Shock garden find sparks grenade alert

A WICK man has spoken of his shock at uncovering dozens of grenades that were buried in his garden.

Retired James Duncan, of Bank Row, received the surprise of his life when he dug up 144 bottles of white phosphorus, which are more commonly known as glass bottle grenades.

A member of the Caithness Amateur Radio Society, Mr Duncan was carrying out maintenance work to install a new radio transmitter when he made the discovery.

It was on Monday at 12.30pm, when Mr Duncan had dug around a foot of soil, that his spade encountered something solid.

"When I uncovered the soil, it turned out that I had hit two zinc sheets which were covering six wooden boxes, he said. "I then lifted the lids off to find out what was inside.

"When I opened them up, there were 24 bottles of white liquid inside each box; they looked like milk bottles. I picked up one of the bottles and I immediately knew what it was and what it would have been used for.

"I didn’t panic when I realised it was a glass bottle grenade, but I knew that action had to be taken immediately. I simply put the bottle back into the box and went to notify the police of what I had discovered."

"I was amazed to find them in garden and would like to know why they were buried there."

Once officers from Northern Constabulary had examined the scene, they contacted the Royal Navy Northern Diving Group which works as a specialist bomb disposal unit.

The garden is located behind the Assembly Rooms which was closed and sealed off at 4pm, prompting the cancellation of a number of events, including a martial arts session and the Royal Burgh of Wick Community Council meeting.

Yesterday morning members of the bomb disposal unit were on hand to remove the grenades. They were transported to an undisclosed quarry in the county where they were destroyed.

A spokesman for the Royal Navy confirmed that six boxes of phosphorous grenades, with each box containing 24 bottles, had been found in Mr Duncan’s garden.

"They look to still be in good condition and were possibly given to the Home Guard during the Second World War," he said. "They are glass vials containing white phosphorous and they are quite dangerous to handle."

Northern Constabulary’s Sergeant Garry Cameron, who was overseeing the operation yesterday afternoon, said: "Everything is going fine, but they are having to do a few runs, just so that it is a bit more manageable.

"The explosives squad are there in control and working the material safely through the town and on to the point of destruction."

The glass bottle grenades were manufactured by Albright and Wilson in 1940 and were known as grenade No 76.

They were distributed to the Home Guard to use in the event of a Nazi invasion. They were also used by the Royal Airforce which dropped them out of planes during bombing missions.

Once the bottle was broken, it covered the target in a sticky substance which ignited on contact with air.

Wick Heritage Society chairman Harry Gray believes that the weapons would may have been used by the British resistance.

"During the Second World War there were special groups that were trained for resistance movements," he said.

"This was a specialised group that was trained in almost terrorist-like activities such as undercover, sabotage, resistance and that sort of stuff.

"There were around 10 or 12 pockets of them in Caithness in cells of three or four men.

"One of the locations was at the top of the Academy Braes. However, it is not certain if this cache of phosphorus grenades had anything to do with that."

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