Macon Bomb Squad Detonates Recovered WWII Weapon

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Macon Bomb Squad detonated a World War II artillery round on Tuesday after recovering it a few days ago.

Two brothers were clearing out a shed that belongs to their grandmother off Jeffersonville Road.

What they found is a piece of history.

Macon Police E.O.D. Commander, Lt. Wilton Collins responded to the scene. The round, about the size of a soup can, got tossed with the rest of the trash…but not for long.

“He found what looked to be about a 40 millimeter naval round from certainly the early 40’s,” Collins said. “With Camp Wheeler being here there’s a lot of stuff that they find a lot and he picked it up out the shed and actually took it to the trash and put it in a dumpster outside and began to have second thoughts about it, called Bibb County, Bibb County went out and saw it and then they called us.”

Camp Wheeler was a U.S. army base near Macon during World War II. Collins says kids are usually the ones who find the old weapons.

“They’ll find the old pineapple style hand grenades and they’ll take them home, having no idea what they have in their hands, and their dad will see it, maybe a veteran or not, or his grandfather, and they just go ballistic, and say wait a minute let’s get this out of the house,” Collins said.”

Collins wants everyone to keep their eyes open.

“People find things out there all of the time, if it probably looks bad, then you need to assume that it’s bad, you certainly need to assume that it’s still live”