11 ms·
American WWII bomb explodes at Japanese airport, causing large crater in taxiway
- SoftTalker 2y agoI'm always a little surprised to realize that the explosives are chemically stable enough to still explode nearly 100 years later.
- smiley1437 2y agoOver time, the explosive chemicals in the both the detonator and the main charge can frequently get MORE sensitive to disturbance, which is kind of perverse. That's why if you ever come across any old UXO (UneXploded Ordnance) you should call the bomb squad and never touch it
- bell-cot 2y agoThis. Though I would not call explosives "chemically stable", nor their degrading with time "perverse". They are capable of energetically exploding because they are not chemically stable. And "shelf-stable and safe for many decades" is never a priority feature for high-volume wartime production of explosives.
- genocidicbunny 2y ago> And "shelf-stable and safe for many decades" is never a priority feature for high-volume wartime production of explosives. Maybe not on the order of decades, but 'shelf-stable and safe for handling' is a definite concern in any ordnance production. Last thing you want is your whole ammo stockpile blowing up because a tired soldier set an artillery shell down a little too hard. Many of the explosives used are actually fairly stable chemically and require either severe degradation to become unstable, or an external force applied to them that is sufficient to trigger their explosive effects. C4, as long as it hasn't been sitting around too long, is pretty safe to light on fire. And yet it's one of the more energetic commonly used explosives out there.
- zmgsabst 2y agoAlso, an artillery round in particular can’t go off from the shock of being thrown by an explosive right next to it. Or you kill yourself, when your round detonates in the gun.
- tetha 2y agoMh, chemical stability is usually meant in a more delicate way. There are explosives that need other explosives to set them off. If someone gave you a pound of C4 and then evacuated your neighbors, you would probably need to do some research to set it off. With the amount of explosives moved around in the world wars, easy storage and fairly safe logistics even by minimally trained soldiers are very much a priority. On the flipside, there are explosives which won't let you finish a sneeze in the same room. Or which decompose into the latter. You wouldn't want to move thousands of tons of these around.
- shmeeed 2y agoRe: your last paragraph called to my mind the great french thriller "The Wages of Fear" from 1953, in which two trucks loaded with nitroglycerin need to cross rough terrain, and the viewer finds himself holding his breath quite a lot...
- genocidicbunny 2y agoAlso remade as a pretty good movie in 1977 -- Sorcerer. Had a great soundtrack by Tangerine Dream as well.
- slyall 2y ago> And "shelf-stable and safe for many decades" is never a priority feature for high-volume wartime production of explosives. The problem is that those minitions do get used many years later. Often because after a war ends there is a huge surplus of munitions you want to save till the next war. Russia is using decade-old shells in Ukraine for instance. The USS Forrestal fire was partially caused by 14 year old bombs that had been improperly stored. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire
- retrac 2y agoEven if it's inert many explosives decompose into toxic compounds. Other explosives use mercury compounds for detonators, which at the worst can make the soil itself toxic to the touch. There are also gas shells, some of which had arsenic. Areas affected in that way will be poisonous for a very long time.
- ckozlowski 2y agoThere was a great discussion I read here a year ago from a chemist who went into the details on why this occurs. I'll link the comment. Really great read. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34755399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34755399
- smiley1437 2y agothanks for the link! A great read as promised
- jowdones 2y agoLots of unexploded ordnance. Reminds me of the story of the guy who tried to weld an artillery shell (and blew up), he was sure it's safe coze his father used it for 40 years as a gardening tool: https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/eveniment/accident-stupid-a-murit-dupa-ce-a-incercat-sa-sudeze-un-proiectil.html https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/eveniment/accident-stupid-a-mu...
- jdietrich 2y agoHundreds of tonnes of unexploded ordnance from the First World War are collected every year in Belgium and Northern France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_harvest
- julienchastang 2y ago> Since 1946, approximately 630 French ordnance disposal workers have died handling unexploded munitions. Incredible.
- kibwen 2y agoIt would be interesting to see a graph over time, because presumably the vast majority of those happened in the immediate years following the war. That Wikipedia link mentions two deaths in 2014, which may be the most recent fatalities.
- svieira 2y agoI can recommend a lovely short video in French documenting the work that I recently watched: Meet the team still cleaning up after World War I | Zone Rouge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-Ncob1gDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-Ncob1gDk)
- tetha 2y agoI still have some german documentary about a man defusing these things burned into my head. He was asked why he wasn't wearing any safety equipment while working on these large bombs. Well for smaller amounts of explosive chemicals, they'd wear the blast suit, because it could save them and might keep them a bit presentable otherwise. That'd be nice for the family. If the bomb is several times heavier than you are though, they'd just do the job right and go home after - and no one needs safety equipment on a job done right.
- xenadu02 2y agoMore specifically such large bombs will kill you with the pressure wave if nothing else. They are not survivable. Either you diffuse them successfully or you die.
- SapporoChris 2y ago“We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like.” ― Alfred Hitchcock
- arduanika 2y agoThat is an excellent quote, thanks for sharing it. But I'm not sure why he told us the exact date of detonation. Wasn't he supposed to be the master of suspense?
- jandrese 2y agoHe didn't tell you the location, that's the suspense.
- rincebrain 2y agoThe date of intended detonation is very much not going to be the actual date anything explodes with how stable our bomb chemistry is over long intervals.
- adrianmonk 2y agoFor the joke to work, the listener needs to picture a highly advanced, evolved civilization far in the future. Saying a big number gives the imagination a concrete starting point. Like a writing prompt. Plus, while Hitchcock is the master of suspense, he is also known for comedy: https://medium.com/life-and-the-performing-arts/humor-hitchcocks-secret-weapon-94a0bde4e5e6 https://medium.com/life-and-the-performing-arts/humor-hitchc...
- booleandilemma 2y agoWell the year 3000 is 365 days long, so plenty of room for suspense.
- 2y ago
- tonymet 2y agoSimilar to software, sometimes it’s safer to leave the bombs buried to avoid accidental detonation from attempted removal.
- timr 2y agoThis bomb was buried. Nobody knew it was there...which is sort of crazy, considering that they built a runway over it and it didn't detonate until now.
- kjs3 2y agoSome types of explosives (e.g. detonators) become more unstable with age. See for example: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231344 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231344
- MichaelNolan 2y agoDo they (Japan, Germany) ever purposely leave unexploded ordnance in place? I see a news story about once a year about them finding a bomb, and in every case they have their bomb squad disarm and remove it. I’ve never heard of them knowingly leaving a bomb in place.
- thyristan 2y agoI know of some remote¹ forest in Germany that used to be a training area. It is so bullet- and bomb-riddled that they just decided clearing it wasn't worth it, put a fence around it and declared it off-limits. ¹ in Germany, "remote" means something like "2km from the next settlement".
- SoftTalker 2y agoSame in some parts of France, from WW-I bombs that are still there.
- wkat4242 2y ago
- ortusdux 2y agoLink to the video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9GDn-cl1og https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9GDn-cl1og
- globalise83 2y agoThat was pretty impressive! Thanks for finding it.
- pimlottc 2y agoIt's funny how often these videos are from a camera pointed at a monitor, instead of a direct digital copy. I assume extracting the actual file is logistically tricky due to both technical and bureaucratic reasons.
- denysvitali 2y agoThis assumes that it's available in digital form. Knowing Japan, there is a chance this is an analog CCTV
- Wowfunhappy 2y agoSurely it would still be cleaner to digitize the tape (?) than to point a camera at the screen, wouldn't it?
- pistoleer 2y agoThis was faster
- accrual 2y agoYeah, similar for interesting events caught on security cameras. I assume these videos tend to come from the operator who only has access to view but not to export. Plus, they'd need to get the export into a phone-native format for upload onto social media, so the uploader may need admin access, familiarity with formats and/or ffmpeg, and a way to transfer to a phone or personal PC.
- bluetidepro 2y agoSlightly off topic but when I read the headline, I assumed "large crater" would be much more large than you see in the picture. The article reports "7 meters (23 feet) in diameter and 1 meter (3 feet) deep." For a bomb that doesn't seem that "large." Luckily no one was hurt or nearby when it went off.
- bradgessler 2y agoAgreed, seems very very small for 5000lb of explosives. Guessing it didn't reach its full yield given that its been buried under ground for decades.
- lupusreal 2y agoIf the crater is only 1 meter deep then the bomb was likely more shallow than that (although some of the ejected dirt will fall back into the crater). So much of the bomb's energy went into the atmosphere.
- Oarch 2y agoArticle says 500lb.
- aidenn0 2y ago~270lbs of explosives in a US 500lb bomb.
- sholladay 2y agoIt would have done considerably more damage if it had gone off when and where it was intended. The runway is designed to have enormous, heavy planes takeoff and land on it routinely, it undoubtedly absorbed a lot of the bomb’s energy. Not to mention the earth underneath it.
- bell-cot 2y ago> It would have done... Real WWII historians could probably determine the date on which the bomb was dropped, its intended target, etc., etc. But with the condition that most of Japan was in, later in WWII - I'm thinking that "gone off where & when intended" would probably have had little effect. Most of the country was burned-out rubble.
- ImJamal 2y ago> Officials said an investigation by the Self-Defense Forces and police confirmed that the explosion was caused by a 500-pound US bomb The article was a bit lacking. How do they know that it was a 500 pound bomb from WW2? Is it the shrapnel or is there a different way to determine it?
- jazzyjackson 2y agoLikely because no one's dropped bombs on Japan since then
- ImJamal 2y agoSomebody could have planted a bomb (if it was actually a WW2 bomb that doesn't seem likely) or it could have fallen off a plane before (not sure if there 500 pound bombs before the war?) or after the war.
- kayodelycaon 2y agoThat absolutely can be a WWII bomb. They are still finding unexploded artillery shells from the first world war in France! Let me repeat that, hundred-year-old shells are still underground, intact, and the explosives in them are just as powerful as when they were manufactured. Chemicals in fuse can slowly combine until they detonate. The odds of someone planting more explosives in a field potentially containing a dozen WWII bombs from multiple attacks are remote.
- ImJamal 2y agoYou are not addressing anything of my question. I don't care if 99.9999999% of bombs that go off are from WW2. Not every bomb that goes off is from WW2. How did they determine if this bomb was actually from WW2? Is it just an assumption or did they check something? The article did not clarify that point and just stated it as a fact.
- 2y ago
- bmitc 2y agoWhen I read the headline, I was wondering why in the world a bomb was being taxied on a runway, like on a cargo plane. However, now I'm wondering how a bomb wasn't discovered when the airport was built. From the video posted elsewhere in the comments, it looks like the bomb was buried under the runway. Are there no ground surveys done with radar before building a plane runway?
- opencl 2y agoThe airport was built in 1943.
- bmitc 2y agoAh, I guess that makes sense. According to a quick search, it seems ground-penetrating radar didn't reach common use until the 70s.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoYou can assume the entire airfield is about to be swept for more bombs.
- bityard 2y agoI haven't fact-checked anything about this, but this bomb (and its friends) were probably dropped here because it was an active military airport during WW2 and the US was desperate to put a dent in Japan's air power. After the war, thorough ordinance disposal was very likely a secondary consideration rebuilding the country. (And its runways.)
- jrnichols 2y agoWe have a bunch of those here in our area still from a train accident in 1973. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Roseville_Yard_Disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Roseville_Yard_Disaster It's believed that many of them are still buried and likely under homes & businesses. We just assisted detonating one of the mark 81s last week.
- ccorcos 2y agoWhoa, that’s really close to where I live. I’m in Roseville right now, actually. Can you tell me more? Where was this mark 81 last week? Do you work at McClellan?
- dboreham 2y agohttps://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/possible-51-year-old-vietnam-war-bomb-found-in-antelope/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/possible-51-year-old...
- creeble 2y agoGood short video about the Roseville yard explosion by Fascinating Horror: https://youtu.be/fyzw-1yuUB0 https://youtu.be/fyzw-1yuUB0
- AStonesThrow 2y agoHeadline says "taxiway" and the crater is located on the edge, but runway 9/27 markings are very close by. Aircraft should not be at speed, departing or landing on a taxiway. "Taxi" is how they go between gate and runway at low speed.
- rainsford 2y agoThe red box runway markings are actually warning you that you're approaching the runway 09-27 and are on the taxiway side of the taxiway/runway demarcation line (the one that's two solid lines and two dashed lines). You can also tell which side is which by the demarcation line, since the dashed lines are on the runway side and the solid lines are on the taxiway side. So technically the bomb actually exploded on the runway, although on a portion of the "runway" where aircraft would be transitioning to or from a taxiway and traveling slowly as you said. Also it's very close to the edge on a part aircraft shouldn't normally roll directly over with their tires, but it certainly could have been under a wing.
- hilux 2y agoIt's not the same thing at all, but if you enjoy reading about "abandoned military hardware," you'll love this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Belgium_MiG-23_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Belgium_MiG-23_crash
- Der_Einzige 2y agoI have an irrational fear of dying from an airplane crashing into me. It doesn't help that friends of friends of mine were victims in this from just a few weeks ago: https://www.opb.org/article/2024/09/03/fairview-plane-crash-troutdale-portland-oregon-airplane/ https://www.opb.org/article/2024/09/03/fairview-plane-crash-...
- karlzt 2y ago>> I have an irrational fear of dying from an airplane crashing into me. I don't, but sometimes I have dreams like that, whether it's an aeroplane or a helicopter or whatever.
- ccozan 2y agoI live near am airfield and just recently I asked my assurance company if they would assure agains airplane crash which they indeed do! But alas, if it crashes while inside, it does not really matter...
- rightbyte 2y agoI think I know the feeling. I had these nightmares as a kid about wolfes or 'cartoon heatseeking missiles' hunting me, like it was the same nightmare/feeling.
- jackdh 2y agoHa, that is definitely not type of abandoned that I was expecting. That poor chap who was killed, what an incredibly unlucky event for him.
- 2y ago
- partiallypro 2y agoThe first time I ever went to Munich there was a bomb that had been discovered from WW2 under one of the buildings during a renovation and they had to do a controlled detonation. Despite their efforts there was visible damage everywhere, broken glass, etc. I feel terrible for Ukraine, Gaza and others, have unexploded ordinances that (probably more so in Ukraine than Gaza, just given scale/age of munitions) will be there for generations. https://www.munichre.com/en/insights/infrastructure/munich-bomb-insurers-settle-claims.html https://www.munichre.com/en/insights/infrastructure/munich-b...
- bluGill 2y agoModern bombs tend to be more reliable about exploding when we want them to, and we now have some bombs that if they don't explode will degrade. So not quite as bad as you would guess. However still going to be a big problem for decades.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ttepasse 2y agoThat must have been this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O0lO_j6Ngc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O0lO_j6Ngc In a way I think Ukraine has a somewhat better handle on big unexploded munitions from ballistic or cruise missiles and drones: They have an active air defense and the big stuff can be followed on radar - so they know the possible point of impact and EOD teams know where to look. I worry more about unexploded cluster munitions and small mines. Some of the latter look like something I'd definitely had picked up as a child just for curiosity.
- 1317 2y agoalready back open - https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20241002_20/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20241002_20/
- sib 2y agoWhich was also the common story when WWII Pacific theater airfields were cratered by bombing. It took very little time to re-open.
- cynicalpeace 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- onemoresoop 2y agoIts surprising to me that bombs explode after being buried for such a long time. The chemicals remain contained but I imagined the fuse would rust away.
- indrora 2y agoThe irony here is that nuclear weapons are actually safer to have lying around than conventional weapons; The amount of work that it takes to actually arm and activate a warhead is higher and you get basically one chance to get it right or it locks you out and self-defeats. For anyone who is curious, there's a wonderful short video on PALs and how they isolate a nuclear warhead from the outside world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1LPmAF2eNA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1LPmAF2eNA
- fluoridation 2y agoEveryone knows about PALs. You have to warm them up in the steel mill and then cool them down in the freezer room.
- talldayo 2y agoHowever, that does not stop adversaries with physical access from dismantling the warhead and extracting the enriched fissile material. In a practical sense, easily obtained nuclear weapons are probably more dangerous than TNT UXO, or at least possess the potential to be used for greater harm.
- babypuncher 2y agoNukes are also not very stable long-term Their fissile payload is radioactive after all, and as it decays it becomes harder and harder to achieve prompt criticality.
- fluoridation 2y agoThey're more stable in the sense that it takes active effort to move them to the exploded state, while chemical explosives need active efforts to keep them unexploded.
- louthy 2y agoLondon fairly regularly has WWII unexploded bombs to deal with. When you look at all the bombs dropped [1] on the city, it's hardly surprising! [1] http://bombsight.org/#13/51.5008/-0.0536 http://bombsight.org/#13/51.5008/-0.0536
- Dansvidania 2y agothis is mind-boggling. I struggle to imagine how the city must have looked.
- hedgehog 2y agoThere are a lot of photos, really bad. You'd think people would have learned but in current events Gaza has had 4x the ordnance dropped on it (in about 1/5 the land area). Edit: The easiest way I found to see photos and video is in Getty's archive: https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?family=editorial&phrase=london%20blitz&recommendconfig=none&sort=best https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?family=editorial&...
- PrussianCitizen 2y ago[flagged]
- pmalynin 2y agoYou don’t have to struggle. There are plenty of videos and photos of that time that you can check out. Also if you visit London you can go around and see a bunch of buildings they haven’t rebuilt and just left them in semi destroyed state as monuments
- Dansvidania 2y agoI have been in London a few times but never noticed.
- mattlondon 2y agoWhat? Where are these semi-destroyed buildings left as monuments? I am not aware of any in London.
- karlzt 2y agoIn Germany, unexploded bombs are discovered on a weekly basis.
- Clubber 2y agoVerdun, France too, though I don't think they build an airstrip on top of one.
- rtkwe 2y agoOdds are the airport is on the same land an old Imperial Japanese airfield was on.
- JoeAltmaier 2y agoYes the article supports that.
- sjm 2y agoIn Cambodia too, where the US dropped 540,000 tons of bombs during the Vietnam war.
- junga 2y agoWhen I was in elementary school in Lower Saxony I „often" couldn't go home after school because there was some defusion of WW2 bombs in my area going on. „Often“ means something like 10 times in 4 years. Was quite used to this and didn't think much about it back then. Now that I have kids myself I would be glad to know that they won't have to deal with the fails of my generation. But the older I get, the less confident I am.
- kimixa 2y agoSame in the UK. I'd hope we as a species would learn from things like that, but I fear we'll be seeing the same thing centuries from now even if the details change. There were craters just outside the village I grew up in. We used to go sledding down them when I was a kid. The story I heard was it just dumped bombs from a raid on a larger city so they didn't have to carry them back.
- jajko 2y agoSlightly off topic - if you want to see how explosion looks like in vacuum, here is recent (less than 1 day old) Iranian ICBM interception (either by Israeli Arrow 2/3 or Patriot) in cca outer space [1] or direct video link [2]. Expanse wasn't so far off [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1fu1bc1/iranian_ballistic_missile_intercepted_in_outer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1fu1bc1/iran... [2] https://packaged-media.redd.it/1p1ueyie38sd1/pb/m2-res_848p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1727910000&s=ed61433e2851a9bb7a2130f03b88cf1d531f3fc6 https://packaged-media.redd.it/1p1ueyie38sd1/pb/m2-res_848p....
- genezeta 2y agoFor those without a reddit account: https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1fu1bc1/iranian_ballistic_missile_intercepted_in_outer/ https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1fu1bc1/iran...
- beloch 2y agoIt would be great to think that littering the countryside with unexploded ordinance was a thing of the past and we no longer do such things, but the conflict in Ukraine is just one example to the contrary. Has any effort been put into making duds easier to find after the fact? e.g. Has anyone thought of putting something like an upscaled RECCO reflector on bombs? i.e. A passive radar reflector that would allow searchers to just hit a field with radar and get reflections back from unexploded ordinance. Obviously, this wouldn't work for cruise missiles, etc. that need to have a low radar profile while in flight, but why not for bombs (especially cluster munitions) that are used in much greater numbers? This is just one idea. I'm sure other methods could be used to make duds easier to find. Is there military value in leaving stealthy duds in your enemy's territory?
- btbuildem 2y ago> Is there military value in leaving stealthy duds in your enemy's territory? In all fairness -- probably, yes. It's the enemy's territory, and now you've made it more deadly, like an accidental minefield. But I don't think any consideration is given to what happens to duds, what are the civilian consequences or environmental impacts of any part of the weapons lifecycles. It is an industry of death and destruction after all.
- ckozlowski 2y agoIt'd likely to be more accurate to say that some are left that simply don't explode yet. A good example would be certain cases of cluster munitions that are designed to hit airfields. A most of the explosives will go off and crater the concrete and asphalt, but others will remain unexploded and sensitive to detonation. As runway repair work cannot commence until those unexploded munitions are cleared, the airfield is out of action longer than it would be otherwise. I understand in these cases and other ones such as scattering mines that a timer can be set so the mine or munition deactivates after a set time (say, a week) by deactivating the fuse. Not all are designed in this way of course. And apologies, I'm looking for source links, but I can't find them at the moment. Edit: Here's an example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GATOR_mine_system
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoMines and cluster ammunition are horrifying. They are invisible or look like toys even, and it is impractical to clean all of them up. They’re just waiting there, in the dirt, ready to kill some innocent child. Horrible.
- steamingpenis 2y ago[dead]
- wkat4242 2y agoWow, so lucky there was no plane passing at that time.
- Gazoche 2y agoI grew up in a South Pacific country that served as an advanced American base during WW2. A few years ago a massive stockpile (over a hundred) of artillery shells was found at the bottom of the capital's port, right under the dock of a big ferry that shuffles people between islands every day. I can´t imagine the carnage if one of those had gone off during the 70 years or so they had been sitting there.
- micromacrofoot 2y agoEvery bomb, gun, and mine we make has impacts like this... AK47s manufactured by the Soviet Union are still in circulation in Africa and the Middle East, mines in Southeast Asia from the Vietnam War still maim children decades later, cluster munitions in Syria and Ukraine continue to cause civilian casualties long after conflicts have subsided... weapons of war often outlive the wars they were created for, perpetuating violence and suffering for generations... yet we never learn.
- icar 2y agoAnother reminder of USA "democratisation" history.
- louthy 2y agoJapan declared war on the USA during WWII. Famously attacking first at Pearl Harbour. So, no, this unexploded munition has nothing to do with “democratisation”
- pjc50 2y agoImperial Japan was bombing Chinese cities in a war they started https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Chongqing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Chongqing some years before they started the war with the US. And they were very much not going to democratize China.
- aidog 2y ago[flagged]
- coding123 2y agoLarge? Maybe 3 yards of gravel 8 sticks of rebar and some drill in pins to connect and 5 yards of Crete and they're good to go.
- adammenges 2y ago> Miyazaki Airport was built in 1943 as a former Imperial Japanese Navy flight training field from which some kamikaze pilots took off on suicide attack missions. > A number of unexploded bombs dropped by the US military during World War II have been unearthed in the area, Defense Ministry officials said.
- ulrischa 2y agoOs the USA paying for the damage?
- Schiendelman 2y agoWhy would they?
- Reubachi 2y agoMan, what purpose does this article, news source, have to be on hacker news? In last 2 years the quality of submission/discourse on this forum hasn't gotten worse per say, but definitely is becoming more like r/worldnews.