Concrete Practice Bomb Kerkstraat

In the village, the boundaries of the yards of houses are marked by concrete objects in seven different places. Now, in 2015, few people will know what these objects were originally used for. They are practice bombs that were stored in a Luftwaffe depot by the German army during World War II.

The bombs were transported by rail to the ‘Feldmunitionslager’, which was located in the state forest. From there, they were transported by lorry to a military airfield. Pilots in training flew the bombs to a specific area where a target had been set out. The practice bombs had slits on the sides into which a glass ampoule containing phosphorus was attached. When the bomb landed, the ampoule broke, igniting the phosphorus. This enabled observers to see whether the bomb had been thrown correctly.

The munitions depot was set up in 1943, east of the Mooksebaan, halfway to the Biesselt. In September 1944, the depot was evacuated and the practice bombs were left behind. In 1945, after the return from evacuation, villagers collected several dozen of these bombs and used them as yard boundaries.

In 2015, 12 of these unusual objects can still be found in the village. They are located in various places: two on Klein Amerika, two on 2e Colonjes, two on Kerkstraat, two on Wylerbaan, two on Derdebaan, two on Boersteeg and one on Nijmeegsebaan. These concrete markers are silent witnesses to a radical period in the history of the village.

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Source

• Text: RJArmy.nl
• Photos: RJ Army