In 2004, workers from one of Daewoo’s sub-contractors for the Babeldaob Compact Road Project, uncovered many unexploded bombs and ordnances while excavating a section of the Compact Road alignment in Ngardmau State. Daewoo sent an explosives expert to the site to investigate the materials.
The Daewoo explosive specialist, after very close study of the materials, reported that the suspected hazardous materials were an entire crate full of what appeared to be hand-made fish-bombs along with numerous ammunitions of various calibers, some of which were for very large weapons. There were 536 of those hand-made fish bombs, all badly deteriorated and still very dangerous.
Many older local residents recall that as things went progressively bad for everyone in Palau during the waning months of World War 11, some people, including Japanese troops, resorted to dynamiting fish for food. Some were injured and a few were even killed on these fishing expeditions. “Many empty projectiles and bomb casings were recovered along the Compact Road alignments, and it appeared that some of the missing explosives went to the manufacturing of fish-bombs”, the UXO specialist said.
Despite the potential grim results, tinkering with unexploded ordnances was common back then and gave rise to a number of amusing stories that were told all over Palau in the years immediately after the war. There was the story of the fishermen from Airai who mistook a floating mine for a turtle and lobbed a homemade bomb on top of it. By sheer luck, the fishermen escaped death and lived to tell tall tales about their escapade. They said the waves from the explosion lifted them up “as high as the telegraph towers” that once stood on the hills of Airai. And there was the incident where some villagers planted a 250-pound bomb at the end of their boat jetty for boat owners to tie their mooring ropes unto. It was said that a US Naval demolition expert who visited the village nearly had an apoplexy when he saw people on the dock trying to tie their boat’s mooring line onto that live two-hundred fifty pounder. When told about these incidents, the UXO specialist at Daewoo said there is absolutely nothing amusing about tinkering with something that could result in someone’s death.
We would like to ask everyone to obey the advice of the experts and not touch things that might be unexploded bombs or munitions. Let the explosive specialists from CANADA take care of these materials when they arrive. Many of these materials are now badly deteriorated and may be leaking dangerous explosive crystals that could blow up if handled incorrectly. Please, do not become the latest victim of World War 11, which ended over 65 years ago. If you know or suspect something to be an unexploded bomb, do not touch it or let children know its whereabouts. Notify the Bureau of Public Safety immediately so that they would advise the experts when they arrive.
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