance of the Autobahn/in a Forest etc. etc." is a very common Thing you hear about on a weekly Basis.
Luckily this being so common, we got great Experts who most of the Time succeed in either defusing & removing or blowing up the Bomb without anyone dying. But sometimes Germans still die to this Day from British and US Bombs.
Prost & Cheers from Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps
Sloppy reporting and past GDR hiding of Soviet issues has often reported bombs which were actually Soviet artillery and mortar rounds.
My Mother and her father were the only two to live on her street in Hull by one of those. Late in the war and none had a chance to make a shelter.
Those disposal explosions are just one bomb, you cannot imagine how it must have been when they were raining down in the blitz
I have read about the defusing of the first parachute mine. One of those involved was a British Army bomb disposal officer who had more that his share of luck and then some. When he was ordered to defuse his first bomb they were short of vehicles and equipment, and more importantly experience, and he had to walk to the bombsite and after assessing the situation return to the base to collect his men and whatever equipment he could then return to the bomb to defuse it. On the way back to the bomb it exploded. If he had been onsite he would have been killed. His luck held and he eventually reached the rank of colonel.
Another triumph, Dr Mark! Thank you.
There must be a lot of these around Hull ,as it was the second most bombed city outside of London
It never fails to astonish me how many different ways people have come up with to kill and maim each other.
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing.
Its amazing Mark continues to find more and more stuff about the war that many people haven't heard about.
Thank you for all the videos, love the channel.
Mark. Thanks for providing my Monday night entertainment!
Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating!!!
Well done, Mark!
Interesting. Similar parachute bombs were dropped by allied forces over German towns and cities. The house I live in here in Berlin was hit by one and didn't go off. It went through the roof and ended up stuck between the second and third floor. The old lady who lived above us when we moved in told us that it was stuck there for weeks before being removed and the gap left in the roof was just covered over with a bit of tarpaulin. I guess the Germans at the time had bigger problems than fixing holes in roofs.
Oh yeah you guys suffered the same terrors, funny how mark didn't mention that 😢
@@brandongardner9829not sure what point you’re trying to make here - Mark makes no judgmental comment regarding, for example, “evil Nazi bomber pilots” nor displays any political/moral bias in the storytelling. That being the case, why would he need to bring balance to the narrative by hugely expanding the subject matter to include Allied bombing of Germany? It’s a specialist film regarding a specific topic that, being from the area (East Anglia) that it focuses on, Mark will clearly have a particular interest in.
@@neilturner6749 just interesting that's all. 🤔
@@brandongardner9829 Mark is british, how can you expect that?
The Americans at least didn’t have bombs similar to this, they did have parachute “frag bombs” (parafrag as they were called) that were much much smaller with an attached parachute so you could go low and slow, and more importantly, be accurate while bombing, these parafrag bombs weigh 20 lbs, while this mine weighs 1500 lbs, though the British used magnetic and acoustic versions of these parachute mines in water to halt shipping in the early war, but quickly stopped
Brilliant video. Some people just don't get how dangerous these things were/still are!
Growing up in nearby Beverley I learned that Hull was heavily targeted with a number of parachute mines during and before May 1941, through doing research into the tragic topic of the city. Looking on a map the number of UXBs is incredible, but they were only the ones located. How many more lay beneath Hull and it's waters? 😕😣😖
Incredible scenes of that street in Clacton devastated by the parachute mine. Amazing only two civilians were killed.
I live in Sheffield and every time they build a new IKEA or McDonald's they find German ww2 bombs as the area the retail park is now on was all steelworks back in 1940/41
Back in the 1950s, my sainted mother used to have a small piece of parachute cord; it had a green hue and a polished lustre. Long since lost . . .
Fun Fact: Singer Al Bowlly, (known for "Midnight, the Stars and You" and "Heartaches") was killed by one when the bomb exploded near his flat on April 17th, 1941.
That's not fun, but nonetheless a fact.
Nice work Mark...
You continue to enlighten... Keep it up. 😁👍
At 4:26 it shows a mine that fell in Ellerby Grove, Hull. Not too far from me. You can still see the repair in the front concrete path where the mine impacted. The 2nd mine dropped with it, fell in Rolston Grove and totalled 2 large semi detached houses; killing the occupants and damaged houses all around causing some to be demolished. It was a huge crater. My Grandad lived a short distance away and when a mine fell in the field opposite on Hopewell Road, the kids would go rafting in the water filled crater. His future wife, my Grandma was made homeless by a another parachute mine that same night. When her family were rehomed on Hopewell Road she eventually met my Grandad.
The capture of one of these was portrayed in the UK TV show Danger UXB. It said there were many booby traps on the mines to harm people trying to diffuse them. Sinister stuff.
You dont even booby trap them, where i live in Germany its not uncommon to find bombs from WW2 when a new area is dug up for new living area, you can hear it already when they find that you hear over 20 emergency sirens (police etc.) Rushing towards it. Just thing youre a construction worker in a bulldozer or a construction vehicle (i dont know the english word where we say Bagger to in german, but where you dig up ground) and suddenly hit not detonated bombs, you can simply be gone with your whole crew within seconds if you touch with heavy equipment this old stuff. So all the old stuff is booby trapped just by age alone no one knows where its burried but you literally can be gone by seconds.
@@handgranate2008 Bagger, like, bagger 288? :O
I think in English that's an excavator :p
@@ek8710 yeah could be in english a excavator ( a de-construction heavy machinery, to move ground and break down houses, but yeah literally just think about that as such an worker thinking to move ground/dirt arround and within a second later you hit a 1k pound bomb which can delete within a friction of a second you and other workers out of life since you dont know it was there)
The booby trap was known an a "Zus-40". It sat behind the delay clock, out of sight and inaccessible, and hung onto the back of the clock with little claws so the clock couldn't be removed and its wires cut. If the RMS officer felt it when he tried to removed the clock, he had to either withdraw the clock with a 400 yard long piece of cord, or set up a clay flowerpot of thermite on the mine casing a LONG way away from where the detonator lived, and 'burn' the mine. Often the explosive charge would almost completely burn out before the remainder detonated, giving just a little explosion, but not always.....
I well remember that particular programme in the series. Bloody good.
80 years old, no maintenance and still working. You have to admire quality German engineering. 😅
Well, since its only goal is to explode it does it, usually when it malfunctions it explodes.
No, I don't. Europe is littered with unexploded munitions from two world wars courtesy of both sides. The only thing admirable is the courage and skill of the bomb techs that risk their lives cleaning up the mess.
Pity it isn't for the good....Then that's Germans for you.
On the other hand the allies dropped 2 million tons of bombs on Germany but the British manufactures were plagued with faulty trigger devices so many didn't explode on contact but their charge remains active to this day. In Cologne alone, for example, 25 bombs on average are discovered and deactivated every year, if you multiply that by the 60 cities that were reduced to rubble during the war, they don't even bother talking about it in the news anymore.
@@rosesprog1722 There is usually some ordnance or other found each day somewhere in Germany
Wow. Didn't know something like this was still problem. Thanks for sharing!
Super wonderful historical coverage video about the parachute mine ... Thank you, Sir Mark Felton
Thank you for all the quality content, Dr. Felton
o7
Love the vids Mark! Have a good one!
Those bombs looked scary exploding in wartime ! Even scarier when its exploded 78 years later in a peaceful suburb ! Great video ! thankyou !
Thanks for posting 😊
STILL LEARNING THANKS AGAIN Dr 😮.😊
Incredible footage of those explosions! Imagine how they felt back then in the major bombing raids, it must've been like 9-11 every day, for days on end. How these countries, both allies and axis could've gone through that for 6 years is unbelievable.
Styx. Yes I lived right through the Blitz and all the various subsequent attacks and it wasn't very funny.
@@vincekerrigan8300Incredible. Iam not sure if this current
generation of 20 year olds could handle anything even close to yours. They have panic attacks when thier Uber ride is 30 seconds late, or you address them as.. (GASP)! him or her instead of it or the! These things they call "micro aggressions". Lunacy.
@@Styx8314 Yes, one does wonder. I don't know about 20 year olds, but I was at junior school in the first Blitz - although evacuated part of that time - and secondary during the second or so-called 'Baby Blitz', which was from December 1943 to June 1944. After that we had the V1's and V2's - great fun. I remember walking to school in the mornings and seeing the damage from the night before - bit different from worrying about my gender or a few pronouns.
fantastic story. I thought that I had a good knowledge of the German naval magnetic mines, which were laid in shallow waters near estuaries and streams. I had no idea that a similar bomb was sent along by parachutes....causing such massive damage. A really important revelation. Well researched and presented.
Thanks, Dr. Felton.
Excellent video. I have always had huge admiration for the bravery of bomb disposal officers.
One was dropped on the airbase my grandfather was stationed at, and of course it drifted of away from the base, across the neighbouring village, and after it was found and secured Grandad was there and saw someone approaching it with steel tools and before anyone had a chance to say anything, grandad ran over and puched this chap in the face and bellowed at him it was a magnetic mine and dragged him away.
Every time I watch one of your videos I learn more and more just how devastating WWII really was! Thank you!
Mark keep doing what your doing. I thoroughly enjoy your videos.
Some of these were designed to be air burst, that is to explode above ground thereby causing more damage as the shockwave wouldn`t be absorbed by bulidings surrouding the bomb had it exploded on the ground. My old dad lived in Cephas street in Mile End, London and used to go in his parents Anderson shelter during an air raid. In the street itself there was a suface brick built shelter that people went to if they didn1t have their own shelters. One of these parachute mines exploded nearby and competely destroyed the that shelter, killing everyone in it. My old dad`s house, in Cephas street is still there but the opposite side of the road is all new flats built on the bomb site after the war.
I read a fascinating book about German Parachute mines.
I cant remember the name, but it was about HMS Vernon and their efforts to understand and counter the threat.
Especially as some were dropped with devices designed to kill the brave experts who rendered these mines safe.
I wish I could remember the name!!
Possibly "Secret Naval Investigator" by Commander F. Ashe. The organisation set up to deal with them was called: Department of Mines & Torpedoes Investigation Section, DTMI for short. It was commanded by Captain Maitland-Dougall, with Ashe, RNVR and a barrister by profession, as his Number One.
@davidjones332 it wasn't that one, although that is very high on my "to purchase list".
The RNVR Barrister is very familiar so it must have been the same naval unit, DTMI.
It's going to bug me all evening now.
Either way, it's a fascinating topic and this was a great video detailing the fear and damage that these parachute mines could and still do cause.
@@richardwillson101 There is a very good one (though likely not the one you mention), from a guy in the RMS (rendering mines safe) unit, "17 Seconds", by Yvan Southall.
@@davidjones332 got it...
"Service Most Silent" by John Frayn Turner.
I highly recommend it.
Also, a MUST read for ANY ww2 technology buff is "Most Secret War" by R.V.Jones.
@viandengalacticspaceyards5135 thank you, will have to add that to my list!
As always Mark your videos and research are impressive and knowledgable. Keep up the good work, and thank you.
My ❤ always gets pumping a few bits faster anytime I here the intro song.
The Bradford born writer J.B.Priestley had a house 3 The Grove, Highgate, during WWII (Samuel Taylor Coleridge had lived there before him). It was damaged by bombing, and he specifically wrote about it being a mine, although I am sure I remember the description as being a: 'land mine'. I never found a reference to such a thing in the few books I could find about German bombs. This video is a missing piece of a the jigsaw of that story. Thank you.
glyn. Wd used to refer to them as land mines at the time, although we knew they were dropped by parachute.
@@vincekerrigan8300 Thank you. If I ever do another J.B.Priestley show in Highgate, which is unlikely, I will use the quote I used in the Wetherspoons' Gatehouse show about the landmine, and explain what it was as well.
One of these mines fell close to my mothers house in East Ham,, it flattened houses on 3 streets.
As it was slow to decent the all clear had sounded and my grand mother had left the shelter to make some tea when it went off. She survived because she was in the passage at that moment, even though the explosion was 2 streets away it still took the roof off and blew in the sash window frames on the back of the house.
My father who worked for the gas board at the time in Barking also told me, a parachute mine got caught on a gas holder and was hanging on the side of the holder. banging against it in the wind. The UXB teem had to wait for the gas presser to drop and lower the holder so the could get. at it Their was a long tense wait , hopping it didn't go off before the could reach it. Fortunately it was defused, but if it had explode it would have taken the holder and all the gas with it.
They were a terrible indesimenate weapon.
Never heard off parachute mines before. Another interesting WW2 piece of history. Well done 👍
As a boy in the 70s in the US, I was fascinated by the British TV series Danger UXB on the same subject.
It seems they always liked dropping these all over Essex ..
In the 1960s one of my favourite little fishing holes was actually a crater caused by one of these in Epping Forest
Essex was on the way to and from London from German bomber bases.
@@MarkFeltonProductions Yeah so often it was the escape route for them to drop the bombs if things got a bit too hot over London .
They used to head north before they went back east to try and return to France or Germany
@@MarkFeltonProductions Thats right, l used to live near foulness island, in the fifties and the sixties there was still plenty of evidence of what went on twenty years before..Pill boxes, Bunkers, rusting Beach defences, Gun emplacements and holes across fields....not to mention the Boom and the Gun towers in the Thames Estuary...
@@MarkFeltonProductions
If @MarkFeltonProductions would like more information @ the Magnetometer as mentioned in my comment earlier........ please let me know 😀 TTFN
Nick
Thank you Dr Mark for another great video.
Appreciate your work💙
Thanks once again Mark!! Fascinating!!
Thanks Mark very informative!
THAT scene from 'Danger UXB'...RUN! If you know, you know! 😮
The one in Yarmouth this year a friend sent me a video of it, he was in his car going home and caught in traffic, quite something
A parachute mine exploded in Sutton on Hull during WW2. My dad saw it come down. Great video.
Thanks for sharing.
My mother’s home and the rest of the street was leveled by one of these . Coventry will never forget .
Take it up with the war monger Churchill...
When I was younger, a Second World War bomb was found at a construction site in Shirley, Southampton, maybe in the 90's or early 00's? My friends had to excavate their house and they detonated it.
My mother's first husband is possibly one of a few people who saw these dropped at close quarters and lived to tell the tale. An army sergeant on leave, he left my grandmother's house to fetch a stirrup pump from the garage opposite. They had none but directed him to a large house further down the road where the Cheshire Regiment had billeted some soldiers. As he ran along the road he heard a swishing sound and looked up to see the mine heading for the big house. He threw himself flat. He felt the road seem to lift up six foot. A comb in his battledress pocket was reduced to dust. The big house took the blast being totally destroyed and thirteen Cheshires died and two Royal Artillery men who had been lodged there under escort by the military police earlier that day.
Our Mum spoke of these and the Buzzbombs. She was a teenager during the Blitz. Brilliant work, as always sir. Greetings from Ontario, Canada