Bomb found after explosive ordnance reconnaissance (Phase A)

Even more than 70 years after the end of the war, there are still numerous underground explosive ordnance in the Federal Republic of Germany. These pose a considerable risk to public safety (in particular life and health, freedom, property of individuals) or public order in the event of ground interventions. Just how topical the problem is was recently demonstrated once again in the aftermath of an explosive ordnance preinvestigation project in the Nienburg area at the Hanover site.

As part of the evaluation of historical aerial photographs from the Second World War, numerous explosive bomb craters were recorded within and in the immediate vicinity of the project area. The corresponding images were taken at the time by the Allied air forces for reconnaissance purposes. They were primarily used to identify potential targets for attack and to monitor the success of bombing raids.
In addition to the clearly visible bomb craters, our experienced experts also identified a single suspected unexploded bomb during the digital stereoscopic aerial image analysis.

In addition to the aerial photographs, numerous written sources (including primary sources of the Allied forces with cargo lists etc.) were analysed in the course of the project. On this basis, a chronicle of the air raids was compiled for the relevant location. By comparing the available aerial photographs with the attack data, it was possible to deduce that the wartime effects visible in the aerial photograph can be traced back to an attack on the nearby Schäferhof tank farm on 5 August 1944. During this attack, 175 aircraft of the 8th USAAF dropped a total bomb load of approx. 600 tonnes.

As a result of the assessment, it was recommended that the relevant suspected areas be investigated by means of geophysical soundings prior to any ground interventions. As part of this probing work, a 500 kg unexploded bomb was detected at a depth of around 2 metres on 21 December 2022 and subsequently recovered. The bomb was fitted with a conventional detonator, which was removed by specialists from the Lower Saxony Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service.