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Towpath Bomb


Tim Lewis

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Friend complained on Facebook last night about an unplanned closure of Kings Langley Lock, looks like there was a good reason:

 

https://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/news/hertfordshire-news/updates-police-close-road-kings-1522105

 

Must have boated through this bridge dozens of times without knowing how close I was to the bomb!

 

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It might not have been there for very long.

 

Coventry still yields up all sorts of ordinance from the 39-45 affair.

Often due to building contractors clearing old land for new houses etc.

Knowing that going down the proper channels would result in closure of the site, even lost days while numerous official parties crawl all over it, they have evolved an alternative process.

 

On more than one occasion the item has been placed in a Transit and then moved during the night to a field on the outskirts where upon it's placed obviously in the middle of a field.

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4 minutes ago, zenataomm said:

On more than one occasion the item has been placed in a Transit and then moved during the night to a field on the outskirts where upon it's placed obviously in the middle of a field.

did that mean a little extra in the pay packet and a new pair of undercrackers?

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2 hours ago, zenataomm said:

It might not have been there for very long.

 

Coventry still yields up all sorts of ordinance from the 39-45 affair.

Often due to building contractors clearing old land for new houses etc.

Knowing that going down the proper channels would result in closure of the site, even lost days while numerous official parties crawl all over it, they have evolved an alternative process.

 

On more than one occasion the item has been placed in a Transit and then moved during the night to a field on the outskirts where upon it's placed obviously in the middle of a field.

Let's hope the farmer spots it when he is next ploughing or even worse the kids who love to take a short cut across the same field.

 

George

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When me and a mate found a hand grenade in Filby Broad as school kids, 2 cops turned up in a police car and put the grenade in a padded box and then into the boot of the car and drove off with it.

6 hours ago, Tim Lewis said:

Friend complained on Facebook last night about an unplanned closure of Kings Langley Lock, looks like there was a good reason:

 

https://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/news/hertfordshire-news/updates-police-close-road-kings-1522105

 

Must have boated through this bridge dozens of times without knowing how close I was to the bomb!

 

Was it down to magnet fishing do you know?

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Many years ago at the big Ashtac dig they volunteers found a suspected bomb in the canal and one of them took it to a policeman who was leaning on a garden wall and gave him it. The dig was being filmed and the look on the coppers face was a picture.

A cartoon also appeared in a local paper of a small boy and his mum looking over the garden wall and saying “mum they’re taking out tip away”.

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5 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

When me and a mate found a hand grenade in Filby Broad as school kids, 2 cops turned up in a police car and put the grenade in a padded box and then into the boot of the car and drove off with it.

Was it down to magnet fishing do you know?

Looks like it was http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/16198833.Unexploded_World_War_Two_mortar_found_in_canal/?ref=fbshr

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Video here of the magnet fishing.  Skip to 4.30 for the relevant part.

 

https://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/news/hertfordshire-news/kings-langley-magnet-fisher-reveals-1526675

 

I can see why C&RT does not allow magnet fishing.  The guy's reaction on finding it was to pull it around, move it about, film and measure it and only then report it.  The policeman was trying to make him move away and he is saying that he thinks it is live because of "this bit" - pokes at the base of the shell!  I know it has not gone off in 70 years but it is now drying out for the first time...

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I took a hand grenade out of an elderly gents home when i went to assess his grandson many years ago. It was an the mantlepiece over the fire. I asked him if it was deactivated he said no. I walked to the street with it and phoned the police. Later they took a pistol away. He had brought them from the north african campaign. Pretty common the police said. 

 

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1 hour ago, BruceinSanity said:

Since when does CRT not allow magnet fishing?

It was posted on here a week or so back. The article was stating that it could find potentially dangerous items. Like a bomb. 

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Having been up and down the River Somme a few times I wonder how many bits of ordnance I have boated over, always careful when prodding around with the long shaft in some of these canals.  Incidentally if anyone ever gets the chance to visit the canal / River Somme then I can recommend it as a beautiful and peaceful river, the word Somme (I think) has the same origins as somus - sleepy, peaceful.

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4 hours ago, WotEver said:

It was posted on here a week or so back. The article was stating that it could find potentially dangerous items. Like a bomb. 

I obviously missed that. I'll have a go at the search facility ?

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3 hours ago, BruceinSanity said:

I obviously missed that. I'll have a go at the search facility ?

I think (so could therefore be completely wrong!) that the thread was called ‘magnet fishing’ or something similar. 

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

I think (so could therefore be completely wrong!) that the thread was called ‘magnet fishing’ or something similar. 

Yes, thanks, found it but got distracted by need to do blog for today. It's called Magnetic Fishing if anyone else is looking. Typical piece of Tony Stammers H&S overkill, frankly. On the same basis, no one should go metal detecting as jettisoned bombs can be found anywhere.

 

I'd love to see some data comparing numbers who do a bit of magnet fishing and numbers of incidents of unexploded ordnance being found. Apart from anything else, how many lengths of canal are there now that have never been either drained or subjected to a BCN type clean up?

 

I could just about see an argument for a bit of education about the risks.

 

Sorry, I'll stop frothing in a bit.

Edited by BruceinSanity
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Here's a video.  https://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/news/hertfordshire-news/kings-langley-magnet-fisher-reveals-1526675 

 

On an unrelated point, but in that general area, did you know the guns on HMS Belfast are aimed at the M1 services just south of Watford.  They are pretty ugly: i'd press the button myself ....

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1 hour ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

Here's a video.  https://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/news/hertfordshire-news/kings-langley-magnet-fisher-reveals-1526675 

 

On an unrelated point, but in that general area, did you know the guns on HMS Belfast are aimed at the M1 services just south of Watford.  They are pretty ugly: i'd press the button myself ....

 

No, to much risk of hitting the GU Leicester Branch and Watford Locks. ?

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I thought: Hang on, HMS Belfast wouldn't have the range for Watford Gap? And it turns out it doesn't, the guns are pointed at Scratchwood Services just south of the  other big Watford:

https://londonist.com/2015/02/why-do-the-guns-of-hms-belfast-point-at-a-motorway-service-station

If those guns still work I hope that they've taken anti-terrorist precautions such as not having ammo aboard! Please don't give any detailed answers, but I'd like to assume the Navy thinks about stuff like that.

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10 hours ago, Peter X said:

I thought: Hang on, HMS Belfast wouldn't have the range for Watford Gap? And it turns out it doesn't, the guns are pointed at Scratchwood Services just south of the  other big Watford:

That’s what he said.. 

12 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

did you know the guns on HMS Belfast are aimed at the M1 services just south of Watford. 

 

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13 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

 

On an unrelated point, but in that general area, did you know the guns on HMS Belfast are aimed at the M1 services just south of Watford.  They are pretty ugly: i'd press the button myself ....

I'd just like to point out that ex GUCCC Belfast 115, registered at Brentford on 9 December 1936, the day before HMS Belfast's keel was laid down, does not have any guns!

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Thank you for the reference to the Somme. There was an interesting exhibition at the London Canal Museum a couple of years ago on the role of the French and Belgian waterways in WW2 - for example most casualties were evacuated by boat as this was more comfortable than being jolted on a horse drawn ambulance. I have the accompanying book somewhere.

 

Another useless fact. When I went to the PLA open day last year they were showing off their new surveying vessel. It's sonar was so powerful that they had already round approx 800 pieces of old ordnance in the river bed. The policy was to leave them where they were, until they became exposed / someone picked them up in a fishing net etc. 

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