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The unprecedented and particularly delicate underwater operation, which forced the expulsion of several hundred people within a few kilometers, was completed without damage, although, despite initial plans, the bomb weighing more than five tons was eventually detonated.
The so-called “Tallboy” bomb, which was dropped by a British plane in April 1945 and capable of causing a small earthquake, “can be considered neutralized,” said a spokesman for the Eighth Defense Flotilla. Polish coast, Grzegorz Lewandowski.
For security reasons, the teams involved in the neutralization operation excluded from the beginning the traditional detonation method, given the characteristics of the device (more than six meters long) and its location, 12 meters deep and close to houses. . residential and infrastructure facilities on land.
The teams opted for a process that involves combustion of the charge at a temperature below the detonation threshold.
Finally, “the deflagration process turned into a detonation,” said the Polish Navy spokesman, highlighting that the method was carried out “without risk to the elements directly involved in the operation.”
A spokesman for the Swinoujscie chamber indicated, in turn, in statements to the agency France Presse (AFP), that no personal or material “damage” was recorded in the buildings and infrastructure of this Polish port city of 40,000 inhabitants.
Due to the high risk of the operation, about 750 residents within a 2.5 km perimeter of the site where the plant was located were removed from their homes and maritime traffic was suspended.
Swinoujscie was, during the two world wars, one of the most important bases of the German Navy in the Baltic Sea.
