B O M B S a W

SEVENTY YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR II, GERMAN EXPERTS ARE RACING TIME TO DEFUSE TONS OF U.S. ORDNANCE THAT HASN’T EXPLODED—YET “It’s becoming increasingly difficult,” says bomb-squad B O MBS AWAY leader Horst Reinhardt. SHORTLY BEFORE 11 A.M. ON MARCH 15, 1945, the first of 36 B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 493rd Bom- bardment Group of the U.S. Eighth Air Force thundered down the concrete runway of Little Walden airfield in Essex, England, and rose slowly into the air. They headed east, gradually gaining altitude until, assembled in tight box formations at the head of a stream of more than 1,300 heavy bombers, they crossed the Channel coast north of Amsterdam at an altitude of almost five miles. Inside the unpressurized aluminum fuselage of each aircraft, the temperature fell to 40 degrees below by ADAM zero, the air too thin to breathe. They flew on into Ger- HIGGINBOTHAM many, passing Hanover and Magdeburg, the exhaust of each B-17’s four engines condensing into the white con- trails every crewman hated for betraying their position to defenders below. But the Luftwaffe was on its knees; no enemy aircraft engaged the bombers of the 493rd. Around 2:40 p.m., some ten miles northwest of Ber- lin, the city of Oranienburg appeared beneath them, CREDIT TK HERE 56 SMITHSONIAN.COM | January • February 2016 Tail vane shrouded in a mist along the lazy grenades, bullets and mortar and ar- parked outside. Yet, according to Rein- not with percussion fuses, which ex- curves of Havel River, and the sky blos- tillery shells left behind at the end of hardt, Oranienburg is the most danger- plode on impact, but with time-delay HIDDEN MENACE somed with puffs of jet-black smoke the war—fell to police bomb-disposal ous city in Germany. fuses, which both sides used through- Heavy bombs fitted with chemical from anti-aircraft fire. Sitting in the technicians and firefighters, theKamp - out the war in order to extend the ter- time-delay fuses could be set to take up Arming stem nose in the lead plane, the bombardier fmittelbeseitigungsdienst, or KMBD. Between 2:51 and 3:36 p.m. on March ror and chaos caused by aerial attacks. to six days to detonate. In many cases, the stared through his bombsight into the Even now, 70 years later, more than 15, 1945, more than 600 aircraft of the The sophisticated, chemical-based fuse failed, creating a potentially deadly haze far below. As his B-17 approached 2,000 tons of unexploded munitions Eighth Air Force dropped 1,500 tons fuses—designated M124 and M125, underground hazard. the Oder-Havel Canal, he watched as are uncovered on German soil every of high explosives over Oranienburg, depending on the weight of the bomb— the needles of the automatic release year. Before any construction project a cluster of strategic targets including were intended to be used sparingly; mechanism converged. Five bombs begins in Germany, from the extension rail yards that were a hub for troops U.S. Army Air Force guidelines rec- AN-M65 M125 tumbled away into the icy sky. of a home to track-laying by the national headed to the Eastern Front, a Heinkel ommended fitting them in no more 1,000-LB. BOMB LONG-DELAY railroad authority, the ground must be aircraft plant and, straddling the rail than 10 percent of bombs in any given CHEMICAL FUSE Between 1940 and 1945, U.S. and certified as cleared of unexploded ord- yards, two factories run by the chem- attack. But for reasons that have never British air forces dropped 2.7 million nance. Still, last May, some 20,000 peo- ical conglomerate Auergesellschaft. become clear, almost every bomb tons of bombs on Europe, half of that ple were cleared from an area of Cologne Allied target lists had described one of dropped during the March 15 raid on amount on Germany. By the time the while authorities removed a one-ton those facilities as a gas-mask factory, Oranienburg was armed with one. Nazi government surrendered, in May bomb that had been discovered during but by early 1945 U.S. intelligence had Screwed into a bomb’s tail beneath HOW THE FUSE WORKS construction work. In November 2013, learned that Auergesellschaft had be- its stabilizing fins, the fuse contained another 20,000 people in Dortmund gun processing enriched uranium, the a small glass capsule of corrosive ac- As the bomb falls, airflow rotates the THESE BOMB were evacuated while experts defused a raw material for the atomic bomb, in etone mounted above a stack of pa- tail vane, turning the LOADS WERE 4,000-pound “Blockbuster” bomb that Oranienburg. per-thin celluloid disks less than half arming stem. could destroy most of a city block. In Although the March 15 attack was an inch in diameter. The disks held UNLIKE 2011, 45,000 people—the largest evacu- ostensibly aimed at the rail yards, it back a spring-loaded firing pin, cocked ALMOST ANY ation in Germany since World War II— had been personally requested by the behind a detonator. As the bomb fell, were forced to leave their homes when a director of the Manhattan Project, Gen. it tilted nose-down, and a windmill in Rotation of the arming stem drives a OTHERS THE drought revealed a similar device lying Leslie Groves, who was determined to the tail stabilizer began spinning in the metal rod into a cap- on the bed of the Rhine in the middle of keep Nazi nuclear research out of the slipstream, turning a crank that broke sule, breaking the EIGHTH AIR glass and releasing Koblenz. Although the country has been hands of rapidly advancing Russian the glass capsule. The bomb was de- 558 lbs. corrosive acetone. of TNT FORCE at peace for three generations, German troops. Of the 13 Allied air attacks even- signed to hit the ground nose-down, bomb-disposal squads are among the tually launched on the city, this one, so the acetone would drip toward the DROPPED busiest in the world. Eleven bomb tech- the fourth within a year, was by far the disks and begin eating through them. nicians have been killed in Germany heaviest and most destructive. This could take minutes or days, de- Glass OVER capsule Leaking acetone slowly since 2000, including three who died in As one squadron of B-17s followed pending on the concentration of ace- dissolves the celluloid delay disks. The GERMANY a single explosion while trying to defuse another into its run, almost five thou- tone and the number of disks the ar- Nose plug thickness of the disks a 1,000-pound bomb on the site of a pop- sand 500- and 1,000-pound bombs and morers had fitted into the fuse. When determines the delay. DURING Spring ular flea market in Göttingen in 2010. more than 700 incendiaries fell across the last disk weakened and snapped, Celluloid delay disks Early one recent winter morning, the rail yards, the chemical factory and the spring was released, the firing pin Booby trap THE WAR. disintegrate and An anti-withdrawal ball Horst Reinhardt, chief of the Branden- into the residential streets nearby. The struck the priming charge and—finally, release spring. prevents disarming. If it 1945, the industrial infrastructure burg state KMBD, told me that when first explosions started fires around the unexpectedly—the bomb exploded. is removed, the whole of the Third Reich—railheads, arms he started in bomb disposal in 1986, he railroad station; by the time the final Around three o’clock that after- firing-pin assembly Firing pin is re- snaps forward. factories and oil refineries—had been never believed he would still be at it al- B-17s began their attack, smoke from noon, a B-17 from the Eighth Air leased, striking the detonator. crippled, and dozens of cities across most 30 years later. Yet his men discover the burning city was so heavy the bom- Force released a 1,000-pound bomb Detonator Germany had been reduced to moon- more than 500 tons of unexploded mu- bardiers had difficulty seeing where some 20,000 feet above the rail yards. scapes of cinder and ash. nitions every year and defuse an aerial their bombs were falling. But where it Quickly reaching terminal velocity, Under Allied occupation, recon- bomb every two weeks or so. “People cleared, the men of the First Air Divi- it fell toward the southwest, missing struction began almost immediately. simply don’t know that there’s still that sion watched three concentrations of the yards and the chemical plants. It Person to scale Yet as many as 10 percent of the bombs many bombs under the ground,” he said. high explosives fall into houses near fell instead toward the canal and the dropped by Allied aircraft had failed And in one city in his district, the the road over the Lehnitzstrasse canal two bridges connecting Oranienburg The 1,000-lb. to explode, and as East and West Ger- events of 70 years ago have ensured bridge, around a mile southeast of the and the suburb of Lehnitz, closing on a bomb struck the ground at a speed Average depth of unexploded many rose from the ruins of the Re- that unexploded bombs remain a rail station and a few hundred yards wedge of low-lying land framed by the of at least 150 The bomb could end up miles per hour. 1,000-lb. bombs: ich, thousands of tons of unexploded daily menace. The place looks or- from one of the chemical factories.

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