Wartime Mine discovered in Firth of Forth

The_Historian · #1 (**permalink**) September 25th, 2006, 11:57 PM

Mine found in Firth of Forth
Methil was a convoy marshalling point in wartime, and is now used as a tanker berth. I shudder to think what might have happened...

Martin Bull · #2 (**permalink**) September 26th, 2006, 08:26 AM

There was much excitement last week when an unexploded WWII shell was found by workmen near the new Heathrow Terminal 5 building ( apparently an AA shell ).

Had to chuckle at the newspaper reports of a '9-inch shell' ( that's some AA shell, I thought ).

Then it turned out that that was the length ....

The_Historian · #3 (**permalink**) September 26th, 2006, 09:41 PM

Martin,
I got this mental image of a 9.2 inch naval gun pointed skywards there......... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

T. A. Gardner · #4 (**permalink**) September 27th, 2006, 12:25 AM

Just for giggles, the Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredricksburg Texas has a 16" antiaircraft round on display. So....it is theoretically possible....

Duns Scotus · #5 (**permalink**) October 23rd, 2006, 02:02 AM

Talking of a 9.2 inch shell in the Firth of Forth in 1941, a practice 9.2 shell was mistakenly fired towards the port of Leith from the Inchkeith Island coastal defence battery and richochted of the surface of the water bounced up in the air and crashed through the roof of a house in Salamander Street, Leith, which runs paralell with the Forth. The shell- being a dummy- landed at the foot of the bed of a startled and bemused night shify worker who was in bed.
Methil was also the place where the very last victims of Hitler's U-Boat war were landed on May 8th 1945 their ships the Norwegian ''Sneland'' and the Canadian ''Avondale Park'' both sunk just a few hours before the peace kicke din on May 8th
HRH Prince Philip then Lt. Phil, R.N. who berthed at Methil several times during W.W.2. infuriated the locals by calling Methil ''that bloody awful place''in a post- war Scottish newspaper interview.