A couple of weeks ago, I attended one of the many, regularly-scheduled detonations of old WWII unexploded ordnance, here on the island of Saipan where I live.
Ordinarily, the Navy comes up here and detonates UXO maybe two to four times per year. It all just depends on how much UXO is turned up during the intervening time period, most often by active construction projects. But right now, there is a project going on, being managed by my office, to actively clear an area that had been used by the US Navy to stockpile ammunition for the invasion of Japan. Since that never happened, and it would have cost a fortune to return the stuff to the US, the Navy just decided to leave the stuff here. They blew some of it up, buried some of it, and generally did a poor job of cleaning up after themselves. So here we are, 65 years later, still turning up tons of the stuff.
This detonation was scheduled to coincide with the EPA Pacific Islands Environmental Conference, last month here in Saipan. Lots of EPA Region 9 folks were in attendance. The acting administrator for Region 9 was given the honor of pressing the button to detonate the shot. It was pretty funny to hear her shouting "fire in the hole! fire in the hole!" before doing it. I heard she was shaking after it was done, from all the excitement. The shockwave was pretty impressive
From what I understand, there was about 2000 lbs of UXO, and something like 500 lbs of C-4 used to detonate it on this shot. I showed up just in time for the detonation, only, and got to watch it from the top of "Suicide Cliff". My wife was there the whole afternoon, and took all the pictures:
Some of the ordnance that has been collected recently. Note the clean 105mm howitzer shell, with paint as fresh as the day it left the munitions factory (it was found still in its shipping tube):
Mortar and bazooka rounds:
American and Japanese grenades (the Japanese grenades are supposedly one of the most unstable UXO types out here):
Stockpile of UXO for next time....
This is called "Boom Cave", where the Navy supposedly just bulldozed several hundred tons of ordnance after the war. We aren't cleaning this site up yet - this was just a stop on the tour.
The Navy EOD team preparing the shot. That is a LOT of C-4:
BA-BOOOM! The explosion created this double-shockwave effect. We were all guessing that it must have been a reflection off the cliff wall. (that's our landfill in the foreground. No! Not my landfill!"):
Ordinarily, the Navy comes up here and detonates UXO maybe two to four times per year. It all just depends on how much UXO is turned up during the intervening time period, most often by active construction projects. But right now, there is a project going on, being managed by my office, to actively clear an area that had been used by the US Navy to stockpile ammunition for the invasion of Japan. Since that never happened, and it would have cost a fortune to return the stuff to the US, the Navy just decided to leave the stuff here. They blew some of it up, buried some of it, and generally did a poor job of cleaning up after themselves. So here we are, 65 years later, still turning up tons of the stuff.
This detonation was scheduled to coincide with the EPA Pacific Islands Environmental Conference, last month here in Saipan. Lots of EPA Region 9 folks were in attendance. The acting administrator for Region 9 was given the honor of pressing the button to detonate the shot. It was pretty funny to hear her shouting "fire in the hole! fire in the hole!" before doing it. I heard she was shaking after it was done, from all the excitement. The shockwave was pretty impressive
From what I understand, there was about 2000 lbs of UXO, and something like 500 lbs of C-4 used to detonate it on this shot. I showed up just in time for the detonation, only, and got to watch it from the top of "Suicide Cliff". My wife was there the whole afternoon, and took all the pictures:
Some of the ordnance that has been collected recently. Note the clean 105mm howitzer shell, with paint as fresh as the day it left the munitions factory (it was found still in its shipping tube):
Mortar and bazooka rounds:
American and Japanese grenades (the Japanese grenades are supposedly one of the most unstable UXO types out here):
Stockpile of UXO for next time....
This is called "Boom Cave", where the Navy supposedly just bulldozed several hundred tons of ordnance after the war. We aren't cleaning this site up yet - this was just a stop on the tour.
The Navy EOD team preparing the shot. That is a LOT of C-4:
BA-BOOOM! The explosion created this double-shockwave effect. We were all guessing that it must have been a reflection off the cliff wall. (that's our landfill in the foreground. No! Not my landfill!"):
