Neat piece of shrapnel

[gagevet]

From Calcutta bombing by the japanese on December 5, 1943
Still has some paint on the nose area. From what I can find this was a Army bomb, as they were black with a red ring near the nose.

[shadowwolf]

Yes that is a nice piece of shrapnel.

[Panzer 3]

Hi,
Strange subject isnt it but it still has history, and a good keep sake. I have a piece of shrapnel from the blitz in london, it is a
odd thing to have but came from near my grand parents house
in my home town. Very sharp on the edges, thanks for showing it.
dave.

[bikerboyzx6r]

I have pieces I collected from the Hurtgen Forest in 2008. You wouldnt want any of the hurtling towards you, would you!!!

[Panzer 3]

Hi Dan,
Very true they are very sharp on the edges and no wonder they cut people to pieces let alone the blast. My piece is a good half inch thick, i would love to know what type of bomb it came from.
There were a few dropped in my home town, and one V1 dropped
there to, the space it left became my uncle work yard, it was two houses once.
dave.

[Matt L]

Damn- that Japanese bomb fragment is so cool (now anyway, it probably wasn't so much so at the time). Sometimes I wonder about the sheer mass of steel splinters there must be out there from the two big wars; it must be absolutely incredible...

@Dave- 1/2" thick could be a heavy anti-aircraft shell fragment- I'm only familiar with German stuff, but an 8,8cm Sprgr. L/4,5 shell had a wall that in some places was that thick and more, so it's likely the British 3" range stuff (whatever 'pdr.' size that was- 18?) would be similar. A standard SC250 bomb is a reasonable culprit (wall thicknesses between 0.3 and 2.8" according to this data: http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/sc250.html), and the V1 had an over 800kg warhead, which surely a good deal of was the steel casing, so maybe even that could be the source (if only one fell, statistically maybe it's less-likely though).

[Brian Childress]

I read a story in one of my books on B-17's about a pilot who after turning the plane over to the bombadier on the bomb run, picked up a piece of shrapnel that had come up through the bottom of the plane and bounced around in the cockpit. He glanced at it and it had a serial number on it that was one number shy of his service number. His thought was "lets get the hell out of here, the next one has my number on it."

[Matt L]

LOL That's a funny story- but unless US service numbers had only 5 digits, that's all it is; German shells had at most a 4 digit manufacture date (e.g. my nice 8,8cm Sprgr. L/4,5 shell is dated 3.2.44)- no 'serial number'.