(USNewsBreak.com) – Construction crews tend to find a lot of interesting items when they’re preparing a site. However, some of those discoveries can cause concern. A crew in Hernando County, Florida, near Brooksville Tampa Bay Regional Airport, recently uncovered a World War II-era bomb that brought things to a sudden halt.
Just before 3 p.m. on Tuesday, February 6, construction crew members working on a site uncovered a 1,000-pound Mark 65 bomb. The discovery prompted an immediate evacuation a half-mile in all directions until authorities and a bomb squad could look it over. Because of its appearance, officials reportedly said it was “so rusted and decayed,” they couldn’t tell if the ordnance was inert (inactive) or live. Authorities advised residents to avoid the area.
World War II-era bomb unearthed at Florida airport https://t.co/r86PmgxBtu
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The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook that the Bomb Team from the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office arrived on site to perform an inspection. Their experts determined the bomb was inert, and then another team from Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base came to retrieve and remove it.
According to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, an M65 bomb is a “general purpose” ordnance “typically used against reinforced targets like dams and concrete or steel railroad bridges.” Planes of the era, the P-47 Thunderbolt and B-26 medium bomber, could carry two and four of the bombs, respectively. As reported by Fox 13, UNC Wilmington associate history professor Dr. Angie Zambek said the old M65 is “an unguided gravity bomb” with no bells or whistles. It simply was “TNT in metal casing” that pilots dropped on targets.
The site where construction crews discovered the bomb was the former Brooksville Army Airfield, where ground crews and pilots from the WWII era trained using B-24 Liberators and B-17 Flying Fortresses, possibly explaining how and why the M65 ended up in the region.
Authorities reopened roads a few hours after the McDill AFB crew dealt with the munition.
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