German blast revisits bombings nightmare …
- January 5th, 2014
- Posted by EU Australia
The Second World War came back to Germany, near the former federal capital of Bonn on Friday, when an unexploded bomb went off at a worksite. The driver of a digging machine was killed, thirteen people were injured, two critically, and buildings were extensively damaged for nearly half a kilometer all round.
Authorities in the town of Euskirchen, 27 kilometres West of Bonn, immediately indicated the most likely source would be a bomb left over from extensive allied air raids over heavily populated industrial areas in the region; (see pictures; Euskirchen after air raid; attack on Frankfurt).
Systematic and large-scale bombing of cities and towns was commenced by Germany in 1940, over Britain. American and British air forces conducted still larger operations against Germany in the later years of the War; with massive destruction and loss of life; and the continuing legacy of unexploded munitions, still very common, though usually without further casualties.
Explosives remain in the ground in the battlefields, even from the First World War, 1914-18, especially in Flanders where farmers still have occasion to call in full-time squads who remove old artillery shells from the fields.
One concern approaching mythical proportions is the story of stupendous stockpiles of munitions dumped at sea off the Belgian coast after 1918; presumed to have deteriorated to a harmless state, but recalled as a potential nightmare of destruction for adjacent towns, concentrated around Ostend, for some decades.
Reference
Eliana Dockterman, World War II Bomb in Germany Kills 1, Injures 13 | , Time World, NY, 3.1.14. http://world.time.com/2014/01/03/68-years-later-world-war-ii-claims-another-life/#ixzz2pTNEGZN, (5.1.14).
DWE, Bonn, 68 Years Later, World War II Claims Another Life, DWE, Bonn, 3.1.14. http://www.dw.de/one-killed-after-world-war-ii-era-bomb-goes-off-in-western-germany/a-17340011, (5.1.14).
Pictures 29thcombatengineers, 457thbombgroup, wikipedia