This might look a little bit like an ugly fishing lure, but it’s almost two feet long. / Courtesy photo by Pe Ell Marshals Office
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The Washington State Patrol Bomb Squad was called to Pe Ell yesterday evening after a large military mortar was found under a chicken coop.
“The homeowner was putting in a fence, dug in close to the chicken coop and noticed something hard and tapped it a couple times,” Pe Ell Marshal Mike Hartnett said.
It turns out the nearly two-foot-long object was live, he said.
“It’s firing mechanism was intact and its safety pin was gone,” Hartnett said. “One abrupt bump on the nose of that, could have set it off.”
The marshal said he understood it would have a “kill radius” of up to 50 meters.
One meter is a little longer than three feet.
Hartnett said two of his deputy marshals were on duty, and they evacuated a couple residents and blocked off the area. It was in the backyard of a residence on East Pe Ell Avenue, near the edge of the city limits, he said.
It was about 5:45 p.m. and the bomb squad came out and ended up putting it in their bomb trailer and hauling it back to Shelton to dispose of it, he said.
Hartnett said he was told it was an 82 mm mortar.
“Probably an old Vietnam-era mortar, is our best guess,” he said.
How it got a backyard in Pe Ell, they don’t know. It’s an older home, that’s had a few owners, he said.
“Either somebody brought home a souvenir, even off a military firing range and thought it was a dud,” he said. “Maybe someone didn’t want it anymore and poked it under the chicken coop.”
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
When I was in the Army, in the 70s, duds were lying all over in certain parts of the Yakima Firing Center. At the time, I served in an infantry weapons platoon in the Washington National Guard. Our weapons were 81 mm mortars, which is what that shell looks like. I was never interested in touching one of the duds, let alone picking it up and taking it home. However, it would have been a very easy thing to do.
I really doubt anyone would have been firing such weapons around Pe Ell, but we used to fire howitzers just east of Vancouver in the 70s when I was in the artillery. A round such as was found has a half second delay setting on the fuse at the nose. With that setting, the round will bury itself before detonating, or just bury itself if a dud.
We were taught the kill radius was 15 meter, which is close to 50 feet. However, shrapnel travel much farther and I would not want to stand 30 meters away to prove it is safe.
No it would be pop corn pigs
Almost had “pop” corn chicken ha ha.