Bombs away at Holme beach
VISITORS to Holme beach could have been faced with dramatic scenes like this over the last few days.
The loud boom, black smoke, bright flames and flying sand could easily have caused alarm, but there was nothing to worry about.
In a special visit to West Norfolk, the Royal Navy's Southern Diving Group, based in Portsmouth, has spent the last week finding and safely destroying explosive devices on the beach.
The team is one of three groups responsible for all diving, demolition and explosive ordnance disposal carried out by the Navy within UK waters.
It covers a huge area from Dorset in the south, right up the east coast to the Humber Estuary and is called out to clear any explosive devices found, mainly Second World War bombs, shells and mines.
Lieutenant Nick Percy, officer in charge, said: "Holme is part of our patch and we come up here once a year for a week to dispose of any ordnance we find. We are talking about 50 to 60-year-old ordnance which are no hazard to the public.
"We work around the tides and the beaches are quieter at this time of the year – we've only seen a few people on the beach.
"The team is on-call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and we could have been called up here for any of the items we have found this week. This is just us being proactive.
"Coming up once a year probably saves us around 600-man hours, when you take into account the five-hour journey from Portsmouth. It also gives us the opportunity to play with the equipment in benign circumstances."
Some of the items are found washed up on the beach, but the team also use high-tech metal detectors to systematically scour the area for buried items.
What they dig up is usually encrusted with dirt and sand and each item is thoroughly cleaned so the team knows exactly what it is dealing with.
Around 90 pieces of ordnance were found between Tuesday and Thursday and controlled explosions were carried out each afternoon to clear the items.
A pit was dug on the edge of the sand dunes and the ordnance found that day was laid inside with around seven pounds of plastic explosive. Sand bags were then packed on top to limit the extent of the blast.
While most of the team walked around 400 metres up the beach, two men stayed behind to set the detonator. When everyone was a safe distance away, a remote control was used to detonate the device, which exploded with a flume of black smoke and flames.
All that is left is some blackened sand and some lumps of scrap metal which the team dig up and dispose of before returning the sand dunes to their former state.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for King's Lynn
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: East
