Plymouth bomb: How will disposal of WWII explosive work – and is there a risk it could explode?
More than 3,000 people have left their homes after an unexploded Second World War bomb was found in the back garden of a home in Plymouth.
Devon and Cornwall Police declared a major incident on Tuesday and evacuated properties within 200 metres of the bomb, extending it to 309 metres on Thursday.
Plymouth Council has confirmed bomb disposal experts from the army and navy plan to dispose of the bomb today – but how will they do it?
Here’s everything we know about the bomb and what’s being done to remove it – plus expertise from a bomb disposal expert.
What do we know about the bomb?
The bomb, which can also be referred to as an unexploded ordnance (UO), is a 500kg (1,102lb) German bomb from the Second World War, a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson has said.
The MoD identified it as a SC500 transverse fuzed airdrop weapon which, according to the Luftwaffe Resource Centre’s website, was a “general demolition bomb”.
Pic: FPS Images
It’s the same type of bomb that was found off the north coast of Guernsey in July 2023 by a local diver. The Royal Navy carried out a controlled explosion on the Guernsey bomb within an hour of specialist divers going to see it for the first time.
Andy Abbott, who spent 25 years in the Army Reserve’s bomb unit, told Sky News it was one of the biggest types of bombs the Germans dropped during the war that still get found today.
Where is the bomb and how was it found?
Officers were first called to a property on St Michael Avenue in Keyham on Tuesday, after a man reported finding the device while digging out the foundations for an extension in the garden.
Speaking to Plymouth Live, the man who called police said he actually found it “about a week ago”.
Map shows the area where a cordon is in place
He said he “hit something with a spade, but we weren’t sure what it was at first”.
He said rain over the next few days made the object increasingly visible.
The man called the police on Tuesday and sent them photos.
“Five minutes later there’s a knock on the door and police officers asking to have a look,” he said. “The next minute they’re suggesting a cordon.”
Mr Abbott said bombs such as this one are usually found in big fields or in docks rather than more confined places such as the Keyham garden.
Who is dealing with it? And could it explode?
It was Devon and Cornwall Police who first came to the scene, but since then there has been the Royal Navy’s bomb disposal unit, military personnel and service members of various search and rescue teams, including from the local fire brigade.
Plymouth Council said the bomb would be removed and transported by military convoy through the city for disposal at sea.
In a statement, the council said the bomb disposal experts considered a controlled detonation on site, but ultimately decided “the safest and least impactful option is to remove the device from St Michael Avenue and travel to the Torpoint Ferry slipway – for the bomb to be disposed of at sea (beyond the Breakwater)”.
“Highly trained bomb disposal experts will carefully remove the device from the property and it will be transported by road in a military convoy, west along Parkside and Royal Navy Avenue, joining at the junction on Saltash Road to continue south joining Albert Road, turning right along Park Avenue and heading down Ferry Road to the Torpoint Ferry terminal,” the statement said.
Mr Abbott says “the best option is to always blow it up in situ”, but added the squad would have weighed up the damage that could be done to nearby houses and infrastructure.
When it comes to moving it “there is a risk, but it’s a minimal risk,” he added. “They wouldn’t be going with this process if they hadn’t weighed up the odds and found that it was pretty safe. But it is a big one, and there’s obviously always a slight risk.”
Explaining the process, he said: “They’ll probably lift the bomb onto the back of a truck, most likely with a crane.
“You protect it as much as you can on the back of the truck, probably by burying it in loads of sandbags, then they’ll gradually move it with a police cordon in place down to the sea.”
Images on Thursday showed tonnes of sand being delivered to the area, which a police source told Plymouth Live would be used to build a sand wall around the unexploded bomb.
Mr Abbott said sand and water bags are often used to mitigate for the bomb going off and that the bomb squad would have weighed up detonating the bomb on site, using them to contain the explosion.
“But you’re probably going to be blowing up four or five houses at least,” he said. “Even if you try and mitigate the explosion, the damage to those properties… they would be knocked down.”
Royal Naval Bomb Disposal experts dug around the explosive and used a special device to assess it.
A team of 200 volunteers from some of the organisations mentioned above have been visiting houses in the Keyham area, checking that the necessary homes have been evacuated and offering information to local residents.
Why not just diffuse it?
Mr Abbott says that while a fuse as old as the ones in a WW2 bomb are unlikely to be dangerous, there is a type of explosive acid often built into them which may cause problems while trying to diffuse it.
“Obviously the device is very old now. The fusion system they used on these were two fuses that transverse in the bomb itself,” he explained.
“So you’d have to mitigate the fusing. And by now, after this time, the fuses would be quite safe. The only issue you might have is sometimes these things were filled with picric acid, so you’d have picric crystals that can form after leaking and that is dangerous.
“So if you try and remove the fuse or take the fuse out that way, that could have the same effect as the fuse actually working. So you need to mitigate the risk of that too.”
How many people have been evacuated and when can they go back?
The cordon has meant 1,219 properties have been affected and an estimated 3,250 people have had to leave the area this week, with residents encouraged to stay with friends and family.
Those who have been evacuated have only been allowed to return to their homes to collect “urgent, essential items only” including medication or a pet, the council added.
But now residents of the Devon city living within 300 metres of the convoy route will need to completely evacuate their home between the hours of 2pm and 5pm this afternoon.
The council said it would “aim to keep residents informed throughout the operation” and that it would announce when roads are being reopened on its website and on social media.
Plymouth’s Life Centre has been set up as an emergency rest centre with tea and coffee, blankets, towels and toothbrushes, a creche and faith room available.
A similar incident to this one occurred in Plymouth in 2011, when an explosive device was unearthed by a workman at a building in Notte Street, near the city’s Hoe.
The device was made safe before it was moved to the seabed off Plymouth Sound, with an exclusion zone around it.
Plymouth saw more than 50 bombing attacks during the Second World War.
UK
Three Iranians charged under National Security Act after investigation by UK counter-terror police
Two firefighters and a member of the public have died in a large fire in Bicester, the fire service announced.
The firefighters died in the inferno at a former RAF base in Oxfordshire, which now hosts historic motoring and aviation centre Bicester Motion.
The local fire service was called to the scene at 6.39pm last night.
Chief Fire Officer Rob MacDougall said: “It is with a very heavy heart that we today report the loss of two of our firefighters. Families have been informed and are being supported.
“Our thoughts are with them at this most difficult of times and we ask for privacy to be respected.
“We cannot release any details at present but will provide further information as soon as we can.”
Two other firefighters sustained serious injuries and are currently being treated in hospital, Oxfordshire County Council said in a statement.
Footage shared on social media shows plumes of smoke billowing into the sky and flames swallowing the large building.
Clouds of smoke from the fire were billowing into the sky last night. Pic:@kajer87X
Two firefighters and one other person died in the fire, while two more firefighters were seriously injured. Pic: PA
Ten fire crews attended the incident, with four remaining at the scene. The fire is still ongoing, but it is considered under control.
Local residents were advised to remain indoors and keep their windows shut, but this advice has now been lifted.
Bicester Motion said in a statement it would be closed today and over the weekend.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
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UK
‘Toxic’ army unit charged with investigating sex crimes allowing abusers to ‘get away with it’ in own ranks, whistleblower says
More than a dozen women came forward to report a staff sergeant in the Royal Military Police (RMP) for sexual abuse, but he was allowed to resign from the army instead of face charges.
Warning: This article contains material some readers may find distressing
That’s the claim of a whistleblower who served as a sergeant in the RMP for over a decade and says she was one of the man’s victims.
Amy, not her real name, says a “toxic” culture in the military police means sexual predators in the army are “getting away with stuff that they shouldn’t be getting away with”.
It’s a rare insight into life inside the Royal Military Police, the corps charged with investigating crime in the army.
Amy described how the man who assaulted her would go into women’s rooms and sit on their beds. She says he used to force her to go out driving with him at night and talk about sex.
“He preyed on the young, new females that were in the unit,” she says.
“One day, I was out with my friends in town and he was on patrol… There were two of us that went over to speak to him and I had quite a low-cut top on.
“So he hooked his finger around my top and pulled my boob out”.
She recalls as she tried to stop him, “he grabbed my hand and put it on his penis”.
She claims there are other men in the RMP who’ve been accused of sexual offences, recalling hearing of five separate allegations of rape against male colleagues by female colleagues.
“If all of this sexual assault and bullying and rapes are going on within the military police, how can they then go out and investigate the wider army for doing the same things?” she says.
“It doesn’t work.”
Amy, a former RMP officer who alleges sexual abuse in the armed forces
‘He got away with it’
Looking back on her career in the army is difficult for Amy.
After leaving, she tried to settle back into life as a civilian with a new job and a young family to look after, but says she worried about bumping into former colleagues in the street.
“It’s taken me a long time to heal,” she says.
“I was very bitter towards my military career when I left, but I’ve had to sort of learn, build myself up again and remember the good times because they were really good times as well… I think it was just so bad at points.”
When she joined the RMP, she believed she would be part of a unit “representing how the rest of the soldiers should be conducting themselves”.
The reality, she says, was that she had become part of “one of the most toxic” corps in the army.
She recalls being told that the staff sergeant she had reported for sexual assault would be allowed to resign.
“They basically told me he’s not going to be charged, but will be leaving the military… doing him a favour,” she says.
“He got away with it all,” she adds. “He’s not going to lose his pension and whatever else he would have lost with a dishonourable discharge.
“He’s left without a criminal record… that’s not safe for civilians as well, because it’s not even on his record.”
‘They investigate themselves’
Earlier this year, an inquest into the suicide of 19-year-old Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck found she had been failed by the army after reporting sexual assault and harassment.
Since then, Sky News has reported claims of widespread abuse and growing calls for investigations into sexual offences to be removed from the RMP and instead carried out by civilian police.
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From March: Army women reveal alleged abuse
The Labour chair of the influential House of Commons Defence Committee is now urging the government to act.
Tan Dhesi told Sky News: “The system needs to change… incidents of sexual violence and sexual assault should be dealt with not by the Royal Military Police but by civilian police and civilian courts.
“I hope that the government will be making that substantial change in the very, very near future; in fact, they should do it ASAP.”
Tan Dhesi MP told Sky News that ‘the system needs to change… ASAP’
Since Gunner Beck’s death, a new tri-service complaints team has been announced by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The change will see bullying, harassment, discrimination related service complaints dealt with by a team outside the commands of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force.
However, Amy believes investigations need to be done “completely separately from the military”.
“Otherwise it doesn’t work because friends will be investigating friends,” she says.
“I think there’s such a male-dominated space in the military still. Women have no chance… and it’s not fair because people are getting away with stuff that they shouldn’t be getting away with and allowed to continue doing it and ruining lives.”
She believes the entire system lacks accountability. “They investigate themselves,” she says, even down to how the RMP is regulated.
“The people that run that unit are RMP. They get posted in, do a few years and then get posted back out.”
‘I was told off for reporting it’
Katie, also not her real name, served in the army for over 20 years. She saw active service in Afghanistan and rose to the rank of Captain.
It was a distinguished career that was brought to a premature end by sexual abuse and whistleblowing.
Having taken the difficult decision to leave the army she now leads a secluded life and suffers poor mental health.
Katie (centre), who resigned from the armed forces after alleged sexual abuse, as a serving RMP officer
“I still struggle,” she says. “I’m still very wary of men. My relationship is strained.
“Everything seems like black and white now, like I live my life in black and white rather than full colour… As a person, it has changed my life forever.”
To begin with, she was in the same unit that Gunner Beck would join years later. She too experienced harassment and abuse, and says her line manager “laughed” when she reported it.
“I just felt like dehumanised, I felt like property, I didn’t feel like a person anymore,” she says.
“And so I would avoid people… I would hide in the garages, behind the tanks, in between the guns, just praying that these people hadn’t seen me and I might be able to escape them for that day.”
She moved to a different unit but says wherever she went, abuse was rife. After being groped by a higher-ranking colleague, she assumed her chain of command would escalate her report to the RMP.
Instead, she says she was “put in front of the Sergeant Major and told off”.
“I remember at the time saying I’d like to call the civilian police, and I was told that I wasn’t allowed to do that and I’d be disciplined if I tried to do that,” she said. “So I was so frightened.”
She stayed in the army, hoping to make a difference. As an officer, she began reporting abusers on behalf of younger victims.
“I kept this goal in my head of reaching a position one day where I could help other women,” she said. “When I got there, I realised that it was way more toxic than I could have ever imagined.
“The officer corps were actually the worst perpetrators of all because they brushed it under the carpet. There was a will and a need more to protect themselves or their friends. Or the reputation of the unit first and foremost.”
She believes changes made by the MoD since the death of Gunner Beck to remove the chain of command from sexual abuse investigations will make “little difference”, saying they’ll still be carried out by “the same people, but just under a new title”.
‘They should be held accountable’
An MoD spokesperson told Sky News that “unacceptable and criminal behaviour has absolutely no place in our Armed Forces”.
They added: “That is why this government is creating a new Tri-Service Complaints team to take the most serious complaints out of the chain of single service command for the first time, and has launched a new central taskforce on Violence Against Women and Girls to give this issue the attention it deserves.
“We are also establishing an independent Armed Forces Commissioner with the power to visit defence sites unannounced, and to investigate and report to parliament any welfare matters affecting service life.”
Amy believes the RMP is not fit for purpose.
“They have higher standards to uphold, yet they don’t uphold them within their own regiment, within their own lives, and then they’re expected to police and uphold those standards throughout the rest of the army,” she says.
“At the end of the day, they know the law and they should be held accountable for what they do.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
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