Unexploded WW2 shell used as a flower vase

[Still Waters]

A woman was shocked to discover that the flower vase she had used for 30 years was an unexploded bombshell.

Kathryn Rawlins, 45, from Atherstone, Warwickshire, had found the shell when she was 15 years old buried in the playing fields at her school.

Assuming that it safe, and thinking it would make a nice vase, she had kept it filled with her favourite flowers for more than three decades - until she saw a documentary featuring World War One bombs in Coventry - and feared her vase may have actually been an unexploded shell.

http://www.telegraph...-WW2-shell.html

[freetoroam]

Can not see how it could be so dangerous if she managed to dig it out, cart it home, take the top off it, put the top back on it and stick flowers in it and it still did not explode?

What does it take to get this thing to go off!!!!

[Imaginarynumber1]

What an explosive story

[ROGER]

Can not see how it could be so dangerous if she managed to dig it out, cart it home, take the top off it, put the top back on it and stick flowers in it and it still did not explode?

What does it take to get this thing to go off!!!!

I dont know . the web show some of them packed quite a punch.

http://cartridgecollectors.org/?page=introduction-to-artillery-shells-and-shell-casings

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

Can not see how it could be so dangerous if she managed to dig it out, cart it home, take the top off it, put the top back on it and stick flowers in it and it still did not explode?

What does it take to get this thing to go off!!!!

It takes a lot to get a shell to explode if its detonator doesn't work. Afterall those shells were designed to survive being shot out of a cannon without exploding.

Just to nitpick, it is not a bomb shell. Bomb shells have fins for stability, not rifling grooves. It is probably a 3 inch anti aircraft shell.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Noteverythingisaconspiracy

[Infernal Gnu]

Amazing symbolic combination there--- an object of violence used to hold delicate flowers.

[Harry_Dresden]

I had no idea that the Germans bombed the UK in WW1 using zeppelins. You learn something new every day...

[ShadowSot]

The Japanese had some balloon bombs that reached the US as well. Werent very effective, though.

[Black Monk]

I had no idea that the Germans bombed the UK in WW1 using zeppelins. You learn something new every day...

The zeppelin raids on Britain started in 1915 when they targeted areas along the east coast. The raids started on the night of 19th/20th January 1915. Two Zeppelins targeted Humberside but were diverted by strong winds, and dropped their bombs on the Norfolk towns of Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn and the surrounding villages. Four people were killed and 16 injured. They were amongst the first places in history to be bombed from the air. The Kaiser initially forbade attacks on London, fearing that his relatives in the British royal family would be injured.

My hometown, Bolton, was also a victim of the zeppelin raids. On the night of 26th September 1916, L21, a zeppelin commanded by Oberleutnant Kurt Frankenburg of the Imperial German Navy, dropped twenty-one bombs on the town, five of them on the working class area of Kirk Street, killing thirteen residents and destroying six houses. Further attacks followed on other parts of the town, including three incendaries dropped close to the Town Hall.

Airships made about 51 bombing raids on England during the war. These killed 557 and injured another 1,358 people. More than 5,000 bombs were dropped on towns across Britain, causing £1.5 million in damage. 84 airships took part, of which 30 were lost, either shot down or lost in accidents^. Aeroplanes carried out 27 raids, dropping 246,774 lb (111,935 kg) of bombs for the loss of 62 aircraft, resulting in 835 deaths, 1,972 injured and £1,418,272 of material damage.

Edited October 7, 2015 by Black Monk

[Immune to Bieberfever]

Thanks Black monk untill now i was under the impression that Guernica in 1936 was the first airbombing against civilians!

[Shayde]

This case isn't a one off. There was a tale from a few years back - can't recall exactly mind - that involved a blacksmith and his nephew. The Blacksmith had sitting on a shelf for years the top end of a tank shell. Anyway, nephew comes visiting, just after the lad had went into the army. At this point, the lad had transferred into the Royal Logistics Corp. So lad visits uncle, sees the old shell, and releases thanks to his new training that the shell is highly likely to still be live. So, a quick call is made, the lad's colleagues turn up, and it was confirmed that indeed the uncle's prize souvenir was into a viable bit of ordinance! To make matters more odd, the shell had been stuck in the smithy for years near to the furnace used by the uncle...

[Galactic Goatman]

I used to have an old artillery shell as a decorative piece. Granted it wasn't an active bomb, but still.