![]() ![]() Over the course of 19 wartime raids, German forces dropped more than 7,000 bombs on Exeter. (Nazi propogandists targeted heritage-rich cities as a means of lowering British morale, with one leader suggesting that “e shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide.”)Ī view of the German bomb before it was detonated on February 27, 2021 The attacks on Exeter, Bath, Norwich, York and Canterbury became known as the Baedeker Raids-a reference to the famous German-language travel guides of the same name, according to the Imperial War Museum. In the spring of 1942, the German Air Force, or Luftwaffe, heavily bombed Exeter and other historic English cities in retaliation for the British Royal Air Force’s bombing of Germany. “I have the deepest sympathy for the people who have been affected and I am sure the bomb technicians and the police would also have tremendous sympathy for them.” “I’m not sure I would have done anything differently,” Major Chris Hunter, a former British Army bomb disposal officer, tells BBC News. The engineer adds, “I have never seen anything like this, and I’m not sure I’ll get to see it again.”īecause the device’s fuse was entirely corroded, authorities had no choice but to detonate it. ![]() If there was a gust of wind you could hear the noise of the sand falling from the trees.” “Buildings around were completely covered in this grey sand,” Cridge says. ![]() Military officials worked for 24 hours to cover the blast zone in 400 tons of sand-a method for preventing damage to buildings, per the council statement. Structural engineer Matthew Cridge tells BBC News that the explosion left a crater so big that “you could easily park three double-decker buses in there.” #Police would like to thank the residents of Exeter, particularly the 2,600 evacuated households and our partner agencies who have worked so hard to ensure the safety of all /fhxJFqBqT8- Devon & Cornwall Police February 27, 2021 UPDATE: This is the moment a WW2 bomb was detonated in #Exeter. Officials are still in the process of assessing all buildings in the area for signs of structural damage, but as the Exeter City Council notes, the blast rendered some properties “uninhabitable.” Nearby homes suffered damage to their windows, doors and roofs. “The controlled denotation that took place on Saturday afternoon was a shock to many-the force of the blast could be felt across a wide area of the city,” says local council leader Philip Bialyk in a separate statement. But many evacuated residents were forced to stay away from home for three nights, and those who live within 100 meters (328 feet) of the detonation site are still being housed in temporary accommodations. Nobody was hurt during the explosion, said the Devon and Cornwall Police in a February 28 statement. The following day, officials initiated a controlled blast of the 2,204-pound bomb, which was found buried on a tract of land near the University of Exeter, BBC News reports. Residential construction work revealed the unexploded device last Friday, prompting police to evacuate more than 2,600 homes. But late last month, residents of Exeter, England, once again felt the aftershocks of the global conflict when authorities detonated an 80-year-old German bomb in the historic city. ![]() World War II ended more than 75 years ago. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |