Pitty!

[stuka f]

Bomb squad destroys WWII wine cache | Daily wine news - the latest breaking wine news from around the world | News | decanter.com

[Adrian Stevenson]

Good story. Indeed what a shame.

Cheers, Ade.

[Woolgar]

What a shame! Those bottles of wine would have fetched a good price at auction

Nick

[MD Helmets]

take your chances with the bombs, grab the bottles! lol

[Panzer 3]

Hi,
Great story what a pitty they have blown it all up, you cant take chances it may have been the last time you saw a good wine,lol.
Dave.

[drmessimer]

Yes indeed, a pity and a waste. Let's put this in perspective. There are two UXBs lying around which haven't gone off in over 70 years. And if no one gets terminally stupid and kicks one or moves it, they probably won't go off for another 70 years. So, if the sergeant could handle the wine bottles to the extent of reading the labels and reporting the vintage, couldn't those bottles just as well have been carried out of the bunker? Admittedly, I don't know exactly what the situation down there was, or what the proximate relationship of the bombs was to the wine rack. But it seems to me that if the sergeant was able to safely pick-up several bottles, the immediate situation wasn't all that critical. On the other hand, those disposal men were there to do a specific job, not salvage vintage wine, so it's probably just a matter of the wine bottles being in the wrong place. Sigh... Dwight

[Wagriff]

Hell with the wine....what Else might have been down in that time capsule of a bomb shelter?? Ridiculous over-reaction....

[davejb]

Im afraid i take this story with a pinch of salt, the shelter descibes what would be an Anderson Shelter, common to a lot of back gardens during the war, I would suspect the "bombs" to be mortar bombs of some description but how on earth would 3 "bombs" find their way into someones back garden without any of the owners knowing anything about it since the war, doesnt make sense, the idea of building the shelter in the first place was so you avoided being blown to kingdom come, then someone puts/leaves 3 "bombs" in their garden right next to or into the shelter, something strange this way comes, then the BDT come in, into a garden that i suspect has other houses surrounding it, blows up all three in a built up area, I know a little of Saffron Walden, ive driven through it and around it, its mostly old buildings, cottages some new builds and some industrial, if the BDT detonated in situ the surrounding damage would be extensive, broken windows etc, plus as someone mentioned these so called bottles of wine were identified so someone had to be inside the shelter and it would not have taken too much trouble to empty out the shelter, can you imagine the so called blast effects of three bombs being detonated, two of them together unless of course they didnt go off and the only charge was the initial one laid by the team which wouldnt have been a large one, but if this did happen i would suspect that a few bottles found their way into a couple of squaddies kit or possibly the officers mess, strange that the local news channels didnt report this nor the local papers not that ive seen anyway, am i being too cynical