type of bomb- german UXB Southampton 04/03/2010?

Question

A World war 2 UXB found yesterday was described by police as a "big" bomb. When removed and disposed off later by Royal Navy Bomb Disposal it was found to be a 45Kg device. Not very big, I assume this was an incendiary device intended for the old Ordnance Survey building a few yards from where it was found. What kind of bomb was it? Was it incendiary or HE. Into the photo released it looks a bit blue, but this could be ageing. I know a bit about the Blitz in Southampton as I live there, but can get much info on this.

Answer 1

If it's a 45kg/100lb bomb, it was most likely HE. If the Germans wanted to set stuff on fire they could drop clusters of 1kg or 2kg incendiaries.



If this happened in the Blitz, I suspect that it was just one of many bombs dropped en masse on Southampton, where the port facilities would probably have been the main targets but - given the primitive nature of bomb aiming in those days - they were landing all over the place. I wouldn't have thought that the Ordnance Survey would have been a high priority, or indeed, whether they even knew where it was.

Answer 2

It could have been either HE or incendiary. There are a lot of German 50kg bracket bombs



HE http://maic.jmu.edu/ordata/FullImage.asp?Image=images\A\A2049UP088.JPG

Incendiary http://maic.jmu.edu/ordata/FullImage.asp?Image=images\A\A2049UP026.JPG



Without taking measurements etc it's pretty difficult to tell what it was as they are both dark gray or green and the same rough size and shape

Answer 3

Not sure exactly but 45kg bambs were not only incidiary but the were also filled with HE