Don't play with grandpa's war souvenirs
Ditch-Runner
Member Posts: 25,226 ✭✭✭✭
On my phone so not sure now to link a news story will do so later not a lot of details as of now
Happened In Indiana I just read about it a few hours ago a dad and his two teenage kids were going thru grandpa's Belongings
they found a grenade one of them pulled the pin and well it was live
The explosion killed dad and the two kids in the hospital with shrapnel wounds just terrible and could have easy been avoided
This story or similar seem to pop up now and then a old Military person brought home a souvenir put it away may have never told any one and it's found after the passing and some one dies or gets hurt bad Sad in so many ways.
As a young kid one of my friends dad was in WW II he had a grenade in the basement locked up in his caged in area along with a lot of his personal items and old miltary gear
but his son my buddy took me in one day unlocked his dad's private room showed me a grenade . it still had the pin in place I was only about 10 yrs old and did not touch it but seen a lot of war movies and just looking was enough for me but my buddy did to show off the cool factor of having it and did all the handling
he just said dad told him it was real and don't play with it at least his kid and i knew not to test it out
Oh in the same room his dad had a small jar with alcohol ? Not sure what the liquid was with one of his fingers he had got cut off at some point early on
Just another cool thing for kids to admire
Comments
Horrible mistake
Yep, and there's no learning curve on that one.
stupid should be painful, but pretty steep learning curve on explosives.
Fool around and find out
As the WWII generation was passing, we would get calls every year or 2 from widows who found munitions. We would just pack it up and take it to HQ for for the Army Arsenal to pick up. The paperwork was done by the officer who didn't transport it. Then it became a 3-ring circus & the majority were inert.
Sun, May 21, 2023 at 9:24 PM EDT·1 min read
A father is dead and his two children were injured when a grenade detonated in their Indiana home on Saturday, according to authorities.
The deceased was identified Sunday by the Lake County Coroner's Office as Bryan Niedert, 47. "Injuries, cause and manner of death are all pending," it said in a statement.
The Lake County Sheriff's Department responded to the home in the 3400 block of W. Lakeshore Drive around 6:30 p.m. for a reported explosion.
The family was looking through a grandfather's belongings at the northwestern Indiana home when they found a hand grenade. The device detonated when someone reportedly pulled its pin, the sheriff's department says.
The father was found unresponsive and later pronounced dead. His two children, a 17-year-old boy and an 18-year-old woman, were taken to an area hospital with shrapnel wounds.
The Porter County Bomb Squad responded to the area to secure it and determine if there were any other explosive devices, according to the sheriff's department.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Department is continuing to investigate.
The coroner's office said an autopsy on Niedert's remains would be performed Monday.
I have a hard time understanding how someone can not know that once you pull the pin the grenade will go boom.
Am I wrong, or will it go boom only if you don’t put it back in and release the handle?
Ever talk to a Liberal????
Dad was farmed out in Fluvanna, County Virginia to a nice couple because his dad died at a very early age during the depression.. Eight children in family. Pounded on dynamite cap and blew his PJ's off and his right eye out. Later at work in late fifties lost four fingers on left hand because guard was left off machine, Could just barely reach trigger with stub of index finger on left hand. He always had time to take me hunting as a youngster. He was a medic in WW2. I miss him terribly. ----------------------------------------Ray
WHY would you mess with a grenade with the pin in it? Haven't they ever seen war movies? You pull the pin, the handle comes off and you have about 7 seconds to get rid of it safely. Geesh!
A guy gave me a bunch of stuff he had inherited from his dad, a WWI vet. There were a half dozen 37 m/m rounds. They all had the fuse-tip exploding bullets. I examined them closely and 5 had been deactivated but I could see nothing wrong with one of them. I shot it with a 5.56 AP round from 100 yards and it went off. Not a large explosion but it would have killed someone holding it. If I had a grenade with the pin in it I would repeat this exercise.
My experience is just with the movies and army training g fils the run on the internet
Sure seems safe enough to leave the pin in and walk away slowly any explosives that old not knowing how they were stored or handled
Just call the local well trained people Wright pat AFB does all the calls around here practice for them I guess if its a dud every one is happy if live nd they tookcare of it probably saved some serous damage
What I have seen in the past in the news they have a pace on the base to do such things they use explosives to destroy or trigger suspect items
About 35 yrs ago a old farm sold about 3 miles south of us they found dynamite in a old grain bin it's was leaking and not stable not safe at all.they blew it in place
Right, I saw an illustration of a "bullet" penetrating a wall only the entire rifle cartridge was shown exiting the hole.
When I was stationed on Okinawa,someone was always finding unexploded ordinance,grenades up to 16 inch rounds from battleship bombardment.If you don't know what it is leave it alone,keep everyone away until EOD guys get there then you get far away as possible.
STORY Published January 13, 2015 11:38pm EST
Virginia Man Killed In Civil War Cannonball Blast
Associated Press
CHESTER, Va. – Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown.
As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics — weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms.
But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway.
More than 140 years after Lee surrendered to Grant, the cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White's home in this leafy Richmond suburb.
White's death shook the close-knit fraternity of relic collectors and raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions that lay buried beneath old battlefields. Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds.
"You can't drop these things on the ground and make them go off," said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps.
Black powder provided the destructive force for cannonballs and artillery shells. The combination of sulfur, potassium nitrate and finely ground charcoal requires a high temperature — 572 degrees Fahrenheit — and friction to ignite.
White estimated he had worked on about 1,600 shells for collectors and museums. On the day he died, he had 18 cannonballs lined up in his driveway to restore.
White's efforts seldom raised safety concerns. His wife and son Travis sometimes stood in the driveway as he worked.
"Sam knew his stuff, no doubt about it," said Jimmy Blankenship, historian-curator at the Petersburg battleground. "He did know Civil War ordnance."
An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will not be complete until the end of May, but police who responded to the blast and examined shrapnel concluded that it came from a Civil War explosive.
Experts suspect White was killed while trying to disarm a 9-inch, 75-pound naval cannonball, a particularly potent explosive with a more complex fuse and many times the destructive power of those used by infantry artillery.
Biemeck and Peter George, co-author of a book on Civil War ordnance, believe White was using either a drill or a grinder attached to a drill to remove grit from the cannonball, causing a shower of sparks.
I pulled a one year tour at LSU Sinai South Camp, Egypt and got in tight with the two EOD techs there. They told me when the Israelis pushed the Egyptians out of the Sinai they, Egyptians, lined up trucks and drove through the desert arming mines, setting them in place and letting the wind bury them. None of this was mapped. At that time, 1986, some had been found while likely most hadn't been. Bob told me if youever find yourself at a wire fence with white signs on you'd best hope you see writing on the sign. If not get yer * across the fence.