DATELINE: 27th July 2001

EXPLOSIVES DEFUSED
An RN clearance team was called to Poole in Dorset in late July after wartime ordnance was picked up by a waterborne ice-cream truck in Studland Bay.
The device, described as nearly a metre long with four fins, was brought into Poole by the truck and rendered safe by the RN team in a quiet, safe spot on the south side of Brownsea Island.
The previous month, three wartime bombs were detonated in the South-east.
Navy divers created a 120m-high water plume when they set off a massive 2000lb German parachute mine a mile off Southend Pier after a fisherman snagged his nets on it.
A similar mine, netted in the Thames estuary, was towed to Dengie Flats near Bradwell for dispatch, and a US air-drop bomb was detonated nearby days later.
Meanwhile, across the Channel, French divers removed and detonated four RAF bombs found in Le Havre harbour.

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