The grenade was “capable of exploding”.
A young boy recently discovered a World War One live grenade on a Northern Ireland beach, UK. Taking to Facebook, cops informed that the boy contacted the Police Service of Northern Ireland after spotting the device – that was “capable of exploding” – on Cultra beach.
An Army technical officer, who went to the scene to inspect, confirmed that it was a live WW1 “Mills Bomb” hand grenade. As per the social media post, the grenade was taken to Crawfordsburn Country Park where it was detonated in a controlled explosion.
In the caption, the officers said, “We contacted ATO who attended and confirmed it was an unexploded World War 1 “Mills Bomb” hand grenade. We accompanied ATO to Crawfordsburn Country Park where a controlled explosion was carried out.”
They added, “This was a live grenade that was capable of exploding. A big thank you to the young lad who found the grenade and alerted police and thanks to all involved.”
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According to The Independent, the Mills bomb grenade was the first-hand grenade issued on a large scale in Britain when it was developed in 1915.
Even though it is rare, unexploded bombs from WWI and WW2 are still discovered from time to time. Earlier this year, a World War II-era grenade was picked up on a conveyor belt at a hot chips factory in New Zealand.
Back in 2020, parts of Soho in Central London were evacuated after a suspected unexploded WW2 bomb was found. In 2019, a 7 feet German explosive was also detonated off the coast of the Isle of Wight after being picked up by a fishing net.