@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 300;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 300;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 600;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 600;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(https:@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:900;font-style:italic}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Titlepiece;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive{margin-left:160px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive{margin-left:240px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{max-width:620px}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom{max-width:100%}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{margin-left:0}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{max-width:620px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase{max-width:860px}}.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{max-width:1100px}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));position:relative;left:50%;right:50%;margin-left:calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width, 0px))!important;margin-right:calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width, 0px))!important}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{transform:translate(-20px);width:calc(100% + 60px)}}@media (max-width: 71.24em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{margin-left:0;margin-right:0}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{transform:translate(0);width:auto}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive{max-width:1260px}}.content__main-column–interactive p,.content__main-column–interactive ul{max-width:620px}.content__main-column–interactive:before{position:absolute;top:0;height:calc(100% + 15px);min-height:100px;content:””}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.The main content column for interactive articles has a left border of 1px solid #dcdcdc, positioned at -10px with a z-index of -1. On screens at least 81.25em wide, this border shifts to -11px. Atom elements inside this column have no top or bottom margin, with 12px padding on top and bottom. When a paragraph is followed by an atom element, the padding is removed and replaced with 12px top and bottom margins. Inline elements are capped at 620px wide, and on screens at least 61.25em wide, inline figures also max out at 620px.
For media elements containing a looping figure, the figcaption (unless hidden) sits at z-index 6. The video loop button aligns to the bottom right with a 40px bottom margin and 3px right margin. The mute and unmute control containers are positioned at the right edge with 10px left padding. The caption button sits at z-index 100, and on screens at least 61.25em wide, it moves 20px from the bottom. On screens at least 46.25em wide, cinemagraph containers have no maximum height.
Self-hosted video islands in the body are full-width, capped at 620px, displayed as blocks with 12px top and bottom margins. Their looping figures and videos are full-width, auto-height, capped at 620px, and centered. When the looping figure is an immersive video element, the island expands to full width with 12px vertical margins, and the figure and video lose their max-width and centering. On screens at least 71.25em wide, the immersive island becomes 1140px wide and shifts 180px to the left, with figcaptions indented 20px. On screens at least 81.25em wide, it becomes 1300px wide and shifts 260px to the left.
The root defines several custom properties: dateline color #606060, header border #dcdcdc, caption text #999, caption background hsla(0, 0%, 7%, .72), feature color #c70000, and a new pillar colour that falls back to the primary pillar or feature colour. Subheadings, pullquotes, and pullquote icons use the secondary pillar colour, while blockquotes use the article text colour. Blockquotes also get a fill colour from the secondary pillar. In dark mode (unless the color scheme is explicitly set to light), subheadings, pullquotes, and pullquote icons switch to the dark mode pillar colour, and blockquotes use the same for their fill.
Atom elements have no padding. When an atom element is the first of its type and is followed by a paragraph, sign-in gate, another atom, or similar, the following paragraph gets special spacing. The same applies to horizontal rules that aren’t the last one, and to paragraphs following ad slots. These rules also apply within the article body container.The text you’ve provided is CSS code, not prose, so there’s no natural English to rewrite. It’s a set of selectors that add 14px of top padding to the first paragraph after certain elements (like the first atom element, a sign-in gate, or a horizontal rule) across several containers, plus a rule for styling the first letter of those paragraphs.
If you’d like, I can explain what this CSS does in plain English, or help you simplify or refactor it.I can’t rewrite that as fluent English—it’s CSS code, not prose. If you’d like, I can explain what the styles do in plain English, or you can share the actual text you want rewritten.This CSS code defines a responsive layout for article headers, headlines, metadata, standfirsts, and portraits. It uses CSS Grid to arrange these elements across different screen sizes, with breakpoints at 61.25em, 71.25em, and 81.25em. The layout adjusts column and row structures, adds borders, and styles links and figures to ensure the content displays properly on various devices..furniture-wrapper #standfirst:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]:before{left:-.5px}}.furniture-wrapper .article-header .content__labels>div,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] .content__labels>div{padding-top:2px}.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{font-weight:600;max-width:620px;font-size:32px}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{max-width:540px;font-size:50px}}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines]{margin-right:0}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines]{display:none}}.furniture-wrapper .keyline-4 svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=lines] svg{stroke:var(–headerBorder)}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper #meta,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]{margin-right:0}}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social ul li a span,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__comment,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social ul li a span,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__comment{border-color:var(–headerBorder)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .content__meta-container_dcr>div>gu-island,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .content__meta-container_dcr>div>gu-island{display:none}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]{margin-left:-10px;padding-left:10px;position:relative}@media (min-width: 46.25em){.furniture-wrapper .standfirst,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst]{padding-top:2px}}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst p,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] p{font-weight:400;font-size:20px;padding-bottom:14px}.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{position:relative;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px;grid-area:portrait}.furniture-wrapper #main-media div div,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media] div div{width:100%;margin-inline:0}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{margin-bottom:0}}@media (max-width: 46.24em){.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{width:calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));margin-left:-10px}}@media (max-width: 46.24em) and (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper #main-media,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=media]{margin-left:-20px}}.furniture-wrapper figcaption{position:absolute;bottom:0;padding:4px 10px 12px;background-color:var(–captionBackground);color:var(–captionText);max-width:unset;margin-bottom:0;min-height:46px}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span{color:var(–headerBorder)}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span svg{fill:var(–headerBorder)}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span:nth-of-type(1){display:none}.furniture-wrapper figcaption span:nth-of-type(2){display:inline;max-width:90%}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper figcaption{padding:4px 20px 12px}}.furniture-wrapper figcaption.hidden{opacity:0}.furniture-wrapper #caption-button{display:block;position:absolute;bottom:10px;right:8px;z-index:30;background-color:var(–captionBackground);border:none;border-radius:50%;padding:6px 5px 5px}.furniture-wrapper #caption-button svg{transform:scale(.85)}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper #caption-button{right:10px}}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.content__main-column–interactive:before{top:-12px!important;height:calc(100% + 24px)!important}}.content__main-column–interactive h2{max-width:620px}@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark){:root:root:not([data-color-scheme=light]){–follow-text: #dcdcdc;–follow-icon-fill: var(–darkmode-pillar);–standfirst-text: #dcdcdc;–standfirst-link-text: var(–darkmode-pillar);–standfirst-link-border: var(–darkmode-pillar);–byline: var(–darkmode-pillar)}}:root{–new-pillar-colour: var( –darkmode-pillar, var(–darkModeFeature) ) !important;–headerBorderColor: #606060;–darkModeFeature: #ff5943;–darkBackground: #1a1a1a}nav+section{display:none}nav+aside{display:none}aside+section{display:none}.furniture-wrapper{background-color:var(–darkBackground);margin:0 -10px;padding:0 10px 4px}@media (min-width: 30em){.furniture-wrapper{margin:0 -20px;padding:0 20px 8px}}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper{padding:0 20px}}@media (min-width: 81.25em){.furniture-wrapper:before{content:””;width:calc((100vw – 1298px)/2);height:100%;position:absolute;left:calc((100vw – 1298px)/-2);background-color:var(–darkBackground);border-right:1px solid var(–headerBorderColor)}.furniture-wrapper:after{content:””;width:calc((100vw – 1298px)/2);height:100%;position:absolute;right:calc((100vw – 1298px)/-2);background-color:var(–darkBackground)}}.furniture-wrapper .article-header,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=title] span{color:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature)}@media (min-width: 61.25em){.furniture-wrapper #headline>div:first-child,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline]>div:first-child,.furniture-wrapper .headline>div:first-child{border-top:1px solid var(–headerBorderColor)}}.furniture-wrapper #headline h1,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] h1,.furniture-wrapper .headline h1{font-weight:700;color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #headline figure,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=headline] figure,.furniture-wrapper .headline figure{margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px}@media (min-width: 71.25em){.furniture-wrapper #meta:before,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta]:before{background-color:var(–headerBorderColor)}}.furniture-wrapper #meta details,.furniture-wrapper #meta summary,.furniture-wrapper #meta summary span,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] details,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] summary,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] summary span{color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button{border-color:var(–headerBorderColor);color:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a svg,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button svg{fill:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button:hover{color:var(–darkBackground);background-color:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social a:hover svg,.furniture-wrapper #meta .meta__social button:hover svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social a:hover svg,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] .meta__social button:hover svg{fill:var(–darkBackground)}.furniture-wrapper #meta div,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] div{color:#dcdcdc}.furniture-wrapper #meta a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] a{color:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper #meta a:hover,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=meta] a:hover{color:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature);text-decoration-color:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature)}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst li a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] a,.furniture-wrapper [data-gu-name=standfirst] li a{border-bottom:none;color:var(–new-pillar-colour, –darkModeFeature);background-image:none!important;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:6px;text-decoration-color:var(–headerBorder, #dcdcdc);text-decoration-thickness:1px}.furniture-wrapper .standfirst a:hover,.furniture-wrapper .standfirst li a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #standfirst a:hover,.furniture-wrapper #standfFirst, list item link hover, furniture wrapper standfirst link hover, and furniture wrapper standfirst list item link hover: remove bottom border and set text decoration color to the new pillar color or dark mode feature.
Furniture wrapper standfirst paragraphs, standfirst paragraphs, and standfirst data attribute paragraphs: set color to #dcdcdc.
At minimum width 61.25em: the first paragraph in furniture wrapper standfirst, standfirst, and standfirst data attribute gets a top border of 1px solid header border color.
At minimum width 71.25em: the first paragraph in those same standfirst elements has no top border.
Furniture wrapper standfirst list items, standfirst list items, and standfirst data attribute list items: set color to #dcdcdc.
At minimum width 71.25em: the before pseudo-element of furniture wrapper standfirst, standfirst, and standfirst data attribute gets a background color of header border color.
At minimum width 46.25em: the furniture wrapper before pseudo-element gets content, full height, top 0, absolute position, dark background color, right border of 1px solid header border color, left position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 738px divided by negative 2, and width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 738px divided by 2. The furniture wrapper after pseudo-element gets content, full height, top 0, absolute position, dark background color, left border of 1px solid header border color, right position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 738px divided by negative 2, and width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 738px divided by 2.
At minimum width 61.25em: the furniture wrapper before pseudo-element gets content, width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 978px divided by 2, and left position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 978px divided by negative 2. The furniture wrapper after pseudo-element gets content, width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 978px divided by 2, and right position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 978px divided by negative 2.
At minimum width 71.25em: the furniture wrapper before pseudo-element gets content, width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1138px divided by 2, and left position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1138px divided by negative 2. The furniture wrapper after pseudo-element gets content, width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1138px divided by 2, and right position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1138px divided by negative 2.
At minimum width 81.25em: the furniture wrapper before pseudo-element gets content, width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1298px divided by 2, and left position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1298px divided by negative 2. The furniture wrapper after pseudo-element gets content, width calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1298px divided by 2, and right position calculated from viewport width minus scrollbar width minus 1298px divided by negative 2.
Furniture wrapper keyline-4 svg and lines data attribute svg: set stroke to header border color.
Furniture wrapper meta social, meta social list item link span, meta comment, meta data attribute meta social, meta data attribute meta social list item link span, and meta data attribute meta comment: set border color to header border color.
Article body h2 and interactive content body h2: set font weight to 200. If the h2 contains strong, set font weight to 700.
Div with print layout hide attribute ul: remove background image.
Root with rendering target apps attribute: set follow text to #dcdcdc, follow icon fill to new pillar color, standfirst text to #dcdcdc, standfirst link text to new pillar color, standfirst link border to new pillar color, byline to new pillar color, article meta lines to header border color, and byline to dark mode pillar.
Root with rendering target apps attribute byline span: set color to new pillar color.
Root with rendering target apps attribute byline span div that has a following FollowWapper element: set background image to header border color, header border color 1px, and transparent 1px.
At prefers color scheme media query.Everyone at Exmouth Marina knew there was an unexploded German bomb in the water. Old hands at the dock had been saying so since the end of the second world war. But the marina had been dredged and re-dredged and nothing had ever come up. It had started to sound like an old wives’ tale. The marina is a busy stretch of water: a commercial port until the late 1990s that had since been converted into a home to private yachts. A bomb, you’d think, would have a hard time staying hidden. But in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday 14 January 2026, 81 years after the end of the second world war, Steve Hockings-Thompson, the manager of Exmouth Marina, got a call from the crew of a dredging vessel telling him he’d better come out to the boat. “I thought: ‘Oh crikey. We’ve got a bit of an issue here,'” Hockings-Thompson told me recently. He went out to the dredger, a squat barge that hauls silt and other debris from the marina floor on to a flat deck that resembles a steel sieve. Sitting on the deck was a huge hunk of metal, caked in mud and stones. As Hockings-Thompson got closer and saw its distinctive conical shape, he knew it was a bomb – a big one. The dredger was loaded with 20,000 litres of diesel fuel, so if the bomb detonated, it would be disastrous. He called the police, who quickly came to the scene. “And then,” he said, “all hell broke loose.” To deal with the explosives, they called in the army. The call was picked up at the control centre at Vauxhall Barracks in Didcot, a small town in Oxfordshire. This is the headquarters of the 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Search Regiment (11EOD), a specialist army division responsible for all kinds of bomb disposal – from improvised devices planted by terrorist groups to second world war-era munitions. When the Exmouth bomb was called in, Maj Andrew Boyce, who was managing operations for the regiment, was confused. “We were talking about ‘the bomb’, which I’d been told was a 50kg,” he recalled. “And then somebody on the phone tells me it’s a 250kg. I’m like, how have you confused a 50kg bomb, which is the size of a fire extinguisher, with a 250kg bomb, which is the size of a hot water tank?” The reason for the confusion soon became clear: the Exmouth Marina bomb was not the first to be discovered that day. Another second world war bomb had been unearthed a few hours earlier at a building site in Plymouth, 50 miles away. In Plymouth that morning, Luke Templeton, director of S.I UXO, a private contractor that goes in ahead of construction companies to look for unexploded bombs, had known what he was looking for. His company’s historians had already spent a fortnight doing a detailed risk assessment of the site, drawing on historical documents showing the Luftwaffe’s flight paths and local records of airstrikes. From this, they’d worked out that it was highly likely there were two bombs buried somewhere on the building site. Using specialist equipment, they had found a 50kg bomb buried more than four metres down. After inspecting the bomb up close, Templeton called the police. As far as Boyce knew, this was the first time since the immediate postwar period that two unexploded bombs had been discovered on the same day. The two bombs were in the same part of the country, and had been reported to the same police force, Devon and Cornwall. “We’re used to having confusion with location or devices. We’re not used to having two devices,” said Brig Darren Fisher, who at the time was a colonel overseeing the operations. Once the confusion had been straightened out – it was a 50kg bomb at the building site in Plymouth, and a 250kg bomb floating on the dredger in Exmouth – the response began. When most people think of bomb disposal, they imagine a lone figure in a bomb suit carefully approaching an improAs bullets fly overhead, the bomb-disposal expert works on a suspected device, carefully unpicking wires and knowing that one wrong move will kill them. This image was shaped in Belfast during the Troubles and in Helmand province during the invasion of Afghanistan, and it is not unfounded; bomb disposal is often called the most dangerous job in the military. But in Britain in 2026, the daily reality of the job is quite different.
Although the same team handles terrorist incidents, such as the 2017 Manchester attack on an Ariana Grande concert, unexploded Second World War munitions make up the core work of the UK’s bomb-disposal teams. The Luftwaffe dropped more than 60,000 tonnes of bombs on Britain during the war, and the Ministry of Defence estimates that roughly one in 10 failed to explode on impact. The reasons range from the grim—poor manufacturing quality due to a reliance on forced labour in concentration camps—to the ordinary: a bomb might have landed at an odd angle, or on soft ground that absorbed the impact before the fuze could fire. (“Fuse” is the general spelling for electrical safety devices and burning cords, while “fuze” refers to engineered explosive detonators.) Britain also dropped munitions on its own land during training exercises and deliberately buried surplus after the war in an effort at disposal. Eight decades on, the physical remnants of the war still account for about 2,000 of the 2,500 incidents that military bomb-disposal teams respond to in an average year.
The calls often come from metal detectorists and magnet fishers, hobbyists who throw strong magnets into waterways to see what comes up. They surge on bank holidays, when people are out walking and notice things underfoot, or catching up on tasks such as clearing out a grandparent’s home. Not long ago, the bomb-disposal unit was called to deal with a 2in mortar that had been used for 20 years as a paperweight. Increasingly, calls come from construction sites, as buildings get taller and companies dig deeper, which has led to a growing industry of private contractors actively searching for unexploded bombs. “We’re expanding cities, building new homes, and an accident could happen,” said Templeton. “If a 250kg bomb went off in a city, it could knock a whole street down.”
The passage of time has not made these explosives less dangerous. In June 2010, three bomb-disposal experts in Göttingen, Germany, were killed by a 500kg American bomb found beneath the site of a new sports arena. In 2020, a 250kg bomb exploded beneath a crab boat off the Norfolk coast, seriously injuring five of its seven crew. In 2021, another bomb exploded beneath a drilling rig near Munich’s main railway station, injuring four. Because it was a global war, this is a global problem. This year, a Second World War bomb beneath a stilt house in Indonesia detonated, killing five people and injuring 20.
These decades-old devices are difficult to read or predict. “You don’t really know why [a particular bomb] didn’t function, which is part of the problem,” said Lt Col Andy Hambley, the commanding officer of 11EOD. Years of corrosion, shifting ground and rust make the fuzes less predictable and the machinery harder to read.
That was exactly the issue facing two teams in two different corners of Devon on the afternoon of 14 January.
At about 1pm, PO Scott Dooley, a diver and bomb-disposal operator with the Royal Navy’s Diving and Threat Exploitation Group, arrived at the building site in Plymouth. Dooley, a tall man with a neatly trimmed beard and a soft Devon accent, grew up in the military; his father was in the Royal Engineers, doing bomb disposal. In recent years, he had acquired the nickname “the Doom Watch”, because every time he was on duty, the phone didn’t stop ringing (his record was 11 call-outs in a single week). In Plymouth, Dooley scanned the area for risk: there was a school nearby, as well as a glass-fronted hotel that could shatterIf the worst happened, police were already setting up a cordon and evacuating the area around the bomb. When an operator approaches a bomb for the first time, they don’t know what they’re walking toward. The most important thing is to assess the fuze—a metal cylinder screwed into the side of the bomb. It’s the first link in a chain. The fuze contains explosives that fire a tiny, highly sensitive detonator, which sets off a booster charge, which in turn sets off the bomb’s main filling—a relatively stable “secondary” explosive. Most German fuzes were electrical, charged from the aircraft when the bomb was released. After 80 years, there’s no charge left in them. But some German bombs were fitted with a mechanical delayed-action fuze made of gears and springs, like a watch. Once triggered, this fuze ticks down before detonating anywhere between two and 72 hours later. The Luftwaffe deliberately fitted these fuzes to cause maximum disruption; hospitals, roads, and factories were cleared for days at a time because the bombs could detonate long after impact. Everything, therefore, depends on the fuze. If the fuze is judged to be sensitive, that usually means it’s too dangerous to move the device. The safest option is to surround it with sandbags and detonate it where it is. If the fuze is stable, it can be moved somewhere safer, such as out to sea. Dooley had two things working in his favour: a 50kg bomb was less likely to have a ticker, and it was still half-buried, which suggested it hadn’t been badly jolted. On the other hand, the fuze was submerged in mud and he couldn’t see it. Bomb-disposal operators try to avoid moving a device until they’ve assessed the fuze, in case they trigger a ticker, but Dooley had no choice. Down in the pit, he and a colleague built a stable platform on a ledge of mud, surrounded it with sandbags, and set to work painstakingly unearthing it. Once it was out, he placed a listening device on it called a microphone stethoscope, or mic steth. He listened for ticking. Silence. A moment of relief, quickly followed by further investigation. Silence only means that at that moment, no mechanical fuze has been triggered. Was there one in the bomb at all? Dooley needed to physically examine it. The bomb had been lodged more than four metres underground for decades and was caked in thick clay. Still listening for ticking on the mic steth in case his movements triggered anything, he poured water on the fuze to wash away the mud. “The fuze was absolutely more than gone,” he said. It was so degraded that none of the markings were visible. No markings, no information. They would have to X-ray it. While this was unfolding in Plymouth, Capt Liam Kidman was expecting a quiet couple of days at home. Kidman had just come off a gruelling week that ended in rural west Wales, cutting open a safe packed with explosives at the bottom of a dead man’s garden. (The man had apparently used the explosives for felling trees, and nobody knew where he kept the key.) Then, shortly after he finished that job, the control centre rang to say two bombs had been discovered in Devon. The local team in Plymouth was already dealing with one of them. Could he go to Exmouth? Kidman was back on the road within the hour. An energetic man from south Wales, Kidman ended up in bomb disposal almost by accident—when he joined the army more than 20 years ago, there was a shortage of ammunition technicians. As he climbed the ranks, dealing with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan and second world war jobs in the UK, he came to love the problem-solving aspect of the work. A map of Exmouth showing the site of the unexploded bomb, and 400m and 600m exclusion zones. A map of Exmouth showing the site of the unexploded bomb, and 400m and 600m exclusion zones. It was past 7pm when Kidman reached Exmouth Marina from his base in Gloucestershire. The closer he got to the marina, the emptier the roads got. The bomb was sitting out in the middle of the harbour, bobbing on the open decof the dredger. It was so big that if it exploded, it could flatten the marina’s waterfront. The bomb could only be reached by sea, and the nearest naval team was busy with the other bomb in Plymouth that night. Normally, the army handles incidents on land and the navy handles anything at sea, but finding two bombs on the same day had turned everything upside down. The bomb had been handled roughly—dragged off the seabed and dumped without care onto a metal deck. “If there’s a mechanical fuze on there, that’s enough for it to be ticking down,” said Kidman. They had to get ears on it. Harry Griffin, the marina compliance manager, stepped up. Griffin knew there was a chance the bomb could go off, but he reassured himself that it had been in the water for 80 years without incident. He ferried a sergeant from Kidman’s team over to the bomb to get a mic steth onto the device. “That’s the bit that gets the operator’s heart going,” said Kidman. It was not ticking. But nobody relaxed. Just as in Plymouth, they did not know what kind of fuze they were dealing with. On a bright day in June, I visited RAF Northolt, a base on the outskirts of London, to observe a training exercise on airdropped weapons. Learning how to correctly assess an old, rusting bomb takes time and practice. Bomb disposal is a dangerous job but, Hambley told me: “Knowledge dispels fear.” Bomb disposal as a specialism was created in the second world war. Britain wasn’t ready for the blitz, and the early assumption was that police or air raid wardens could simply deal with any bomb that failed to go off. But as delayed-action mechanical fuzes—those ticking timebombs—became more common, it was clear that targeted intervention was needed. As the historian James Owen details in his 2010 book Danger UXB, in May 1940, the War Office handed the problem to the Royal Engineers, who formed 25 bomb-disposal sections armed with little more than picks, shovels and stethoscopes. By September 1940, they were dealing with more than 3,000 bombs a month. By some estimates, the average life expectancy of a bomb-disposal operator in this period was 10 weeks. View image in fullscreenMunitions on display in 11EOD’s museum at their base at MOD Ashchurch. Photograph: Sam Frost/The GuardianThose early teams mapped every bomb they dealt with, and the maps are still in use. Matt Fuller, a researcher at S.I UXO, the contractor that found the bomb in Plymouth, works through wartime bomb censuses and Home Office daily intelligence reports. Studying the bomb maps, he found that the Plymouth bomb most likely fell on the night of 21–22 March 1941. (The Exmouth bomb he puts at 24-25 February 1941.) Conducting risk assessments, Fuller is struck by the sheer number of places that were targeted, some of them small towns with tiny populations. “The last person to die from an unexploded bomb dropped in world war two probably hasn’t been born yet,” he told me. Fuller also marvels at the detailed records local wardens kept. They saw the danger that unexploded bombs would pose for future generations. In keeping those records, they reached out a helping hand from past to present. In contrast to their second world war counterparts, modern bomb-disposal teams come armed with robot-mounted cameras, mic steths that can be operated from a distance, and X-ray machines that can penetrate thick layers of steel to examine the explosive content inside. “Risk to life comes above everything—for the public, but also for us—and risk to property comes second,” Hambley told me. But when a bomb is 80 years old, even this equipment can be unreliable. At RAF Northolt, a 500kg German bomb was perched on a grassy verge. The bomb, which was inert, had been placed there, at an awkward angle, for bomb-disposal technicians to assess in pairs: what type of bomb is it? Which fuze? What action can be taken? I approached the bomb with Maj Matt Walker, the squadron duty officer. It wasRoughly the length of a two-seat sofa, it was a long, thin piece of dull metal, its surface rough and textured with rust. Walker told me a device this size would have a blast radius of “a few hundred to a thousand metres.” With no clear markings, trainees would have to use their knowledge to figure out whether the fuze had a mechanical timer or an additional anti-handling fuze—a booby trap built into the bomb that detonates it if anyone tries to move it or remove the main fuze. The trainees had to work out what to do next. “It’s extreme problem solving,” said Walker. “Someone described it to me the other day as—you start by juggling five books, then someone throws a glass ball and you have to keep that juggling as well. They then throw a ball of fire.” If you drop one of the balls, you and those nearby will probably die. We left the 500kg bomb where it was and walked into the “museum,” a grand name for a few long, dusty shelves inside a garage that serves as a visual reference library. “Anything and everything will turn up here,” said Walker. He picked up a tapered, hollow metal tube. “This one is actually a kid’s baseball bat. But it got called in.” They’d held on to this and other red herrings so trainees could see, in practice, how easy it is to mistake something for a bomb. Other miscellaneous items included an internal part from the Citroën 2CV car that looks so much like a bomb that people regularly call 999 after finding it in a scrapyard. Until I looked at the items in the museum, I hadn’t fully grasped how little there is to go on: the munitions are not just rusted but distorted, sometimes missing pieces, completely blank. Translating these rusted lumps of metal into something legible requires an expert eye: a cylindrical shape with a curved end means it could be a German SC50, and particular fuze pocket positioning can identify a British SAP250. There is a generational difference between bomb-disposal technicians in the UK. Those who qualified before 2012 cut their teeth in Afghanistan, where the Taliban laid an extraordinary number of IEDs. In 2011 alone, US-led forces recorded 16,800 IED incidents, roughly 46 a day. Those who qualified after 2012 tend to have mainly worked on second world war munitions. Hambley’s own career has mapped this change. His first job as a bomb-disposal officer was in Helmand in 2012, walking toward a buried device while live rounds tore past his ear. These days, the problems are different: orchestrating large-scale evacuations of civilians, trying to avoid property damage. “You’ve got a lot more latitude than when you’re deployed in Afghanistan,” Hambley told me. “In the UK, we own the ground, no one is going to shoot at us, we’ve got time, so we can afford to be as safe as we possibly can be.” Caution, though, is slow—and the moment a bomb is discovered, the clock is ticking to get people back into their homes. Sitting at her desk overlooking Exmouth Marina, Fiona Bolt, a chartered financial planner in her 60s, could see the bomb on the dredger. At about 3pm on Wednesday 14 January, police knocked on the office door and told Bolt and her four colleagues to pack up and leave. “It was really quite scary,” she told me. By 8pm, the safety cordon had expanded from 100 to 400 metres and police started knocking on doors on streets near the marina. Some people went to stay with family members nearby, others in hotels. One of the Bolts’ neighbours ended up sleeping in their car. View image in fullscreenWO Sarah Rowland of 11EOD. Photograph: Sam Frost/The GuardianAs the night set in, Kidman’s team was out on the water, trying to see inside the bomb. The first X-ray images of the fuze were unusable: the steel casing, thickened and blistered by rust, defeated the beam. They spent seven hours cycling through different X-ray equipment, trying to get a clear image. As Kidman worked through the night, he could see lights going on and off at the far endNear Exmouth harbour, the flats that would ideally be empty. The police cannot force anyone to leave. When someone refuses, the police give them a letter saying they are staying at their own risk, and the regiment has to work around them. In Great Yarmouth three years ago, Hambley worked to make a 250kg bomb safe with a resident “teeth-chatteringly close” – less than 50 metres away. When Bolt got up the next morning, she noticed her street, close to the marina, was eerily empty. When Bolt left the house she saw how far the exclusion zone had expanded along the seafront: it now covered 400 metres and 2,000 properties. She didn’t have an office to go to. “I felt really lost, like a rabbit in headlights,” she said. “It was all just so out of my control.” The council had hastily set up makeshift shelters in a leisure centre and a retirement home. When Bolt stopped by the leisure centre that day, she saw that camp beds and bedding had been brought in during the night, and Tesco had donated food. “If we’d been in wartime,” she said, “I imagine that’s what the community spirit was like.” By about 5pm, it was clear Bolt would not be going home that night. Her house was deep within the cordon. She stuffed essentials into a rucksack and walked across town to her son’s house. By 9pm the cordon had crept up to 600 metres, covering a further 500 homes, cleared block by block by police officers. This was a big operation, but in Germany, where far more unexploded ordnance lies buried, even larger evacuations are common. In September 2017, 60,000 people were cleared from central Frankfurt, including two hospitals, so that a 1.8-tonne British “blockbuster” bomb could be defused. In 2025, the city of Cologne alone carried out 19 evacuations for wartime bombs, affecting almost 70,000 residents. At their respective sites, Dooley and Kidman were both acutely aware of the disruption around them, which adds intense time pressure to their work. In Plymouth, all the buildings within a 100-metre radius of the building site had been evacuated on Wednesday, including the school. Dooley’s first X-rays, taken with the standard equipment, had come out completely black. At around 4pm on Thursday, high-sensitivity X-ray plates arrived from elsewhere in the country. Finally, a readable answer. The bomb had no mechanical fuze and no anti-handling device. Dooley breathed a sigh of relief. “People could just calm down a little bit,” he said. “It wasn’t going to tick if you knocked it.” Soon afterwards, in the late afternoon, the high-sensitivity X-ray machine arrived in Exmouth. It went out onto the dredger. The team started scanning and kept going for hours. Still nothing. Kidman reported back to the operations team: they couldn’t identify the fuze. The forward base in Exmouth was the lifeboat station, and over the course of Thursday it filled up with marina staff, police, coastguard and emergency planning officers from the council. Briefings and strategy meetings took place every few hours. The position of the bomb severely limited the normal mitigation procedures. The regiment’s standard protection for a 250kg bomb is a sand-filled fortification weighing about 350 tonnes. This could not be built on a barge. Abrasive cutting, an advanced technique for cutting out the fuze, was not deemed appropriate. The next option was towing the dredger out to sea and blowing the whole thing up. Griffin, the marina’s compliance manager, phoned its insurers to ask whether this would be covered. Most marine policies carry an act-of-war exclusion, which raises a difficult question: after 80 years, is a Luftwaffe bomb still an act of war? “We went round in circles, really,” said Griffin. This is a sensitive subject for 11EOD. In February 2021, a 1,000kg German bomb – one of the heaviest in the Luftwaffe’s arsenal – was discovered on a construction site next to Exeter University’s halls of residence.The team couldn’t determine if the bomb was booby-trapped, so they decided to detonate it in place, surrounding it with 400 tonnes of sand to absorb the blast. It wasn’t enough. The explosion, heard for miles, left a crater the size of a double-decker bus and threw debris at least 250 metres, shattering windows in nearby buildings. The university claimed on its all-risks policy; the insurer, Allianz, refused, citing a clause excluding damage “occasioned by war.” The high court ruled in favour of the insurer. The military wasn’t financially liable, but having every step of its process scrutinised in court made the unit even more cautious. “We are very aware that everything could end up in court and everything could be questioned,” said Hambley.
Caution pulled one way and time pressure—the need to get people back into their homes in Exmouth and kids back to school in Plymouth—pulled another. Exploding the entire dredger was ruled out due to the risk of environmental pollution from the 20,000 litres of fuel on board and fragmentation of the vessel itself. That left only one option: get the bomb into the water and tow it away to detonate safely at sea. But this raised a question: how to remove it?
By 11pm on Thursday 15 January, there was a plan for the smaller bomb in Plymouth: lift it out, place it in a 4×4 packed with sandbags, drive it 1km to the water’s edge, take it out to sea and blow it up there. By 12.30am, police and fire crews were going door-to-door to evacuate everyone living within 150 metres of the route. At about 2.30am, Dooley and another bomb operator lifted the 50kg bomb out of the pit with their hands, climbing up a makeshift staircase they had built out of sandbags. The bomb, slick with mud, was cold and heavy. It was dark, and the steps, wedged deep in a muddy pit, were slippery. They placed the bomb carefully into the back of the waiting vehicle. The convoy slowly moved off at walking pace. As the vehicles passed, police released the cordon, letting people back into their houses while the bomb was still crawling towards the sea.
Once it was at the water’s edge, the bomb was carried on to a boat and lowered over the side, where a buoyancy device was waiting so it could be dragged underwater at a safe distance from the boat. Dooley was aboard the navy boat, which lowered the bomb into the water as it moved further from the harbour. He’d had two hours’ sleep in the preceding 36 hours.
The King’s Harbour Master, which controls shipping in Plymouth Sound, had given permission for the bomb to be detonated in a specific patch of sea, and they sailed out four nautical miles towards this spot. At the drop point, Dooley fixed an explosive charge to the bomb and had it lowered to the seabed. A navy diver followed the rope down in the dark. It was pitch black and the water was thick with silt, making a torch useless. Working by touch, the diver undid the bolts, let the air out of the float and brought it to the surface.
When the diver came back up, Dooley took the boat back a hundred metres. From there, the only thing showing the bomb’s location was a small lit float attached with a line, bobbing on the surface. The swell of the waves kept hiding it. Police drones confirmed nobody on shore was in danger. The navy confirmed there was nothing on radar at sea. The charge was initiated. Dooley counted down.
At 5.13am on Friday 16 January, the sea briefly lit up in the dark. A plume of white water rose above the surface, then nothing. Eight decades after it was dropped, the bomb had been detonated.
As this unfolded in Plymouth on Thursday night and into Friday mIn the morning, Exmouth Marina was empty except for the military bomb-disposal team and two marina staff. “It was quite eerie,” said Hockings-Thompson, the marina manager. “It was like going back to Covid times.” They were all focused on how to get the bomb off the dredger. Someone suggested bringing the dredger in closer, but moving the boat meant moving the bomb, and nobody wanted to risk it. Griffin went back into the office and called a local crane hire company, who agreed to bring a 55-tonne crane. The next problem was who would drive it. Senior officers including Fisher scrambled to find a military crane operator qualified to drive a 55-tonne crane, available at short notice. They could not. The civilian crane driver who had brought it over offered to do it himself. “I can’t own the risk of him driving that crane,” said Fisher, who held the military liability. That passed the question to the police, who had to decide whether to authorise a civilian to handle an unexploded bomb – and whose financial responsibility it would be if the crane was destroyed. “If the worst happens,” Fisher said, “we’ve got much bigger problems than losing the crane.” Eventually, they let him go ahead. (The crane driver declined to speak to me for this article.) After midnight, in the early hours of Friday 16 January, bomb-disposal operator Lt Matt Bowden attached straps around the bomb casing and added a buoyancy device. He left the dredger and the crane lifted the bomb. As the 250kg lifted from the deck, the barge rose in the water. They had discussed this in advance: whether the dredger, suddenly lighter, would bob up hard enough to bump into the bomb and trigger something. The dredger heaved. The bomb swung out to the side and missed the steel vessel entirely. It was lowered into the water and attached to a navy boat. Everything now depended on the tides. There was a fixed window in which it could be towed out and detonated. At about 4.30am, the boat picked its way through moored yachts with the bomb submerged and trailing 100 metres behind. By 6.30am, the bomb was so far out and deep underwater that residents were allowed back to their homes. Hockings-Thompson and Griffin, who had been mostly awake for the preceding 48 hours, went aboard the dredger to bring it back into the marina. Then they walked up to a coffee shop on the seafront. They were in the queue at 8.13am when the bomb went off, a mile and a half out. “The whole seafront was full of people expecting to see a massive bang and a splash,” said Griffin. “All we got was a bit of a plop.” The sea had done its job and neutralised the blast. By 11am, businesses around the marina were open again. Kidman was exhilarated. “No one died, there was no injury, no damage to infrastructure,” he said. After working for 36 hours straight, everyone went home to sleep. For Dooley, after his own successful operation in Plymouth, it was only a few hours later, when he was sitting with his family, that the magnitude of what had happened hit him. “You’re just doing your job,” he said. “Then you sit there and think, what have I done here? A 50kg could kill you as much as a 1,000kg.” In late summer, about six months after the double bomb discovery, I sat in the bar at Vauxhall Barracks with Dooley, Kidman, Fisher, Boyce and others who had worked on the two operations. It was a wood-panelled room with a blue patterned carpet, the wall adorned with regiment photos and a framed Private Eye cover of the Queen meeting Martin McGuinness in a bomb-disposal suit. As I pressed for details, they found their recollections blurring. Was a particular memory from 14 January? Or was it the 250kg Plymouth bomb that was found in April outside an Aldi? The one found in June at a business park in Coventry? “So much has happened since then,” said Boyce. In fact, WO Sarah Rowland, who had worked with Dooley on the bomb in Plymouth, was unable to join the meeting as that morning she’d been callShe went out to Staffordshire, where a 500kg bomb had been found in a quarry. (She texted Dooley to say she was collecting them all, “like Pokémon cards.”) It came from outer space: the meteorite that landed in a Cotswolds cul-de-sac. Read more. They are getting busier. Ten years ago, one or two large airdropped weapons were found each year. This year there have already been six. The latest was on 21 September, when a 115kg American bomb was found in the water off Pendennis headland, at the mouth of Falmouth’s harbour. The call went to Dooley, but he was already on another job. Kidman was assigned to it and drove down to Cornwall, where he spent almost all of the next three days awake, problem solving. The job was complicated. Blowing it up where it lay risked rupturing waste tanks 40 metres away and pouring sewage into the Channel. Instead, more than 300 households were evacuated while the navy lifted the bomb and towed it out to deep water. It was too dangerous to send a navy diver down, so the bomb was left on the seabed, far from anyone, while the regiment counted down the hours. On 27 September, with the clock on the Falmouth bomb still running, another call came in: three white vans near RAF Fairford, a Gloucestershire base used by American bombers. A major counter-terror operation began. Kidman and Rowland drove to the scene. A robot searched the vans. X-rays followed. They helped each other out, catching some sleep in the car when possible. Kidman was still overseeing the bomb in Falmouth. On 28 September, they found that there were no explosives in the white vans. Kidman went home to sleep. At 2.25pm on 29 September, the timer was up on the bomb in Falmouth, so the team went back to detonate it at sea. “And then,” Kidman said, “we’re ready for the next bomb, I guess.” Listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs It Could Destroy an Entire Street The Art of Defusing a WWII Bomb
Beginner Questions
What is a WWII bomb disposal operation
Its the process of safely removing or defusing unexploded bombs dropped during World War II that are still found today often buried underground
Why are WWII bombs still dangerous after 80 years
The explosives and fuzes inside can still be live Age doesnt reliably disarm themsome become more unstable over time
How do bomb disposal teams find these bombs
Usually by accident during construction work Teams also use historical records aerial photos and metal detectors to locate suspected sites
What does defusing actually mean
It means making the bomb safeeither by removing the fuze neutralizing the explosive or safely detonating it in a controlled way
Why does one bomb threaten a whole street
A large bomb can hold hundreds of kilograms of explosives A blast can level buildings shatter windows blocks away and kill or injure anyone nearby
Who handles these operations
Trained military or police bomb disposal experts
Intermediate Questions
Whats the difference between defusing and detonating
Defusing means rendering the bomb inert without an explosion Detonating means blowing it up deliberately usually in a controlled way when defusing is too risky
Why not just blow up every bomb they find
A controlled explosion still causes damage and disruption Defusing is preferred in populated areas when its safe to do so
What makes a WWII bomb so hard to defuse
The fuzes are old corroded and sometimes chemically unstable Some contain antihandling devices designed to explode if moved
What is a fuze and why is it the main danger
A fuze is the mechanism that triggers the explosion Its the most sensitive partbumping or turning it the wrong way can set it off
How do teams protect people during an operation
They set up exclusion zones evacuate residents and sometimes build sandbag walls or use blast blankets to absorb an explosion
How long does a typical operation take
Anywhere from a few hours to several days depending on the bombs condition location and the size
