A Hollister official offered more details Monday on a World War II-era training bomb discovered at the Hollister Municipal Airport and clarified that it had to be detonated.
The City of Hollister unearthed a World War II-era practice bomb at the airport dog park while trenching in September. Airport Manage Mike Chambless on Monday addressed the council on the matter while requesting $7,000 for a ground-penetrating radar survey of the area to search for any other prospective munitions.
Council members approved the funding.
“A few weeks ago, we dug this up,” Chambless said at the meeting. “It was live and not all that healthy. We had to detonate it, and it’s safe now.”
Mayor Ignacio Velazquez asked about the depth of the practice bomb, which is about a foot in length as shown where the city had it stored in a glass encasement before Monday’s meeting. The airport manager replied it was about three feet deep when discovered, and he held up the artillery shell for the council during the discussion.
“It was live,” he said. “It had phosphorous and gun powder in it.”
The discovery of the unexploded bomb occurred Sept. 7 while staff had been trenching for a fiber-optic line at the dog park. Crews unearthed the AN-Mark 4 practice bomb, a training device dating to World War II, according to a report prepared for Monday’s city council meeting.
The report noted that the airport had been used as a training base for Navy bombers, and how the practice bomb was armed.
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Bomb Squad responded and rendered the munition safe, according to the city report.
The city had been preparing for improvements to the dog park scheduled to start next summer. Prior excavations also revealed a large amount of trash there, and the city believes it had been used as a disposal site.
The city identified a San Jose vendor equipped to complete the task with the $7,000 in funding.
‘Live’ WWII-era bomb found at airport was detonated
