Navy divers inspecting UXB under Melbourne pier

[Antipodean Andy]

In my in-laws neck of the woods. Might be something dropped if the pier was ever used for loading or the currents have deposited it there after many years.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...-29277,00.html

NAVY divers will today inspect an unexploded bomb found under a pier at a popular holiday spot near Melbourne.

Recreational divers found the bomb under Portsea Pier on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, yesterday.

Police have cordoned the pier off until the bomb, thought to be unexploded military ordnance, can be removed.

A defence department spokesman said two navy divers were expected to arrive in Portsea by late this morning.

Police search and rescue divers were called in to examine the badly corroded device, which is bullet-shaped and about 20cm in diameter.

The bomb is sticking out about 500cm in sand at the end of the pier.

Sergeant Vic Velthuis said the explosive was believed to be of World War II vintage.

Police did not know if the explosive was live but had closed off the pier as a precaution, he said.

"I'm not an expert, but that close to the pier, I'd reckon it would probably take out quite a large proportion of the pier (if it exploded)."

The Portsea area, near the western tip of the Mornington Peninsula, has a long military history.

Point Nepean was occupied by a series of artillery emplacements from the 1870s until the end of World War II.

The batteries guarded the entrance to Port Phillip Bay.

Large sections of the Port Nepean National Park, which borders the commonwealth land, are closed to public access because of the potential presence of unexploded ordnance from military exercises.

The Portsea Pier lies about 500m east of the edge of the commonwealth-held military land on the peninsula.

Earlier report:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599...-29277,00.html

[Kyt]

It's amazing that something sits there for 60+ years and people are oblivious of the danger below them - and then suddenly everyone cacks themselves when it is found.

Have there been any recent news items about one of these actually going off without warning. Would be interesting to trawl back through the papers at some point.

[Antipodean Andy]

I reckon a sea mine would pose the most risk of something like that happening.

[Antipodean Andy]

October last year, Kyt.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...444119,00.html

From that article:

Between 400 and 600 bombs are discovered a year in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone, where the heavily industrialized Ruhr region was a major target for Allied bombers.

Three workers were killed and 17 people injured in Berlin in 1994 when a wartime bomb exploded during construction work. In 2003 in the Austrian city of Salzburg, two people were killed while attempting to defuse a 250-kilogram bomb.

[Kyt]

Originally Posted by Andy in West Oz

October last year, Kyt.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...444119,00.html

I don't remember that at all - can't believe I missed it. Good find, Andy

[spidge]

Kyt,

This is near the area where the first shot of WW1 was fired in the "Far East" and again in WW2 just minutes after WW2 was declared.

I have some interesting stories on them.

[Kyt]

Sounds interesting - time to share Sidge

[spidge]

FIRST ALLIED SHOT
The first Allied shot of the war in the Far East was actually fired over the bows of the Australian coaster Woniora (Captain F. N. Smale) from a 6-inch gun emplacement at Point Nepean, guarding the entrance to Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay. The 823 ton coaster had entered the bay at 9.15 pm on September 3, 1939 after a trip from Tasmania. Ordered to heave-to for inspection, the coaster gave her identity but continued on without stopping. A 100 lb shell, fired across her bow, soon changed her captain's mind.
By a remarkable coincidence, this was the actual, same gun that had fired the first shot of World War I when, hours after war was declared, it fired on the German Norddeutscher Lloyd 6,500 ton steamer Pfalz while it attempted to leave Australian waters on August 5, 1914. The Pfalz was then returned to Williamstown where the crew was detained. The captured vessel served out the rest of World War I as the Australian troopship HMT Boorara

[Antipodean Andy]

By the same guns in fact! Should try to visit as it's only half an hour from where we stay at Christmas.

[Kyt]

If that had been in a film everybody would have said that it was too far-fetched. Fact is stranger than fiction. Thanks Spidge