killed by a war 89 years ago

[svandamme]

the most recent casualty of WW1, 89 years after the armistice

http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleID=671JACEC&PostCode=8950
rough translation

"on 29 October, a farmer was killed at the age of 58 when an unexploded shell from WW1 exploded...
Like many farmers in Flanders, he had found several shells while working the land, and like usual, they just pile them up till Dovo, the Belgian army's bomb squad could come pick them up... unfortunately, something had gone wrong

Neighbors had heard the explosion on Friday , and found the lifeless body, police was able to determine the cause of the explosion by all the shrapnel in bedded in a truck parked a bit further..."




farmers around here, they dig up old ammo all the time
it's not every once and a while, it's weekly, daily that stuff is found
they find 89 year old ammunition, usually nothing happens and it's become a fact of life for them... every once in a while, it goes wrong...

Dovo still makes weekly rounds in the country side, they look for little piles of rusty shells, they load it up and take it to their site, not far from where i live

if you're ever in Flanders, walking in the country side, and you see something like this... don't go thinking it's unused, deactivated ammo... you really better not go poking it with a stick to figure out what it is.





http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?articleID=KM1KJHFS


rough translation :


"the shells they can identify as non toxic, usually get blown up in a big blast pit
nobody here even looks up when they hear a massive blast coming from the woods

until 1980 , toxic ones got dumped in the see ( gulf of Gascogne ), but since the environmental awareness grew, this was stopped)

between 1980 and 1999, the stock pile of toxic shells had grown to 30 000
and a safe processing facility was taken into use

since 1999 , about 7500 toxic shells had been processed, and this week they started up a new Contained Detonation Chamber (CDC) capable of taking care of the bigger caliber toxic ordnance



manufactured by Kobe Steel, it's the only one in existence in the world
the shells get detonated in the blast chamber, and processed so all toxic contamination is eliminated..."

[URY914]

I had no idea....

[livi]

It should be the fighting parties responsibility to pick up their left overs. Particularly if they are potentially lethal.

[BGCarrera32]

Good luck with that livi...

[svandamme]

http://maps.google.be/maps?f=q&hl=nl&geocode=&q=ho++uthulst&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&ll=50.961941,2.961931&spn=0.025462,0.058365&z=14

the army base where Dovo operates, just a mile from my front door
all those objects in the woods... are ammo dumps and sealed bunkers for the toxic ones

i think that the blast pit shows in the bottom left end of the woods, although i'm not sure , the resolution isn't very high


my house is 3 miles south south-east, Langemark

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by livi

It should be the fighting parties responsibility to pick up their left overs. Particularly if they are potentially lethal.

well, Dovo is also active abroad, at the moment they are busy cleaning up leftover cluster bomblets in Lebanon, and general disposal of weaponry in Kabul...

other historical deployments have been anti sea mine duties in the Gulf and elsewhere(although that's not Dovo, but the Belgian Navy who is specialised in anti mine operations)

the Belgian military may not be much of an offensive army, but they sure as hell take on dangerous work, i doubt there is any other army with this much expertise in dealing with live, undetonated ordnance.. i think there have been 2 wounded in Lebanon, no deaths, but it's an easy to loose a finger or a hand when doing this work

Lebanon

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by livi

It should be the fighting parties responsibility to pick up their left overs. Particularly if they are potentially lethal.

Unreasonable.

If those bombs were dropped by the Germans, they should be held responsible. but if they were dropped by the US or Britain in an attempt to help liberate that country, then trying to force them to clean up the bombs would be a slap in the face.

I can just see it now: "please help us, we have been over-run by the enemy and need your help is we will ever experience freedom again, But first, please sign this little document our lawyers drew up. It's a liability and responsibility contract that says that in the process of saving our lives, you will have to make sure you clean up everything after you are done or we will sue you".
Good luck with that.

[svandamme]

little bombs in this area, it's mostly artillery shells
bombs only got really popular in WW2 when they managed to get planes with decent capacity for heavy payloads

and in most cases, it's not as black and white...take Lebanon for instance
the Israeli's have been bombing with clusterbombs in urban area's
they weren't fighting a nation, but hezbollah, which isn't even part of the country, but a nasty group that hides amongst refugees that were driven out of Israel... the folks living there weren't being liberated by the Israeli's that's for sure

[livi]

Sorry guys. I thought my suggestion sounded so surrealistically absurd in all it´s seriousness, that you would see I was not being serious. Poor joke. My bad. My apologies.

It is a very sad state of affairs however. Children still being killed and crippled in many post war countries. What the Flandern army is doing trying to neutralize some of it is honorable and heart warming.

[svandamme]

why apologize,
those who fight should clean up the ****, and not leave it behind where civilians get killed and maimed years after the fighting is over, nothing wrong with that statement

it's idealism , and difficult to make it happen
but if we stop vocalizing every idea that's to difficult to implement

well, we might as well chuck society overboard, and live like in the prehistoric times... take what we want, from whoever we think we can take it without getting our heads bashed in...while keeping our heads on a swivel to see where anybody might come from who thinks he can do a number on ourself... survival of the fittest, and simply be a predator, top of the food chain...

let's face it , we'll kill anything that moves if we think it's to our benefit, and if we can get away with it...

[livi]

Yeah. Well...

I am withdrawing non the less. Urging a non psychopathic killer to clean up his mess is a very sensitive issue. Bringing up a confusing mix of feelings of both guilt, shame and pride. Whether him being from the Swedish Army going berserk under Karl XII in Russia in the early 18th century, Russian invading Berlin in 1945, Brittish or American bombing German cities. Taking lives, no matter how legitimite in war time, is a psychological trauma beyond belief.

The Swedish army did horrendous deeds in the 1600-1700 centuries. Every man, every unit driven by death fear and strong orders. For many of the few that came back from Russia, surviving the hell of war was a punishment.

Politely asking them to clean up their mess just isn´t in the cards. Not on a personal level in any case.

[azasadny]

When iIwas stationed in Okinawa, Japan from '84-'85, it was common for unexploded ordinance from WWII to go off during construction projects. People were injured and killed and it happened almost every week...

[Super_Dave_D]

The worst place for unexploded ordnance is Vietnam - There is an estimated 800,000 mines and unexploded ordnance still laying around. Over 1000 accidents a year happen. I read where over 500 children have died in one providence alone.

[svandamme]

and Cambodja, Dovo has been active there as well, training locals to clean up mines

and i guess the terrain isn't helping either in terms of cleanup

[FOG]

When I left Okinawa I had the USMC EOD platoon that was responsible for the Southern half of the U.S. bases (except Kadena where we helped). These were smaller bases. The platoon averaged a little over 23 callouts a week, most from WWII.

Cleaning up mines is easier than UXOs. Mines generally are close to the surface and easier to find, lots of UXOs burrowed down and later became unearthed/exposed.

A 16” dual fused shell was found on Camp Foster during housing tear down in 2003. Dependent housing had been built over the top. 140 meters from the base gas station, 220 meters from the PX, and about 40 meters from a major highway (330). That had to be blown in place, as is often done on Okinawa due to the dangers of moving UXO through heavily built up areas.

The JSDF takes care of everything that is not on a U.S. base. Doesn’t matter who dropped.

FOG

[frogger]

Originally Posted by livi

The Swedish army did horrendous deeds in the 1600-1700 centuries.

Sweden had an army?

[svandamme]

here's a fun one
Mesen (Messine) , some great mind had the idea to tunnel under no man's land, and pile up tons and tons of HE

they built 22 of these mines
blew up 19 of those once for a big push for a total of 455 tons of ammonal explosives (one was deactivated by the germans)
all in all it was effective

the war ended
2 mines unaccounted for

ones of those mines blew in the 1955 ignited by lightening
no deaths resulted


one of those mines, is still in the ground
near a village, buildings on top of em
nobody dares to even think about even inspecting it
i'm nor talking 1 2000 lbs bomb
or even 1 tall boy

i'm talking 20 tons + worth of 90 year old explosives

(edited after i dug up the facts to correct mistakes i had in memory)

[masraum]

I was in Japan in the late 70's and early 80's. We lived at the northern most tip of the main island. They used to have someone come to school every year to tell us kids not to play with any ordinance that we found. Stuff was still found, but not that often which isn't surprising since we were in the booneys.

[304065]

Sad but true.

Then there was the case of the two Belgian garage mechanics who discovered an unexploded shell and attempted to remove the fuze and scoop out the HE and presumably sell the shell as a souvenir. Being somewhat mechanically minded, they determined to remove the fuze by heating the shell casing with a propane torch. What was left of the mechanics was washed from the ceiling of the workshop with a garden hose.

Be careful around unexploded ordinance, the world is full of it!

[svandamme]

after WW1 , when all the land here was pretty much a desolate wasteland
the first folks that returned, made a living out of recycling pretty much anything they could find
which incidently, was just weaponry, unexploded shells, empty casings...
i've got books here about those first few years, unfortunately they are in flemish only else i'de post the ISBN numbers...

needless to say, that many of these pioneers , because that's what they were, pioneers of the wastelands...met an unfortunate demise... those who didn't however... made their families extremely rich.

just to give you an idea of what 1919 looked like in these parts


there was absolutely nothing

those abroad, who had fled (probably 99.9% of civilians), weren't even allowed to return unless they had somewhere to stay, those who were eager to return, usually had dad and hte oldest son , sneak into the region , and then fabricate a make shift shelter out of whatever they could find , and then they'de bring the family back...

in 1919, there wasn't a bakery within 10 miles of where my current house is
Ypres was under military lock down while the brass figured out whether or not to make the whole town a historical site, the closest bakery was Poperinge...

no decent roads, no cars, those who were here didn't have bicycles , nothing

truly a post apocalyptic existence for those in that period of time

the "reparations" was agreed upon at Versailles, but the distribution of those reparations took a terrible long time... don't have the book at home now, but from memory i think it lasted at least 3 years till houses were being built from those reparations

much of those reparations didn't even make it to Flanders, lot's got stuck in Brussels, where the french speaking governement ruled the country, Flanders was a backward region , no industry, no political power... WW1 was a catalyst for the Flemish to act out against that discrimination based on our language devide...

The book also showed how a priest who was in the army as a chaplain, was the first in a town , and instrumental at getting basic town functionality going.... it had notes about how they organized a first church in barracks, then fought to fund the reconstruction of a church, how they had to repatriate all the church items and art that was moved to safety and such...

there was very, very little in actual, practical relief for those here during those first 4-6 years
the allies were all to busy patting eachother on their backs, thinking about how to deal with what Churchil called Holy Land... if it weren't for the locals disagreeing with the historical site plan ... my home town would be a living ruin, a tourist attraction with no inhabitants (it is partly a tourist destination now, but it's also my home, it's more now)

at some point, the War Mayor, a Canadian officer (always the Canadians, eh ) tried to bluf his way into becoming the after war ruler of Ypres... with false credentials he tried to tell the other Allies, that his government had appointed him given him a mandate to take control
set himself up in a shack on the ramparts, but his bluff was called and he was shipped back to Canada...

there is one book specifically about the Menin Gate, and those early years in Ypres
it's not so much about the "pioneers" more about the politics of those days in Ypres, and the construction of the Memorial, as well as info about the WW2 years , when Hitler came to visit several times , to visit the British memorial ( he did not order it destroyed, it appears he had some form of respect for the dead who fought in the same hell he did, doesn't make him a fine man, but it's note worthy ) how Leaders, Royals and Popes visited Ypres and the Gate over the years, it's written by my neece's ex hubby who's a researcher for the local museum

Dominiek Dendooven, Ypres as Holy Ground: Menin Gate and Last Post (Koksijde: de Klaproos, n.d.) ISBN 90 5508 051 9.