Live hand grenade...

[Tensaw]

My F-I-L was a WW II Navy veteran and served in the Pacific. Over the years he told his daughters that he had a hand grenade and never touch it if they found it. After he passed away at 93, we were going through his things one Sunday afternoon. My sister-in-law screamed and ran out of the house telling me that she found the grenade in his travel bag.

I carefully touched the bottom and there was no hole. I immediately called the police and reported it. Three police cars showed up. They didn't know what to do so they called the bomb squad. One officer shows up. Yep, it was a live grenade. So he called the disposal squad who were two hours away.

They finally show up, all in their blast gear and disposal trailer. They removed the grenade and searched the house. One asked my wife if she know of anything else dangerous he may have had. She said that he had an old phone in his garage that he instructed them not to touch. Well that sent alarms off with the bomb squad. So they scanned it and they saw something they didn't expect to see in a phone. So they decided to disarm it. After notifying the neighbors that they would hear a blast like a shotgun but not to worry. They blasted it with a device that dispersed water with the charge. Turned out to be an amplifier in the handset, not dangerous.

That grenade was over 70 years old! Squad took it to their range and blew it up. A very interesting Sunday afternoon.

 

[4896worker]

Ok go back and look for the 1911

 

[contender]

Aww heck,, y'all are in Alabama,, huh? Well, around here,, the locals would have just taken that old grenade & gone fishing!

:D :D

Seriously,, good to know nobody got hurt,, and all went well.

 

[Kevin]

Now that would be an interesting afternoon!

 

[turd]

 

[Jeepnik]

A couple of years ago a neighbor found a box in the attic marked dynamite. Took it to the police station. Panic ensued. Bomb squad “sniffed” it and said nothing was inside but blew it up to be safe. Turned out to be old comic books. I wonder where the kid got the box all those years before.

 

[epags]

A couple of years ago a neighbor found a box in the attic marked dynamite. Took it to the police station. Panic ensued. Bomb squad "sniffed" it and said nothing was inside but blew it up to be safe. Turned out to be old comic books. I wonder where the kid got the box all those years before.

And there went $$$$$ in classic comics

 

[MaxMan]

Some people have all the fun.

 

[Tensaw]

Ok go back and look for the 1911

I wish! :)

 

[eveled]

Do grenades become unstable?

 

[jimbo1096]

Not like dynamite can. As long as it has not been subjected to water damage or high heat the grenade should have been stable.

 

[KIR]

I had something even more dangerous...a WWII compass that had been painted with radium and was still radioactive even with the 25 year half lives. I found the compass in the garage in the mid 1950's, where my father had stored an army jacket, food rations (the powdered eggs were horrible, but the cake in a can was still good) and the compass. My mother probably gave away the jacket and stored the compass. When she passed, I retrieved many boxes and buried in one of them was the compass, which I found sometime twixt 2010 and 2015. I looked it up on the 'net' and found out about the women who had painted the markings on the compasses with the radium paint, unknowlngly how dangerous it was. Many, later died from radiation poisoning/cancer. When I read about that, I took the compass down to a local fire station where they had a Haz-Mat unit. They got out a Geiger counter and found that it was not as dangerous as it originally was, they advised, not to carry it around in my pocket for more than a day's time, if I planned on having anymore children. Although my father passed from cancer, it was more from ciggie smoking than anything else. I still have the compass with a warning note. The compass was manufactured by the Waltham Precision Instrument Co. (watches???) and it has the requisite radiation symbol on it, along with Ra 226 on it. If anyone else inheirited anything like that, CAUTION!

 

[blume357]

I probably should not admit it but a few years ago a friend gave me a 'big bullet". Cartridge was probably 2" or so... the case was empty of powder but there still was a primer in it.... the cartridge had a strange shaped screw on the very end and when I showed it to a another friend who was a Navy vet he said it was an anti-aircraft round and had explosives in it. I guess I should have turned it over to the bomb squad but what I did was go out into the middle of Lake Hartwell and drop it in about 200ft of water.

 

[Mobuck]

I bet that got your name on a list somewhere.

 

[Jeepnik]

And there went $$$$$ in classic comics

Very probably.

 

[Johnnu2]

That title is truly "click bait".............

Considering everything, it's amazing he actually made it to 93.

p.s. my thinking is that if he had SONS, instead of daughters, things may have turned out differently ("where is that damn grenade I was saving for a rainy day?").

J.

 

[Sam Summey]

Aww heck,, y'all are in Alabama,, huh? Well, around here,, the locals would have just taken that old grenade & gone fishing!

:D :D

Seriously,, good to know nobody got hurt,, and all went well.

Ty remember the time the guy on Kanuga who owned a car repair had C4, grenades in his shop? I believe he was related to the local National Guard Unit in the past.

 

[DeletedMember275]

Many moons ago in South Korea, a friend and I were out hiking off the beaten path and stumbled across an unexploded grenade. It still had the pin in it, FWIW. We reported this discovery up the chain of command, and eventually (days later), I got to take the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) guys out and show it to them. They identified it as a British grenade from the Korean War. Disposal? One guy wrapped a couple of turns of friction tape around the pin, dropped it in a pocket, and said 'Okay, let's go.' They took it somewhere and added it to the pile of Ordnance that they were going to blow in place (explode), I would imagine. Last I heard of it.

 

[contender]

I do remember the guy on Kanuga & his "Highly dangerous munitions & explosives" as they were described.

What I find amusing is how many soldiers & veterans who were trained & used such stuff,, and yet, once they are civilians,, are suddenly considered extremely dangerous. And how the civilian population seems to go overboard on such things when older & live ordinance is discovered.
Yes,, SOME types of older explosives can become unstable & hazardous. But not all of them.

 

[the_leper_colony]

Not like dynamite can. As long as it has not been subjected to water damage or high heat the grenade should have been stable.

Yeah, I used to work with a mining engineer, who talked about how dynamite can "sweat" - exude droplets of nitroglycerin. The miners did all sorts of 'fun' stuff with the nitro, including rubbing it on the sweat band of some other guy's bump cap (works like swallowing a nitroglycerine tablet, and gives the recipient an incredible headache). 'Fun' with explosives!
:cool:

 

[Watertender]

Aww heck,, y'all are in Alabama,, huh? Well, around here,, the locals would have just taken that old grenade & gone fishing!

Shades of Jerry Clower! In another post a bunch of comic books in a dynamite box got blown up. A friend of my grandpa's was a dynamiter for a quarry and grandpa had literally hundreds of Hercules dynamite boxes at the old farm. When he died they were thrown in a big pile and burned. I bet they would bring a good buck now if we had any left.

 

[the_leper_colony]

... A friend of my grandpa's was a dynamiter for a quarry and grandpa had literally hundreds of Hercules dynamite boxes at the old farm. When he died they were thrown in a big pile and burned. I bet they would bring a good buck now if we had any left.

Yes indeed:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=wooden+dynamite+box&_sop=12
:)

 

[el caminero]

I once knew a teller of tall tales who claimed he picked up a jade tiger in the 'nam, handwaved it at about 15-18 inches long, and one of his buddies made a copy, molded out of c4, and you couldnt tell by looking which was the jade or the c4. Said they both still sit on his fireplace mantle. Also claimed to have a million bucks in snap-on tools in ten 2×4×6 foot rollabouts, but drove a horribly rusted pickup and could only work part-time or soc sec would dock his check. And other lesser stories i have long since forgot.
I have heard the tnt box of comix or baseballcards a few times.

 

[harley08]

Aww heck,, y'all are in Alabama,, huh? Well, around here,, the locals would have just taken that old grenade & gone fishing!

:D :D

Seriously,, good to know nobody got hurt,, and all went well.

My Cousin married a man who was originally from Viet Nam. He told me when there was no food around in Viet Nam, he would take a grenade and throw it in to a pond and then everyone would go get the fish and have a fish dinner!

 

[Acorn]

A bit off topic.
My Dad was shipping home from Korea on a troop ship.
One of the guys in his cabin had a duffle bag that whenever they moved it, it “clanked”.
Dad asked him what was in the bag making the noise.
The replied he had 3 live mortar rounds he was taking home to make lamps out of.

 

[Papalote]

Way back in the 70’s we opened a small gun shop. We went to a powder dealer and bought 50 or 75 pound’s of black powder in one pound cans. Any way when we went to the bunker to get it I noticed the cases of dynamite there. I asked him about it and he said he could sell it to me. I would have to fill out a form saying It was for ag use. Blasting out stumps and large rocks. He had the blasting caps and everything needed. I passed on buying it and that is probably one of the reasons I’m alive today. Lol

 

[Tensaw]

That title is truly "click bait".............

Considering everything, it's amazing he actually made it to 93.

p.s. my thinking is that if he had SONS, instead of daughters, things may have turned out differently ("where is that damn grenade I was saving for a rainy day?").

J.

He was a product of the Great Depression. He saved everything. There was little inspection of what service members were bringing back after WWII.

 

[Jeepnik]

My Cousin married a man who was originally from Viet Nam. He told me when there was no food around in Viet Nam, he would take a grenade and throw it in to a pond and then everyone would go get the fish and have a fish dinner!

I have (or had, have to look for it) field manual that suggests using a grenade to supply fish for downed aircraft survivors. My thinking was if my aircraft was down anywhere I would have access and to a grenade, would keep it for more serious use.

 

[Sturgis270]

I was a caretaker for years of a neighboring families country farm house. Family had moved off the farm and rented the land out. While I was serving as Chief of the local Fire Department they asked that we take down the old buildings. The old neighbor had come home from the service and worked highway construction for several years in S.W. Wisconsin. This box was full of old magazines.

 

[Hvymax]

I would have pulled the pin and tossed it in the ravine as we gave Dad a proper 21 gun salute.