FINDING OF BOX OF EXPLOSIVES

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 289, 5 September 1945, Page 6

FINDING OF BOX OF EXPLOSIVES

Police Inquiry Completed

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) GISBORNE. September -L Police inquiries into the finding of a case of expl'ieives on tlie Waikanae beach, picked up by a resident amt lulwii to Ins homo. Ims a pp.-i really I completed without occasion for action being iiislt titled against tin- piq-son who owned amt disettrded the en-e mid its omiieiits. It Ims been asecflained that tlie person eonearned is a relui-ued >ervi‘<-in.-ni with a line record of S'T'i'-'-. and tile police JICW of liis action is tlmt it was done without any criminal intent. The case contained several plugs of i-y plosive. ' some of eiiemy-yoitulr.v origin and some of British manufacture. packed round n chamber formed by a tin which had contained a commercial product anil which appeared to be an arming device. Wires led from tills chamber to an ignition set in which detonators were involved, and the removal of these wires was the first safetv precaution taken. Explosives experts concluded tlmt it. was an Army device of a bellows type, used in sabotage against aircraft. The Army Department summoned bomb disposal experts from Palmerston North to dismantle it. and the police traced the ownership to n Hawke’s Bay resident who had made it for Ids own pul-poses', mid realizing that it might cause more damage Ulan he exneeted he dismantled it. brought it to Gisborne, reassembled it. ami threw it in lb? river- but tlie tide turned apd washed it asbere. Naval censorship is partly responsible for the delay in fibe xclcase of the facbn.