WWII—not over yet

The first time we heard a story about this we were amazed. The second time, it becomes a little more "normal." Referred to as UXOs and UXBs, unexploded bombs have their own terminology here with UXB specifically referring to WWII bombs from the Blitz. We've heard at least two major news stories about areas being closed or evacuated when live WWII bombs turn up so that the bomb squad can come in to figure out how to detonate. On one website, they say that "...the government estimates there are 100s of unexploded bombs from [WWII] all around the country which are dug up from time to time in construction sites." Since we've been here, the following bombs have been uncovered (content courtesy of the web):

July 31, 2007
Police closed streets near London’s Canary Wharf financial district on Saturday after an unexploded German flying bomb from World War II was found on a construction site

January 2, 2008
Unexploded bomb unearthed by a metal detector enthusiast in East Yorkshire....M62 may close for bomb detonation....The 500lb device was found in a field at Balkholme near Goole on Monday and police have imposed an exclusion zone.

March 12, 2008
Parts of Coventry city centre have been closed off after what is believed to be an unexploded World War II bomb was unearthed on a building site.

March 14, 2008
Army experts have blown up what was thought to have been a WWII bomb—once used as a doorstop—which was found by road workers in a Ceredigion village.

I remember that the bomb squad was very pleased when they blew up the one found in January next to the M62 since they were able to do it without even blowing out the windows in the nearby farmhouse. Coventry made big news just a couple of days ago since many people unable to retrieve their cars from a car park inside the evacuation zone and ended up stranded on the outskirts of the city centre.

The great wars have made their mark here like I've never experienced in the US. Whether it's that some of the elderly (who were sent to the country as children to avoid devastation in the cities) still like Americans because they remember the help offered during WWII, the pock-marked buildings, or the abundance of paper poppy flowers that spring up in November, it has not been forgotten.

I was a little confused by the poppy flowers that people had pinned to their coats all November, but was able to piece together that they were some type of Veteran's Day symbol (here it's called Remembrance Day). It was impressive how many people were wearing them and how many wreaths made out of them decorated various war memorials around the city. I later discovered that they were given away by the Royal British Legion in exchange for a donation to help veterans.

Why poppies? Well I found this poignant explanation on the web:

The poppies are worn because in World War One the Western Front contained in the soil thousands of poppy seeds, all lying dormant. They would have lain there for years more, but the battles being fought there churned up the soil so much that the poppies bloomed like never before. The most famous bloom of poppies in the war was in Ypres, a town in Flanders, Belgium, which was crucial to the Allied defence. There were three battles there, but it was the second, which was calamitous to the allies since it heralded the first use of the new chlorine gas the Germans were experimenting with, which brought forth the poppies in greatest abundance, and inspired the Canadian soldier, Major John McCrae, to write his most famous poem. This, in turn, inspired the British Legion to adopt the poppy as their emblem.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872 - 1918)