Destroying Bombs From World War I | The New York Times
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- France's Department of Mine Clearance is responsible for collecting and destroying unexploded shells still found by the thousands nearly 100 years after the Battle of Verdun.
Produced by: Erik Olsen
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Destroying Bombs From World War I | The New York Times
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I just realized that these men are the original WW1 soldier's great grandchildren STILL cleaning up after this horrible war. God bless and keep these men safe.
Christopher Andrews all war is horrible, which is why we must be morally, philosophically, and technically able to respond to those who threaten war, instantly, decisively, and effectively. It is counterintuitive, but history tells us it is true.
@@taggartlawfirm
Even the War on Poverty?
Ike Okereke aren’t you the smart one, bet you’re a hoot at parties. However No. the “war on poverty” isn’t a war at all just a nonsensical happy political buzz term used by blustering politicians to justify their existence to an increasingly gullible population.
@@taggartlawfirm
Just shut up now.
😆😆😆😆😆😆
"The last person to die from a a ww1 landmine probably hasn't been born yet"
And imagine how many have been just dumbed on land that’s a lot but imagine how many are in the oceans
Theyre not mines theyre shells from artillery.
@@p2728 He means from the aeroplane bombs released in ditch efforts in enemy fights or cause of other problems, and sunken ship cargo by submarines or by accidents. Like SS Richard Montgomery from WWII.🙄
@@p2728 ''@Cookie Human yes, imagine how hard they tried to bomb the sea back then...'' Yes and no, your main talking theme was the bombing of the sea with a sarcastic eye-roll in response to Cookie Human comment who pointed out that there are also bombs and explosives from WWI and WWII in the sea as there was no mention of mines lost in the sea unlike upon the land. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄😑
WW1 they didn't really have factory made landmines, they were made by soldiers.
I recall seeing a Canadian-made show about the number of WWI shells still found in Belgium. The remarkable thing was that the number is very consistent every year; it never seems to decline.
The strange thing about it is that the farmers, here in West-Flanders (Belgium) plow their fields every year at the same depth and every year there are shells popping up out of the ground. It seems that they come to the surface by them self. The farmers collect them on the side of the road where the army can pick them up for safe disposal.
It is water in the fields causing the shells to migrate from lower depths. As the cold of winter sets in and freezes the water it creates a force that overcomes gravity and pushes up stones and explosive shells.
This is why farmers have historically joked that a field produces stones reliably.
@@davidgrover5996 THX for the info.
You are welcome @@MrTWOproductions .
Someone made a comment that, "I would hate to be a farmer in Verdun.", It's not just Verdun, From Zeebruge on the Northern coast of Belgium all the way down to Pfetterhouse in the south of France near the Swiss border, and as far west as Amiens & Chantilly in the east, all of them have areas that are cordoned off that you can't go into due to massive amounts of unexploded German, French, British, and American ordinance from WWI alone. There's also unexploded munitions from WWII in some of those areas from WWII as well.
There are at least several deaths a year of farmers, who might accidentally detonate them while trying to innocently work their fields, military souvenir hunter's & the brave folks who travel all over those regions who are charged with the insanely dangerous job of gathering up all of the land mines, grenades, mortars, and both regular & Chlorine or Mustard Gas artillery shells that either didn't detonate, or were stockpiled & then forgotten about as trenches & ammunition dumps were overrun by either the Germans or the Allies in both World Wars.
I visited a number of the areas when I was stationed in Germany, and we were warned in no uncertain terms NOT to attempt to even pick up any kind of ordinance that we might see, but to report the area immediately ! The fuses on a lot of the shells were sketchy even back then, especially towards the end of the war, artillery shells had been known to detonate while being handled even then, and now, 105 years later, a shell that might not have exploded because of an extreme lack of quality control could blow up in your face just because you nudged it with your toe. While I was there, one of the bomb disposal personnel had a shell go off in while he was bringing it into the building they had as a collection point, all that was left of him was his shoes & his feet, the rest of him was vaporized.
There are also tunnels that were mined by both sides in some areas, ( the British dug one that was a total of 19 mine shafts under the Messines ridge that were packed full of Amitol, the explosion was so large that it was felt & heard in London, a few hundred miles away), and they can't be sure even now that all of the explosives detonated, the same went for the Germans.
During WWII, the possibility of the Germans using gas shells was a distinct possibility, but as the Allies pushed east after D-Day they were covering ground that was still full of live gas shells & other ordinance for 30 years previously. And there were at least several cases we were told of where both Allies & Axis troops were accidentally gassed or blown apart by WWI shells & anti-personnel mines that had lain dormant all of those years, which led to accusations from both sides that the other side were using gas shells, plus huge explosions from shells that the Germans used that were 17-21" in diameter & weighed a little more than a ton, those caused the massive craters that are still visible all around Belgium & France.
So, should you ever go to visit any of the WWI battlefields, for your own sake, stay in the areas that are declared to be safe, but use caution none the less, because it's still not known just where an unexploded piece of two different wars might show up. Stay away especially in the winter time, as the cold causes the ground to contract & can cause the ordinance to detonate on it's own.
I read a book several years ago about the men who collect and dispose of these shells. They have even found shells from the Franco-Prussian war.
Sierra Thunder,
Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge here. I found your post interesting & informative. Folks like yourself are the reason I always peruse the comments section. Thank you again! Best wishes to you & yours.
SierraThunder
War. War never changes....😔
SierraThunder
May that one man who....vaporized RIP.😖
Dont forget Eastern of the Netherlands
I grew up in Western Belgium and I can attest that this is still very common. Often, the army engineers were seen doing the rounds and periodically they were exploding shells dug up by farmers. That was always a good show, at a safe distance. If the shell was big enough, they had a crew coming over immediately. All the farmers knew who to call when a big bomb surfaced. They had a 24/7 standby for that. But if the shells were smaller, the farmers left them at locations, waiting to be picked up. Often you saw a small pile of those just at a crossroads... To the untrained eye, they looked like a bunch of rusty pipes. Just another day in West-Flanders...
To this day, they still dig up bombs. It's becoming less than say, 50 years ago. But a considerable amount of ordinances are still coming up, especially during ploughing season.
Personally, I cannot begin to imagine the horror it must have been at the front. And I am grateful to be spared such an ordeal.
Dovo calculated, based on a gas pipe trench dug across flanders.. that they expect to still dig up 150 tons a year.. for another 400 years.
its based on the amount found in the trench, and the depth, and how the soil churnx xx centimeter a year.
In 1963 we lived in Chateroux and I was 8 years old. I found a bomb that had been dropped from a plane and brought it home on the handlebars of my bike, it didn't go over well and the AF police weren't long on getting there
Wow cool story mister
Thats hilarious and scary at the same time
When my parents were living in Germany around 1955, some children in France were killed when they were playing in a ditch and set off a mustard gas shell.
I was helping a mate dig up his back garden in the UK, I was getting a drink and he came running up and out of the house, I went down the garden and looked in the hole, there was a box of what I think we're anti aircraft shells, massive things. Probably 3 inch Anti-aircraft shells, I moved like poop off a stick. They were taken away and disposed of.
Interesting. Any idea why they were there? I’ve heard of some resistance groups elsewhere in Europe saving the weapons and ammo from the war for the future but I’m not sure why you’d bury some anti-aircraft shells in Britain
My grandfather’s first cousin died near Verdun on October 18, 1918. I always felt it was sad that he died so close to the end of the Great War. His remains were finally return in 1922 and in rests in Oakridge Cemetery not too far from Lincoln’s tomb. It was a sad affair and made worse because after they notified my Great Aunt and Uncle of his death, they received several letters from Lafore. His parents held out hope that the War Department was wrong and argued with them for several months before Aunt Greta and Uncle Nelson accepted the truth.
2% were chemical but "It wasn't very many" as he said. That is still 1.2 million shells. Absolutely insane amount of ordnance.
There is in zeebrugge a 32000 ton gas shell stash, dating back from the first cleanup.
@@2adamast Wow, it's insane they have to just store them.
Is there no way to dismantle these (mustard) gas bombs safely?
@@I_DONT_SUPPORT_TERRORISTS They are at sea along the coast, the seawater is expected to guarantee self dismanteling. Land finds are destroyed in a specific installation
@@2adamast Oh, that explains :)
I thought you meant on land, alongside the shore.
I've actually seen an article about the ones in sea a few years ago.
The United States had their own chemicals, and General Pershing was planning on using them, big time. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. The Germans surrendered.
It is even worse in Cambodia and Laos from the U.S.'s Vietnam War. People lose limbs there everyday.
C R 50 annually with 1 death a week. Still doesn’t add up.
@@VisualVariant theres 50 weeks in a year
Aristotle revenge
@C R
in France there is still no man's land
places where walking is prohibited because bombshell
And some watercourse are still toxic
@@caylindelacruz2641 52
In 1955 a 'forgotten' British underground mine exploded in Belgium due to a lightning strike leaving a crater 40 meters wide and 20 deep. You can Google some pictures. It's unreal.
This is the Messines Ridge, one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever produced when most of the mines went off. There's still a big one they know about, fully armed, under a farm.....waiting
I'm from Belgium and live around Ypres. As a kid we would go on the old uncleaned fields and collect bomb tops, bomb shells and regulararly we would find complete bombs and we would put them on the side of the road for the Belgian bombing squad to come pick them up
I don't know about you, but I'd be very nervous stuck behind that truck in a traffic jam.
Know what you mean, once got stuck behind a honey dippers truck on a hot day.
I would hate to be a farmer in Verdun...
*Sees metal cone*
I’d hate to dig a pool or basement, or even be the poor guy that fixes the water mains! Anything underground related in Verdun scares me!
@@pauly260 i do not live in Verdun but in my village (Verzy) with my father we always find pieces of Shell and sometimes the head of those shell
You can’t farm in the Verdun battlefield because of the very reason.
@@James-2248 These shells are coming from a field plowed by a local farmer. You see the field in the video. After the plowing the farmer checks his field and collect the fond shells on the side of the road where they can pick them up for save disposal. Every year, after plowing season you can see these piles of shells.
The strange thing about it is that the farmers plow their fields every year at the same depth and every year there are shells popping up out of the ground. It seems that they come to the surface by them self.
Unbelievable. All this time I've been wearing state of the art bomb disposal gloves and never knew.
In 2008 a man was killed while working with a grinder on civil war era cannon ball. The explosive was just black powder.
Never bring a grinder into a cannonball fight .
Bernardo H Darwin Award and ignorance of basic physics.
Once black powder dries out after getting wet it is just as dangerous as when it was originally made. Time does not render it less potent.
@@marcosmota1094 Chemistry
@@tazman572 Your right mate. Same applies to cordite
Black powder is inert after a long period of time as it has quite a lot of organic material (the charcoal) which decomposes over time and potassium nitrate also decomposes over a long time period. I can't imagine any ordnance from the American civil war being any sort of hazard although I would still use proper procedures to recover or dispose of it.
We grew up in the Hyon area of Belgium. My mother, being an avid gardener, would enlist we her children as her soil turners. The number of times we heard the tell-tale "clink" of a metal trowel hitting a piece of metal was too frequent to count. We unearthed numerous shells, clips of rifle ammunition and the metal parts of long-rotted away mauser rifles. We had no idea at the time the Canadian and German lines both crossed where the house was at different points in the war.
wow that was some explosion, the horror of being caught up in that....
Yes and thousands were raining on them in one day for 300 days straight. If I remember right, over 6 million shells were fired in the battle of Verdun alone. That is impossible to imagine. No wonder that so many survivors surrered shell shock afterwards.
60 million shells at Verdun alone. Yep shocking.
Knock knock you're about to get shell shocked
Mikko 60 million of noone else said
GMD Nebula www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.history.com/.amp/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-battle-of-verdun&ved=2ahUKEwjk37SBla3mAhX07nMBHcPvCt4QFjAPegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw38E2ksYfVTIKbBDEYjQPTU&cf=1
I was riding a bike around the Ypres, Belgium World War One battlefield in the summer of 1997 when I had a surprising encounter. I stopped by the side of the road to drink some water. I looked down and there right beside me were three artillery shells, all rusted and broken like you see here. The three shells were lying in a little concrete niche built by the side of the road. I guessed it was there for farmers to place any shells they found. I believe I had just come along before the explosive experts came to get rid of them. I tell you my heart rate went up and I was paralyzed for a few moment with fear when I saw those shells. Then I got on my bike and rode away as fast as I could. They say most are inert after all this time but some...some aren't. Take no chances if you ever find one. Leave it be and call the experts.
Sometimes the shells stay on the side of the roads for days before the experts come to pick them up. In plowing season they are very busy guys.
It is amazing that he just puts them in the back of his pick up like that. He even stacks them up to carry them back to the truck in 1 trip...sheesh
I noticed that also. Explosives tend to become more unstable as they age. If they're clearing them because they are still killing people, then it's odd they'd just throw them in a rack in a Land Rover and drive down a bumpy dirt road.
Will W He's already confirmed that they lack the fuse to blow up, like he says in the video. These shells can not explode unless ignited in some way, I would assume they are more careful when the find a shell with the fuse still attached.
they could still contain gas though
I imagine he doesn't get many tickets for speeding..
..what do you have in the back of the truck sir? A full load of unexploded decaying high explosive!?! move along sir ..
It is TNT and it cant explode without a fuse. Old dynamite can. TNT does not even explode when set on fire. It burnes slowly. Until you create pressure. For example never throw it in the shell into the fire. I am not sure maybe petard can create enough pressure also, even if TNT is not enclosed in shell.
When my parents were living in Germany around 1955, some children in France were killed when they were playing in a ditch and set off a mustard gas shell.
Absolutely horrible. That would be my absolute fear, is finding one of those boogers.
I'd like to know...when they detonated the shells at the end, did they use modern explosives as an accelerate, or was this explosion wholly from 100 year-old shells?
It's obviously detonated using modern explosives, the old shells are pretty unreliable
I would assume most of the explosion is from the ordinance itself. If I were blowing it up, I wouldn't make the explosion any bigger than it has to be by adding more.
@@Longashe plastic explosive makes it alot more reliable and safe to dispose of them
I'd imagine they wrap the things in detcord or place shaped charges against the shells
They most probably used a plastic explosive like C-4 or DM-12.
It may also be because of his job, a bit noble, a bit heroic, but there was something very gentle about this French gentle man.
Wars have such longstanding affects, horrible and tragic. Please, let us never do this again.
johnnymitz As long as we are here on Earth,there will always be war,not matter how much we’ve evolved
@@HDLDesigns Indeed.
@@HDLDesigns We evolved beyond the need to fling crap and pick fleas off each other. Similarly, we will also evolve beyond primitive concepts such as war... Either that or destroy ourselves in the next 100 years. My money's on the latter.
This comment didn't age well :(
The soil of Ukraine is being littered with bombs, mines, etc.
From Buffalo, New York USA. I gave it a thumbs up NOT because of anything morbid, but because of how interesting this video is. Be CAREFULL guys.
Absolutely amazing it just looks like a peaceful empty field but so much carnage took place there really makes me feel something, Those bombs looks so out of place
In 1976 I was hunting at Fort Mead in Maryland. Hunters were required to attend a safety course that described what to do if you found a shell. Part of the hunting area was on the old WWII artillery practice field. We were told that most of the shells we might find were solid practice rounds with no explosives inside. But, some of the earliest shells were live rounds with explosives. I found one of those live rounds. I marked it with a fluorescent vest that we were required to wear and reported it to EOD. I rode with them to pick it up and when the Sargent got back in the van cradling the shell like a baby I asked "Shouldn't we be wearing flak vests or something?" He said "If this thing goes off nothing you're wearing will do you any good!" I watched them lower it into an underground concrete silo with C-4 attached and they detonated it. Even from a distance and inside a bunker I could still feel the violent shaking of the ground as it went off. Even if it never hit you the concussion from a 4 inch shell like that would wreck your insides.
I live on an old WW2 practice bombing range. Fifty and thirty caliber rounds are very common. The bombs that were dropped held no explosives but when they hit the ground they accordioned up. Most of those have been picked up for souvenirs.
I lived on the island of Iwo Jima for three months back in the 70's and we would find unexploded ordinance all the time. We were required to log its location so the US army could clear it. That happened twice a year. They would collect it and put it in a pile, wrap detonation cord around it then blow it up.
Ordnance
@@thomassaehler9038 Thanks. If spell check doesn't catch it I don't worry about it because this is YT and it's a small thing.
You would think that the chemical compounds would breakdown in a hundred years. But there you go.
Merci, très instructif !
Expert said we have in France soil for 800 years of unexploded shell juste for ww1
Just a curious question: Are the people killed by these explosives considered victims of the First World War?
By some broader definition of WW1 victims, sure. But generally no, not really.
michladd24 legally, yes they are
History has a very long arm.The gunner has killed people years after his death.
It is a surreal and noted life - that one dies in a war that was fought and ended before they were born.
Humanity really needs to figure out how to eradicate war and put our energy towards enlightenment and positive growth. Imagine the things we could accomplish.
Not going to happen.
@@detroitandclevelandfan5503 because nobody wants it to happen. People are too ignorant to see how we're all being played against one another by our leaders. Our pride and ignorance will be our downfall. Maybe that's why scientists can't seem to find any other intelligent life in the universe. They don't want to mess with us because we're violent, prideful, and selfish.
its not the civilian problem, its the politicians that start these and we have no say in it.
That would require the end of greed and religion, unfortunately neither one is going away anytime soon.
In WW1 the British dug several tunnels under the German positions, filled them with explosives and blew up the opposing positions. Some of these mines have not exploded and the explosives buried are still in the ground. Farms were partly built over it.
That soil isn't going to till itself, you know.
Actually, it just might.
Remember travelling through France a teenager, seeing areas fenced off because of unexploded ordinance. N' still in the UK we get the odd bomb now found. But back in 70-80's it was one every month almost re bombs.
It's pretty common in germany too. I live near cologne and there is on average one major evacuation per week of certain areas in cologne. If you want do build a house here and want to dig you have to check beforehand on old maps if there were bomb runs around your area and if that's the case you have to check in with a special authority specialised in disposal of old air bombs.
They assume that they roughly found just about 25% of live ammunition, the rest ist still in the ground.
I always find it very strange to think about how an event that happened such a long time ago has still such an impact on our daily life and yet we are pretty used to it and it's totally normal for us and it looses it's terror.
Those guys have some big Cajones (ka-hone-ees) and I spent 20 years on a swat team.... They have my respect....
What an interesting but very dangerous task, thankfully there are these people to do this job, stay safe out there Folks and take great care.
That's so insane!! So sad to!!
The same goes on here in Flanders, Belgium, year after year.
Here in Virginia, USA, we still find Civil War artillery shells that can explode. Happens to relic hunters a lot.
Happens here in Europe also. A couple month ago a collecter died because he was opening a shell with an anglegrinder. It was probably not the first time he did that but is was surely the last time.
Based off the thumbnail I thought he was going to say "I'm one with the force and the force is with me"
10 million people dead and we are still wondering why.
It's fascinating years on these bo... "explosion audio loud bang" lol
It’s amazing how he can tell apart the shell of which countries used when there so broke and rusted
The German shells will look as good as new when you scrape off the rust and will be functional, the French shells will have rusted beyond recognition and have become unreliable, the British shells will look good but won't function anymore, the Belgian shells will look rotten but will still be functional.
It's reckoned around 30% of shells didn't explode. Mainly because the skilled factory workers were called
up to go and fight.
Nothing to do with that. It was the technology of the time, and in the German case, cheaper more unreliable detonators used.
@@chubeye1187 Actually both were contributors. Quality control worsened as the war went on with thousands of unskilled laborers in factories and the quality of materials used also decreased due to mass production, cost effectiveness and in the German case the effects of the blockade.
From the end of WW1 till 1971 all chemical bombs found in Belgium (estimated 35.000 tons from which 30% chemical) were dumped at the seashore, at a place called "paardenmarkt". From 1980 on they were dumped in the Gulf of Biscay. As from 1998 an automatic munition dismantling installation in Poelkapelle does this work.
And now they discovered that they starting to leak. It would cost miljons to bring them back on land and dimantle them the propper way. No one is alowed to fish in that area.
I thought paardenmarkt is mostly chemical bombs,
@@2adamast Isn't that what I wrote?
@@tuttebelleke "all 35,000 tons of the dumped munitions are chemical munitions" (2013)
@@2adamast Depending in which Wikipedia language you search, you will find different figures on this. They all state a total of 35.000 tons of ammunition. The English and the Swedish make it 10.000 tons chemical, the French make it 12.000, and the Flemish confirm your statement. Other sources give different values.
Myself was involved in making quotes for the automatic disarming and treatment installations for these type of ammunitions.(active in Poelkapelle as from 2017). In the specifications for these installations, it was very clearly stated that most often one can not distinct chemical from classic ammunition by external observation. So, I can imagine that by that reason, one has dumped a mix of ammunitions in these days.
These ammunition go now through an X-ray to distinct powder from liquid content. The liquid ones get a hole drilled and poured out. The one with powder content are cut in half and emptied after.
These guys did a BANG up job!
Still as effective as the day there were fired 100 years ago
Prayers for the good people of France, having to still endure the horrors of a stupid war that ended over a century ago.
there is something interesting what deterioration has done to these weapons of death and state of time they exists today. they seem as harmless has a old man in a rocking chair although at the same state they where killers in there youth.
hopefully we will no longer kill each other when economics turn sower but rid ourselves from the burred of despair that drive humans wild. and rebuild ourselves with good judgment learning and law lets reinvent us not kill us.
Living in a country that hasn't had a war since the 19th century (and no bombs dropped om the country) this is sooo crazy? People finding bombs in their backyard basically. Scary and fascinating at once
hope we never have a nuke war.loas and vietnam will be doing this for centurys also
Apparently the Russians left a large amounts of unexploded ordnance during their occupation of Afghanistan in the 80's. Argentinan forces left swathes of the Falklands un inhabital and closed off because of mines .
Another thing you need to understand is that only a little more than half of the shells that were FIRED, actually detonated, there were still huge stockpiles of ordnance that had never even been used, it was just buried in vacated trenches, in underground bunkers, in dungeons & catacombs of churches & castles, etc. And then there are the unexploded mines that months were spent digging on both sides to plant under both sides of the lines, if they didn't go off for whatever reason then the entrances to these massive mines were collapsed & covered over, and in some cases, the maps showing the locations of these mines were destroyed to keep each opposing army from making use of them.
It's always spoken of the 19 mines that were detonated in the Messines Ridge operation, but while I was in Belgium & France I was told by men who had helped tunnel out these mines that there were actually 21 mines, but the other two wound up not being detonated because by that time the British & French forces had already taken those areas. So the wires were just coiled up & shoved down into the mone portals & buried over, and over 106 years later, these two massive mines are still there, filled with tons of Amitol, just waiting for circumstances & conditions to be right for them to detonate. There have been times when lightning has struck these old battlefields & detonated ordnance that may have been lying there since 1914.
As for those who dispose of discovered ordnance, that some think are acting a bit too cavalier in handling these unstable shells, grenades, cannisters, etc. They've gotten to know through long use, just which ones can be literally tossed around & handled roughly, and which ones have to be handled with more care than a carton of eggs. But they also know that if it's going to happen, that there's absolutely nothing that they could do to escape their fate. I met a few people there who were actually diagnosed with terminal illnesses, and rather than just sit out their remaining time, waiting to die, they chose to make what time they had left mean something positive by retreiving unexploded ordnance. What a way to make your ending mean that someone healthy won't be subjected to losing their lives trying to clean up a mess that the involved governments just shrugged their shoulders & walked away from ?
4:46 some sounds of World War 1 going off. Without the gun fire and sounds of pain and agony.
*me at **03:04**:* "Dude!! carefull with that... yeah he realised it.. gave it a little pat to say thank you for not exploding".
These men are courageous for risking there lives and doing this very dangerous job, no amount of money would be enough compensation for this job.
Have you seen how they treated those shells? Laying, almost throwing them on a metal rack in a normal truck.
Bully good job. Very unfortunate the world is as it is.
🙋🏻♂️ hello from Sweden 🇸🇪
hes got some big balls....
As he said they normally don't blow up if you don't mess with them.
They can blow up. Shells without fuzes are reasonably safe to handle, if you are trained in the handling of UXO, but a fuzed shell is as dangerous as the day it was fired. Even more so because it has been fired and it's a hundred years old.
Several people each year are killed by UXB in France and Belgium. This is well known.
I found this fascinating.
If that car gets into a traffic collision there will just be a hole in the ground...
I never thought id say this but I’ve taken trail making in the us for granted. I’ve never had to worry about bombshells.
Hope he's well paid!
geezus. Those are some very large explosions all things considered.
Dude it just terrifying. Image you come across a gas shell. Just horrible.
Still packs a punch
I remember they were still blowing up leftover sea mines from WWI in Dardanelles in mid 2000s.
I wish army didn’t exist and we all lived in peace
No army = No law
No law = Anarchy
Anarchy = Chaos and death
Chaos and death = No peace
Army = Peace
@@Sava.S where do You get to the conclusion that no army equals no law?
Cool job!!!
We’ve seen them left in a pile by the roadside ready for collection
“Alright, throw it in the back”
Some construction workers once found 4 WW2 bombs in my local area (Bangkok) where Imperial Japanese HQ used to be. The bombs were huge, maybe a few hundred kilograms. They were dropped by British and American planes from Burma at the time during their bombing raids.
The construction workers didn't contact the authority to dispose of the bombs and brought them to a local pawn shop instead; trying to score some quick cash.
The pawn shop owner, for some reasons, told the construction workers to "open the bombs" with a blow torch. They took the bombs to an open area and started cutting one up.
Loudest noise I've heard in my life... The bomb exploded killing the workers and the owner instantly. Every windows in the vicinity were shattered, ground turned into a big crater, blood and guts everywhere. 3 bombs were still in the pawnshop so that huge explosion was from only 1 of them.
I still wonder why on earth did the pawn shop owner wanted to cut up the bombs.
Seventy-eight unexploded bombs disliked this.
Gents d'esprit.
Bon chance!
4:37
I read before that 10 Billion shells were fired in ww1
The war that keeps on killing.
I work near Stafford Virginia and they are still unearthing US Civil War explosive shells that require either an EOD or transportation and render safe process at the Quantico explosives range. Are they still a danger? Well, do you want to find out? Do you want some kid or some construction worker to find out?
They could lance them with high pressure water jets right where they found them.
Why do they move them?
I'd be more terrified of the chemical shell going off in my face than the explosive shell
There is no degree of dead, either way you're just as dead with either one.
Keep in mind the eastern front was a thing too
Who cleaned up after the battles in the east?
You know you're in Europe when there's a Department of Mine Clearing.
Nothing says “We value You”,
like being sent out to find mines!
Just try to put yourself in the civilians shoes when they first came back their homes and farms destroyed the ground is so pot marked by bombs blowing holes in the ground and trenches everywhere you might nit even be able to tell where your property wad anymore then the realization that you are a farmer and must somehow make the ground right so you can farm again
Interesting observation. Generally, I guess it is always assumed that after the armistice everybody just went back going about their business.
But it must have taken years before the whole of Flanders was able to produce a harvest anywhere close to what it was before the war.
Maybe Indy Nidell can do an episode looking at that particular aspect of the post-war era.
Wars keep killing non stop
what? some dude smacked the detonator on a shell with a chunk of metal and it blew up?
darwin award plx?
When I was in the army some regular force cadets(15 - 16 year old kids) were mucking around out on a mortar range and found a couple of blinds. One guy picked up two and struck them nose to nose.
Two dead and 4 injured.
This is just France..
Imagine Vietnam
Would be a fun job to search for bombs
Now make a documentary about allied bombs in Germany.
The problem of undetonated ww1 ordinance wouldn't be a big deal in Germany, since the conflict lasted for only around 100 days (hundred days offensive) on german soil, before the german surrender.
The ordinance seen here is the result of near constant bombing of 4 years along a line that stretched from the north sea coast of Belgium down to the swiss border, cutting across the belgian and french countryside.
@@joeykickassery Yeah, i did mean World War 2 aerial bombs.
I bet nobody tailgates that truck.
War poisons everything
Even time
The amount of duds they find is wild. The technology was still so crude.
*drops it*
France:😑😐😯😵
In America, the "bomb squad" would use a blast resistant trailer/truck to transport to the range. Seems like that would be safer...
Most of them are in good condition
That Belongs in a Museum!
WWI was the last gasp of our worst inner chimp.
You forgot all the wars after WW 1.
Even more frightening, there will (at the last estimates) be work for the current clearer's children and their children after them.
Some parts of America, they just put an explosive charge on the bomb and detonate it
These would make awesome door stops.
How about putting a scrap of carpet down on the metal rack in the truck...I’d live longer watching the video.