General Chat

Last Friday, an unexploded bomb was found in Winchester - in the river Itchen.

Today, an unexploded bomb has been found in the New Forest :-S

What's going on?
Why are they all appearing?

The bomb in Winchester was found in Water Lane - a small roads width from houses.

The one today was found between Dibden Purlieu and Hardley, near Fawley Inclosure, an area where lots of people walk, as it's just across the road from a couple of estates.

They're still finding bombs in my home town, Oldham ...... one was found on a school playing field 2 or 3 years ago.

Also not a direct intended site, but on the route to either Liverpool or Manchester

Or the one in the River Thames in London very recently.

so many bombs dropped so I guess it isn't surprising that they are still being found.

The surprise is that so many of them are being found in inhabited areas, like the edge of a school field, or the one in Water Lane Winchester ...... how did those fall and no-one heard them??

I suppose the one in Winchester- in the river by Water Lane, could have landed elsewhere, and come down the river during heavy rain.

The one in The New Forest, though only a road away from loads of houses, would have fallen before most of those houses were built.
What I don't understand about the latter is, the area is used a lot by ramblers and dog walkers - plus ponies and cows have been plodding over the area for years!

Having said that, I was amazed to find a 1950's milk bottle, in one piece, in woodland on the New Forest :-S

I'm pretty sure in the past Maggie in roughly the same area they found mustard gas amongst other items, someone riding their horse/pony. Some of the items found over the years might have been for the local dad army.

Bomb disposal unit

Blew something up on Hartlepool beach last week :-(

I think it washed up in the sea from the war :-(

Not really about this but, where we are, the German bombers would jettison anything they might have left on board as they headed back home from a bombing raid over Chichester or, more likely, Pompey.

One old boy on the farm was out weeding and left his weeding spud stuck in the ground where he had finished when he went in for his dinner.

When he went back after dinner, there was a big hole where a landmine had fallen, exactly where his weeding spud had been.

It cracked him up.

Oh crikey, Sharron!

My g granddad was killed, aged 96, in Aldeburgh when departing German bombers dropped their remaining bombs prior to heading home.

There's a bomb crater near Holiday Hill in the New Forest - it can't be seen from the road, or 'conventional' paths, that is really beautiful.
It's covered in water lilies. On one side of the crater, the lilies are white, on the other, pink.
I've sat up there and watched loads of dragonflies hatching. <3

Sharron you're right the same thing happened in this area, plus lots of temp army camps and training grounds. Seems it's likely WW1 this time so temp camp or training most likely as in the past.

Maggie you're right lovely lilies :-)

We too have commented on the recent spate of bomb finds.
Even in busy parts of London they still appear.

Could it be that many post-war developments are now being revamped / replaced and modern machinery can dig deeper.......... Doesn't explain the New Forest bomb or the one found in the River Itchen though.

We frequently see bomb disposal vehicles in this area, as there are military training grounds nearby.. It's a bit worrying when they are dashing with blue lights though.!

Can I attach my DNA results from Ancestry.com. to my Genes reunited tree?/.

You're right, Gwyn, new developments will find them.
Even knocking down post-war structures will find them :-S

'tis weird how other ordnance suddenly 'appears'.
I know we had a lot of rain - but mot recently.

Rowland, probably not, I'm afraid.

Rowland, you can export your tree as a GEDCOM and then send it with your Ancestry DNA results to Gedmatch https://www.gedmatch.com/

Thanks Kense :-D
I've never managed to download my tree :-|

Rolland, further to Kense’s post, you can’t attach your DNA results to a GR tree. At least, if you were to add them as ‘notes’, they wouldn’t attract Matches to any other tree. GR just doesn’t have that facility.
It matches Names. It would be up to you to work out the relationship, if any.

UXBs - I was going to suggest new build development, but that obviously doesn’t apply to the protected New Forest.
I’ve been told that there were a number of ‘dummy’ airfields in the SE, and possibly other parts of the country. Perhaps some of the bombs had landed on those? As they weren’t going to cause a problem, there may have been no urgency to defuse them.

There are quite a few bomb craters, mainly from WWII so bombs did fall.
No-one bothered filling in the craters, so the deep ones became year round ponds, and the more shallow ones became 'seasonal' ponds.

A friend told me last night, that, when he was a nipper, there was a farm called 'Gunsight Farm' nearby, where munitions were tested in WWI.
Many an empty cartridge was found there!
The bomb they found was a WWI bomb, so it will be interesting to find out whether it was one of ours! :-D

I just find it strange that this bomb has been there so long, with cows, ponies, donkeys pigs and people - ramblers, woodsmen, 'burners' etc tramping over the area for years, and it's only just been found :-S

Oh yes, and as it's a WWI bomb - al the servicemen during WWII!!

Most in the past Maggie have been found due to erosion from ponies and walkers. They're often buried and literally decades later they now coming to the surface. Very unlikely WW1 would have been dropped there by Germans.

A sloppy sapper then! :-D :-D :-D

:-D :-D

large objects will often rise through the medium they have dropped into

for example if you put a layer of marbles in a jar, and then add sand, agitation will cause the marbles to rise to the surface... possibly after 70 plus years this is bringing old bombs nearer the surface??

Probably the cause, Bob.
There's a area of Forest that has been cordoned off for over a year, where mines etc have been found.