Peace Time: Old Naval Mines Never Die

Archives

July 8, 2007: A British mine-sweeper, the HMS Penzance was out training last month, near an oil terminal in the Shetland islands. Searching the sea bottom with its special sonar, what should it discover but a World War II era mine, not 700 meters from the terminal. It was a 500 pound contact mine, covered in barnacles. An explosive charge was placed near the mine, and detonated. There was not much of a secondary explosion, indicating that most of the explosives in the mine had deteriorated. Many World War I and II naval mines were loaded with cheap explosives, because of wartime shortages.

Several hundred thousand mines were laid in the North Sea during the two World Wars. Most were swept and destroyed after the wars, but hundreds are still unaccounted for. For about a decade after each war, there were incidents of these mines washing ashore, or being spotted at sea. Now, these old mines have largely settled on the bottom, often too far down to be a danger to anyone. But those that came to rest in shallow water, at least provide practice for mine hunting boats.

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close