How did an unexploded WWII artillery shell end up on a MS Coast street? See new details
The man mowing the grass stumbled on history. A 5-inch, 54-caliber Naval projectile laid, unhidden, in a Jackson County ditch.
It had never exploded.
Authorities rushed to the scene on Monday, closed a Vancleave street and discovered what they now say was a World War II era military artillery shell. An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team raced from Pensacola to collect the projectile, then returned to the Hurlburt Field base and disposed of it, a spokesperson said, “by counter-charging the item with explosives.”
The projectile shut down the Lake Forest subdivision on Seaman Road for five hours on Monday. But neighbors likely had little to fear: The shell appeared to be a training round, the spokesperson for the Hurlburt Field base Explosive Ordnance Disposal team said. Authorities later took x-rays and discovered it was filled with inactive material.
The projectile in Vancleave likely belonged to someone, who may have acquired it as a souvenir or bought it at a surplus store, said Joe Wise, the historian and curator at the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum. It likely would have been used on a Navy Destroyer, he said. But he was doubtful anyone “shot that thing into somebody’s yard in Vancleave.”
Such finds are common across the Gulf Coast because of several firing ranges in the region that date to World War II, according to the Hurlburt Field Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. The nearest site may have been McHenry, but Wise said military there trained people how to shoot machine guns from an airplane, not a ship. The next-closest former military sites are in Gulfport and Biloxi, according to a ProPublica map.
Decades-old explosives also appear around the country. People in several North Texas homes fled in April after one man found a live artillery shell while digging in his backyard. A construction crew discovered an unexploded ordnance in June in southcentral Pennsylvania. An excavating crew found a live World War II era artillery shell last summer near Kansas City.
The Biloxi Bomb Squad called the team at Hurlburt Field once they realized the round was a military ordnance, Sgt. Candace Young, a public information officer for Biloxi Police, said. Authorities closed the neighborhood for roughly 5 hours until the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office posted the all-clear just after 4 p.m.
The Explosive Ordnance Disposal team said those who find old projectiles should leave an area they same way they entered, call 911 and never touch a round.
They could not specify the projectile’s exact age, and said they would not “speculate on the origin of the round or where it came from.”
“The ultimate answer,” Wise said, “is Lord only knows.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2024 at 5:00 AM.