PERILS OF “DUD” SHELLS

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15061, 7 October 1922, Page 9

PERILS OF “DUD” SHELLS

EIGHT CHILDREN KILLED. Eight children, ranging in age from six to eleven years, were blown to pieces recently by the explosion of a 75-milimeter shell on the back porch of a house at Watertown, New York.

The shell, which was one owned by Mr Workman, was one which he kept as a souvenir, and used on the porch to keep the door from closing. It was thought to be' “dead.”

I] The children were playing croquet | in the back yard. The shell is believed either to have been set off by the hot sun or to have been struck by one of the victims with a croquet mallet. ! Windows within a radius of two blocks j of the explosion were shattered. Practically all of the clothing was I blown off the bodies of the children. { The bodies were horribly mutilated, | but identification was possible in every instance.

One of the first, physicians on the scene was Dr. F. W. Jones. Lifting a covering which had been placed over one of the forms, he recognised the body of bis 12-year-old daughter Vivian, by means of an adhesive dressing he had placed on a cut on her legs barely a half-hour*beforc.' He did not know his daughter was in the group, and was almost overcome with grief. The bodies of The children were found apparently at places near where they had been standing in their croquet game. Near them lay the fragments of the croquet mallets. Several of the balls used in the game were blown to bits.

Two carpenters at work on a house next door said that a second before the detonation they had’ heard the voices of the children laughing at play. The two men were the first to reach the scene, i

They were greeted with a scene of utter desolation. The house is of concrete, and the concussion had reduced the entire rear of it to powder. On the ground were the eight bodies, and; over all a grey pall of concrete dust was beginning to settle. Fragments of clothing were suspended from trees and house-tops. The automobile tyres which had been on the back porch were blown to the roof of a building 200 ft away. Blocks of concrete were blown against neighbouring houses and into the streets and surrounding yards.

The shell had been fired from one of the six-inch-howitzer guns during target practice of the 104th Field Artillery at Pine Plains reserve last summer, and Vad not exploded by fuse or contact, and lay in the sand ’'fully charged- when Mr yVorkman found it and brought it home as a souvenir.