Originally Posted by
good egg
Will be interesting to see what is discovered during the London City airport expansion.
A few years back it was estimated from analysis of bombing logs that there may be around 200 unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the docklands area...albeit they’ve discovered a few during regeneration of the area...
We live within sight of LCY. Some years ago, digging in the garden, I found what was identified as a .303 aircraft machine gun bullet.
The gasworks NE of the east end of the LCY runway has been there since before 1939. One of the gasometers was not long ago completely drained down (they sit over water) for the first time. At the bottom there was a German high explosive bomb. Records showed there had been a hole made in the top of the gasometer, the gas had escaped, but a search at the time did not find it so it was patched up.
Proposals for new bridge piers across the Thames in Central London anywhere near where an Underground line passes underneath are banned in case the construction sets one off, because sweeping even nowadays is not sufficiently reliable and breaching the tube tunnels would be catastrophic. Actually I'm not aware of any WW2 bomb that has actually gone off since.
I see the map shows separately HE bombs (freefall) and parachute mines. Apart from the delivery method, what was the difference ?