Unexploded Civil War shell found at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park

[oldbrownhat]

A live Civil War explosive was found in Georgia. Does it need to be destroyed?

...The live round was discovered by archaeologists at Kennesaw Mountain, the scene of a major Civil War battle in 1864. Located near Marietta, Ga., this hallowed ground is where Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army charged into Confederate forces headed by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston during Sherman's famous March to the Sea...

...According to the Marietta Daily Journal, the shell was probably fired by a Union battery commanded by Capt. Francis DeGress of the 1st Illinois Light Artillery. The unit included four Parrott cannons, a rifled artillery weapon invented by Capt. Robert Parker Parrott of the U.S. Army in 1860.

Unlike round cannonballs, Parrott projectiles are shaped more like modern artillery shells, with a long body and conical front piece. The shells featured explosive charges with paper fuses that burned at specific rates for different ranges. Because of the rifled barrels, Parrott cannons could fire shells farther and with greater accuracy that smoothbore cannons...​

 

[stansdds]

They are still out there. Not as many as in decades of the past, but they are still out there. Years ago, around here in central Virginia, it was not too uncommon for a garage or tool shed to explode. The culprit? Someone found an unexploded Civil War cannon ball or shell and was trying to de-activate it.

 

[AJ]

They are still out there. Not as many as in decades of the past, but they are still out there. Years ago, around here in central Virginia, it was not too uncommon for a garage or tool shed to explode. The culprit? Someone found an unexploded Civil War cannon ball or shell and was trying to de-activate it.

Saw it happen in NC. A guy and his friend found an unexploded cannonball and decided to open it. Used a drill and found out the black powder still worked after 100 years. Stupid is as stupid does........... There are reasons that EOD will blow ordnance in place if they can.

 

[bigwheelzip]

These stories of unexploded ordnance make me think of the 80 tons of explosives packed into the six enormous lost mines that were abandoned at the 1917 Battle of Messines.

Myths of Messines: The 'Lost Mines' | Simon Jones Historian

Sent from my motorola one 5G using Tapatalk

 

[cmansguns]

relics still abound in this area

Yea....the professional authorities need to handle that Georgia live round. Since it was found by professionals, and on Federal battleground it most likely will be handled correctly.

I live right smack in the middle of a Civil War battle site. This site known in books as the "battle of Totopotomy Creek" was actually described as a "skirmish" in some books. I've lived here some 33 years now, and we still uncover relics now and then. Mostly lead bullets, occasionally a piece of "war wood" when dropping very old dead trees.

The original homestead of Patrick Henry (Sheldon House, and a Union artillery observation site) is a Federal Park about 1/4 mile from my house, and the Totopotomy Creek Battle marker is walking distance.

The shadow box framed bullets were found (dug) on our property years ago and framed by my daughter. About 100 yards in front of our house was the Union line of Gen. Barlow, and 50 yards behind my property was the opposing line of Confederate Gen Kershaw. There used to be another marker denoting that "on this site on May29, 1864 approximately 7,000 rounds of ammunition changed sides in 20 minutes".

The photo with my truck front end showing was taken at the marker and shows how close the two sides were. Of course the paved road wasn't there, but the wagon path was. Gen Lee had his artillery caissons moved towards Richmond down this road barely 1 day before the Union took over that side.

Not only has live ordnance been discovered, but in 1988 a skeleton of a Union soldier was found by kids playing in some very old growth woods. The skeleton was treated with full respect and given a military burial in the Cold Harbor Federal Cemetery. If I recall the skeleton was identified as Union because of rusted uniform buttons found with the remains.

Sorry for the thread drift, but history is amazing especially when you can touch it.

 

[Greyman50]

Having grown up in Va and lived there many years knew of many, many finds of live CW shot. There was a guy outside Fredericksburg that had a set up for such. Maybe couple 100 feet behind his place had one of those el cheapo drill presses using a old hand drill clamped in the device. Was screwed to an old stump with a cheap vice attached. Had a long rope wound around a trailer rim attached to the operation lever. Had an equally long electric cord for power. Also long garden hose. Clamped shot in vice chucked up a 5/16"-3/8" bit in drill motor, turned on hose, got around side of building and pulled rope till drilled through shot.
Value of most such shot outweighs simply called EOD whoever and blowing such up. All a matter of intelligence.

 

[oldbrownhat]

These stories of unexploded ordnance make me think of the 80 tons of explosives packed into the six enormous lost mines that were abandoned at the 1917 Battle of Messines....

Thanks for posting that. I had read about it some time ago but forgotten about it.

"...The farm close to Peckham mine was rebuilt 100 yards to the northeast, exactly over the location of the 'lost' 20,000 pound mine...."

The entry on the insurance application under "Preexisting conditions" must have raised a few eyebrows for the would-be insurers.

 

[Onomea]

I have a bent Civil War spur that my mother found gardening in northern Virginia in the early 1960s.

BWZ's link on the lost mines of WWI creeps me out. I can't imagine a more horrific job than being one of the guys assigned to place those mines and keep them in good order. So far underground in tunnels that might collapse at any moment...

 

[oldbrownhat]

I...BWZ's link on the lost mines of WWI creeps me out. I can't imagine a more horrific job than being one of the guys assigned to place those mines and keep them in good order. So far underground in tunnels that might collapse at any moment...

Here's a Guardian article on the 1955 detonation of one of the "lost" mines.

Weatherwatch: lightning unleashes lost mine in Belgium

Storm in 1955 triggers huge bomb left in Flanders by British troops during first world war

"On 17 July 1955, a thunderstorm swept across Flanders in Belgium. Lightning struck a pylon carrying a power line and unleashed a colossal explosion underground, leaving a crater 20 metres deep and 40 metres wide...."​

Article also has a link to this video:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhmETg7cEZk[/ame]

 

[Greyman50]

In WWII there were quite a few WWI places troops from either side would not go near as mustard gas was there. Nor sure about today.
Back in 80's knew a guy outside Fredericksburg, Va. that worked for the State Department. He got sent to France couple times a year, he would take a weeks vacation while " over there". He collected WWI Ord. and had a retired French EOD guy that disarmed his finds. He told us when he last there he got to the town where his EOD guy lived, went in the local bar( whatever they call them) and asked about his EOD guy. Said everyone in the place removed their hats and told him, " all they found was the soles of his shoes".

 

[AJ]

You could not pay me enough to disarm live ordnance. Use to help the Ordies fuse bombs when getting ready for a launch, but defusing some that failed to go off after being dropped from an aircraft of fired from a cannon or thrown in a hand grenade? Not only no, but heck no!

I did scare the heck out of a police armorer once. The 1stSgt and I were getting a tour of the local PD's armorey (returning our favor of showing them ours). The armorer showed me a Flashbang and I took the fuse out to see if it was like the ones in our practice grenades. The 1stSgt was curious too, but the PD Armorer just about peed his pants. Had never seen it done before and thought it was going to go off. We explained that the fuse was the same as our practice grenades and we replaced them after each use. He was OK after we calmed him down.

Can tell stories about sailors and practice grenades too!

 

[Chubbo]

Loaded Civil War ordnance

A friend in Southern Ohio, had a civil war musket hanging on the mantle of his, Man-Cave/ den, in the basement, of his mansion. It had been there for many years, when someone asked if it had been checked, for being loaded. When checked, it was found to be still loaded, but he left it, hanging in that condition, for many more years, until his death. His comment was; no one was allowed, or, need to be in his den, unaccompanied by him. We eventually lost contact, and never heard what happened to that potentially dangerous, loaded musket after his death.

Chubbo

 

[oldbrownhat]

You could not pay me enough to disarm live ordnance...

Anyone remember the British series, "DANGER UXB"?

"Danger UXB is a 1979 British ITV television series set during the Second World War. It was developed by John Hawkesworth and starred Anthony Andrews as Lieutenant Brian Ash, an officer in the Royal Engineers (RE).

The series chronicles the exploits of the fictional 97 Tunnelling Company, which has been made a bomb disposal unit, and specifically 347 Section of the company, to deal with the thousands of unexploded bombs ("UXBs") in London during the Blitz. As with all his fellow officers, Ash must for the most part learn the techniques and procedures of disarming and destroying the UXBs through experience, repeatedly confronted with more cunning and deadlier technological advances in aerial bomb fuzing. The series primarily features military storylines, though among them is a romantic thread featuring an inventor's married daughter, Susan Mount (Judy Geeson), with whom Ash falls in love, and other human interest vignettes.

The programme was partly based on Unexploded Bomb - The Story of Bomb Disposal, the memoirs of Major A. B. Hartley, MBE, RE;..."​

 

[Onomea]

In the early 2000s, when I was living in Tokyo, coming back from a walk, a few blocks away from my home, a block was evacuated and cordoned off because unexploded ordinance from WWII, apparently from a US bomber, had been discovered and was being defused.

Guess they were successful because I did not hear a subsequent BOOM.

 

[Rustyt1953]

From my mom's Liverpool neighborhood in 1939.

Liverpool police photo.

 

[SMSgt]

Anyone remember the British series, "DANGER UXB"?

"Danger UXB is a 1979 British ITV television series set during the Second World War. It was developed by John Hawkesworth and starred Anthony Andrews as Lieutenant Brian Ash, an officer in the Royal Engineers (RE).

The series chronicles the exploits of the fictional 97 Tunnelling Company, which has been made a bomb disposal unit, and specifically 347 Section of the company, to deal with the thousands of unexploded bombs ("UXBs") in London during the Blitz. As with all his fellow officers, Ash must for the most part learn the techniques and procedures of disarming and destroying the UXBs through experience, repeatedly confronted with more cunning and deadlier technological advances in aerial bomb fuzing. The series primarily features military storylines, though among them is a romantic thread featuring an inventor's married daughter, Susan Mount (Judy Geeson), with whom Ash falls in love, and other human interest vignettes.

The programme was partly based on Unexploded Bomb - The Story of Bomb Disposal, the memoirs of Major A. B. Hartley, MBE, RE;..."​

One of the best Brit series I've seen.

I live near the WWII UDT training site in Florida, and it's not uncommon for developers to dig up unexploded bombs or to find them in the shoreline. AF EOD is quick to remove them.

 

[Absalom]

…. a few blocks away from my home, a block was evacuated and cordoned off because unexploded ordinance from WWII, apparently from a US bomber, had been discovered and was being defused.
….

Where I lived in Germany, unexploded ordnance from WW II got and still gets dug up regularly.

Photo from the local paper. Here an Allied bomber apparently dropped a whole string of duds. A contractor found six close together during excavation work.

Removing the fuses appears pretty routine.

 

[oldbrownhat]

From my mom's Liverpool neighborhood in 1939.

Liverpool police photo.

Yikes! That would've put some nasty cracks in the tea set. No wonder my (adoptive) dad's family left Liverpool. (In 1922, though. Must've been prescient.)

 

[oldbrownhat]

...
Removing the fuses appears pretty routine.

From a safe distance of a computer screen ~3000km away!

The Guardian: 'They haven't lost their potency" .Allied bombs still threaten Hamburg

"...During the second world war, the British and US air forces dropped around 1.5m tonnes of high explosives on the Third Reich. Hamburg, within easy reach of East Anglian airfields and with a hugely important harbour, bore the brunt of the bombardment....

...Around 10% of bombs dropped by the Germans are thought to have failed,...

..."As a rule of thumb, though, if German ordnance hit the ground, it exploded," says period munitions expert Stephen Taylor, "while Allied bombs were notoriously unreliable, with a failure rate generally estimated at 15% or even 20%, especially if they hit soft soil and had pistols rather than fuses." That means that, after the war, there was anything up to 300,000 tonnes of unexploded aerial ordnance on the former territory of the Third Reich....

...If it seems hard to imagine that so many devices packed with explosives falling from a great height failed to explode, a visit to Hamburg's bomb disposal squad doesn't make it any easier: after Bodes has put away the demonstration detonators, Ronald Weiler, head of underwater bomb disposal, leads the way down to the sheds in which examples of recovered munitions are kept. "Just look at that sharp, conical nose," says Weiler, patting an eight-foot high RAF high-capacity Blockbuster as thick as a tree trunk: "Hard to believe it didn't explode, isn't it?" The Hamburg squad found it back in the early 1990s, four or five yards below the surface of the nearby wetlands...."​

 

[Absalom]

And this is what it looks like when defusing is not possible or the bomb appears too unstable: Controlled detonation of a US bomb at the Leipzig train station in 2014.

The large amount of white in the explosion comes from large disposable bladders of water used to dissipate the force of the detonation.