On 14 January 2026, army and navy squads responded to two unexploded World War II bombs discovered in Devon, England. One bomb was located at a building site in Plymouth, while the other was found floating on a dredger in Exmouth. Steve Hockings-Thompson, the manager of Exmouth Marina, received a call about the bomb and confirmed its presence after inspecting the dredger, which was carrying 20,000 litres of diesel fuel. He alerted the police, prompting a response from the army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Search Regiment (11EOD).
Major Andrew Boyce, managing operations for the regiment, initially faced confusion regarding the bomb's size, as it was reported to be 250kg instead of 50kg. This confusion arose because another bomb had been unearthed earlier that day in Plymouth by Luke Templeton, director of S.I UXO, a private contractor. Templeton's team had conducted a risk assessment and located a 50kg bomb buried over four metres underground.
Boyce noted that it was unusual to have two unexploded bombs discovered on the same day in the same region. The Luftwaffe dropped over 60,000 tonnes of bombs on Britain during the war, with an estimated one in ten failing to detonate. These unexploded munitions account for a significant portion of the work for bomb disposal teams, with about 2,000 incidents reported annually.
The response to the bombs involved assessing their fuzes, which are crucial for determining the safety of moving the devices. PO Scott Dooley, a Royal Navy diver, arrived at the Plymouth site to assess the 50kg bomb. He found the fuze submerged in mud and had to carefully excavate it. Meanwhile, Capt Liam Kidman was dispatched to Exmouth to handle the larger bomb. The operations highlight the ongoing risks posed by World War II munitions in the UK.