Mookster
A couple of things I should have said in my original post, The phrase 'covered up for moral purposes' is a phrase added by modern historians/writers who find incidents like this were not reported widely at the time. Whilst this excuse appears logical if the explosion was caused by an Allied munition, if the deaths were cause by a delay fused or ****y trapped German device the lack of reports were for a much more important reason. Such munitions were designed to kill and maim long after they were dropped or laid. If the 1942 explosion was cause by such a German mine, then the device was unfortunately working as it should, the Authorities kept quiet in the hope that the Germans would think the new munitions were not working and that they would give up deploying them.
This is certainly what happened in the case of the German Butterfly Bomb - the first cluster anti-personnel bomb ever made. They were dropped on the UK alongside the normal German bomb load mix with the specific intention of killing the rescuers and workmen clearing the rubble. First dropped on Ipswich in 1940, two very brave bomb disposal personnel manage to screw the fusing rods back into the fuses on some examples and this allowed the reverse engineering of the devices. It was impossible to defuse these nasty weapons and they had to be exploded in situ, the authorities kept very quiet about them so as not to encourage their use. This seems to have worked as far as the UK was concerned as the only major use after 1940 seems to be the 1943 raid on Cleethorpes and Grimsby.
That these Butterfly Bombs were unpredictable was brought into focus long after the war - in 1956 an experienced RAF Officer was examining one of these devices at the Upminster Bomb Cemetary when it detonated. He died in hospital the same day.
I do wonder if it was one of these nasty little buggers or the larger version of the same that killed your relative - the Pioneer Corps were responsible for clearing bomb damage in sensitive military establishments etc., so the reason for the lecture / talk is perfectly understandable.
For those interested the Wiki entry on the Butterfly Bomb is a good initial source of information
A couple of things I should have said in my original post, The phrase 'covered up for moral purposes' is a phrase added by modern historians/writers who find incidents like this were not reported widely at the time. Whilst this excuse appears logical if the explosion was caused by an Allied munition, if the deaths were cause by a delay fused or ****y trapped German device the lack of reports were for a much more important reason. Such munitions were designed to kill and maim long after they were dropped or laid. If the 1942 explosion was cause by such a German mine, then the device was unfortunately working as it should, the Authorities kept quiet in the hope that the Germans would think the new munitions were not working and that they would give up deploying them.
This is certainly what happened in the case of the German Butterfly Bomb - the first cluster anti-personnel bomb ever made. They were dropped on the UK alongside the normal German bomb load mix with the specific intention of killing the rescuers and workmen clearing the rubble. First dropped on Ipswich in 1940, two very brave bomb disposal personnel manage to screw the fusing rods back into the fuses on some examples and this allowed the reverse engineering of the devices. It was impossible to defuse these nasty weapons and they had to be exploded in situ, the authorities kept very quiet about them so as not to encourage their use. This seems to have worked as far as the UK was concerned as the only major use after 1940 seems to be the 1943 raid on Cleethorpes and Grimsby.
That these Butterfly Bombs were unpredictable was brought into focus long after the war - in 1956 an experienced RAF Officer was examining one of these devices at the Upminster Bomb Cemetary when it detonated. He died in hospital the same day.
I do wonder if it was one of these nasty little buggers or the larger version of the same that killed your relative - the Pioneer Corps were responsible for clearing bomb damage in sensitive military establishments etc., so the reason for the lecture / talk is perfectly understandable.
For those interested the Wiki entry on the Butterfly Bomb is a good initial source of information
