Talk About Timely

Almost as soon as the post about 40mm cannon shells went up this morning, this article from the Telegraph shows up. Ferry passengers were prevented from landing at the Twelve Quays ferry terminal on the Mersey after a 1,000 pound German bomb from World War Two was discovered floating near the terminal.

Two ferries carrying 250 passengers and crew were stranded for almost eight hours yesterday after a 1,000lb German wartime bomb was discovered floating in the Mersey.

It was detected by the sonar of a Royal Navy warship and last night bomb disposal experts towed it out to sea to be detonated.

Speculation is that the bomb was dislodged from it's resting place by high tides. It is believed to be a panzerbombe, a device used against shipping and fortifications. Divers marked the bomb with warnings, then set about getting it to a safe place for disposal.

At around 8.30am divers returned to the bomb, attaching a flotation bag which within 90 minutes had raised it to within 10ft of the surface.

The bomb was then securely strapped and towed into the middle of the river.

This allowed the two passenger ferries, Mersey Viking and Dublin Viking, from Belfast and Dublin respectively, to dock.

Merseyside Police and the coastguard service then assisted the Royal Navy in the operation to tow the bomb to the North Bar light in Liverpool Bay.

It was then lowered back on to the seabed and packed with plastic explosives ready for detonation.

According to a naval source, the minehunter was in the Mersey searching for the body of a missing businessman, as well as conducting a survey of the estuary bed.

As mentioned earlier - these things are still dangerous after all these years and must be disposed of properly (which basically means detonating them since they are by now too corroded to actually try to disarm).

They were lucky they found this one or it could have been a lot worse.