'It's Friday evening and I’m sitting waiting for a bomb to sail past me. This isn’t a regular Friday and I can no longer feel my toes or fingers as I sit in the gathering gloom in the gardens of Admiralty House, overlooking the river Tamar, close to the Devonport Naval Base.
Four days previously, on Tuesday, February 20 2024, a builder working on a house extension in the Keyham area of Plymouth, on England’s south coast, began to take an interest in a corroded lump of metal he’d recently exposed.
Initially, it looked like an old pipe or boiler that someone had buried in the back garden. But it was raining. As the wet soil fell away from “the pipe”, the dimensions and shape resolved into what would prove to be a second world war-era, SC500, high-explosive, air-dropped munition.
That’s a 500kg bomb to you and me.'
Dr Harry Bennett, Associate Professor (Reader) in History, writes for The Conversation about the recent unexploded WWII bomb discovered in Keyham, Plymouth.
Professor of Marine Biology at Plymouth University
2ySafeguarding our seas: the value of a systems approach to 21st century marine challenges. Join me on 2nd July to explore 21st Century marine challenges and opportunities. The challenges and solutions to global issues of climate change, coastal erosion, habitat and biodiversity loss, sustainable fisheries and maritime security will be illustrated and discussed as part of Research Festival 2021. Facilitated by freelance Journalist Tom Heap of BBC Countryfile and Costing the Earth who will help put your questions to our expert panel. Register for this free event and join us at 13:00 on 2nd July https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/plymouth-research-festival/2021-safeguarding-our-seas