Saturday 14 April 2012


Sheerness Danger – a four man team from the Royal Navy’s Southern Diving Unit 2 has blown up a German mine found in the Thames Estuary.   The German GC mines contained some 1,500lb of high explosive and were usually dropped by parachute during the war.      This mine was caught in the nets of a fishing vessel, and then placed on the sea bed off Sheerness awaiting the Royal Navy's bomb disposal experts.     In an operation coordinated with Kent police, HM Coastguard and Medway Port Control the divers brought the mine to the surface using a mine lifting air bag and towed by a rigid inflatable boat to a location some six miles east of Sheerness and two miles off Warden Point, (Isle of Sheppey) with a one mile safety zone established.     A first attempt to destroy the mine was thwarted when the countermining charge misfired, but the team succeeded at the second attempt.   The previous week, divers from the same unit recovered part of a German V2 rocket at Harwich (Essex), and was swiftly despatched to examine another piece of ordnance – thought to be a Second World War German bomb – some three miles off Margate.     In many respects for the Diving Teams the Second World War goes on!

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