Student helps Army dig up WWII relics
By GLENN TANNER •
The Paris Post-Intelligencer • January 14, 2008
PARIS, Tenn. (AP) _ More than 60 years ago, American bombers were roaring across the skies of West Tennessee as their crews trained to fight the war in Europe.
Today, a Henry County man is helping the military locate and safely dispose of what could be about 250 unexploded practice bombs left behind after those training missions.
For more than a year, Mike Altman of Paris has been helping the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to locate the practice bombs left behind by crews operating out of a training base in Lauderdale County.
The 10-man crews took off from an airfield in Halls, known then as the Dyersburg Army Air Base B-17 Training Facility, and now the home of the Veterans' Museum, a collection of artifacts from both World Wars.
With a wingspan of more than 100 feet from tip to tip, the bombers bristled with machine gun ports, and were known by their crews as "Flying Fortresses."
Altman has a more than casual familiarity with the planes, since his father and two uncles were each part of B-17 crews during World War II.
He also has authored several papers on World War II aircraft, including one on the B-17, as part of his studies as a history major at Murray State University in Kentucky.
"You're looking at a time frame from 1942 to 1945," Altman said. "They actually taught them how to fly the B-17 bombers there, and they taught them how to use the super-secret Norden bombsight."
Essentially a mechanical computer, the Norden sight could compensate for airspeed and trajectory, take control of the aircraft and automatically drop the bombs when the aircraft was over the target.
According to information from Altman and the museum, the crews practiced high-altitude bombing missions over three ranges in West Tennessee.
"One (in Lake County) is adjacent to and runs up to the Mississippi (River)," Altman said. "The other two are close to Dyersburg and close to Covington."
The Army Air Corps was drawn to train in West Tennessee for a couple of reasons.
"The ground weather closely mirrored what it was in England at that time," Altman said. "Plus, it was an out-of-the-way, remote place."
Altman said each bomb was approximately 36 inches in length, weighing 100 pounds.
A fully loaded 100-pound bomb, like the ones the crews would later drop at German military and industrial targets, could destroy a building the size of The Post-Intelligencer's offices.
On the other hand, the practice bombs were mostly filled with sand, which exploded upward on impact to show where hits had been made.
With just enough explosive to blow the sand charge upward, the practice rounds aren't nearly as dangerous as a live bomb, but can still prove lethal.
"There's not that much gunpowder, but there would be enough in there that if you were standing on it, it would explode and it would kill you," Altman said.
Altman said he's been searching for the bombs on and off for the past year as a civilian adviser for the Army Corps of Engineers.
He said he became involved after being contacted by former college classmates.
Altman said he looks for the bombs by walking the old bombing ranges.
"If there are disturbances in the ground, there's a good indication that that was a carpet bombing run there," he said. "The fact that there may be no foliage in that area may mean that the water may be tainted there (from the bomb)."
Altman is learning some things from the patterns of the bombing he observes.
For example, although the Norden sight was for precision bombing, he thinks many of the tactics practiced by crews at Dyersburg were carpet, or saturation, bombing.
"It looks like it was carpet bombing techniques used in the area, but we haven't been able to prove or disprove that yet," he said.
And while Altman stressed there are no practice bombs in Henry County, he advises caution to anyone who finds a practice round at one of the known locations starting with never trying to move the bomb themselves.
"If you were to find a bomb, let the police come out and mark it," he advised. "Try not to touch it. They will notify the Corps of Engineers."
Altman said the corps comes in, usually at night, and safely destroys the bomb.
"They don't blow them up, they melt them." he said. "They've got a procedure that they use."
Altman said it may take years to find what is thought to be around 250 unexploded practice bombs.
"It's so hard right now because there's so few people who have experience in this," he said. "I guess that's good for me I guess that's why people keep calling."
Student helps Army dig up WWII relics | www.tennessean.com |
Student helps Army dig up WWII relics
For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman. 
