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WWII Bomb Raises Questions About Tallahassee’s Military History

Via Stacey Getz

When construction workers clearing space for a new development in Tallahassee’s college town found a bomb tangled in the tree roots of stump they’d just pulled, they said it looked like something from a movie.

“It looked like a World War II bomb just like you’d see in the old movies coming out of a plan. It was about two-and-a-half feet long, had the old tail fins in it," said Shawn McIntyre, managing partner for North American Properties.

That’s the company building at the site where the bomb was found. Air force officials from Tyndall Air Force Base detonated the bomb late Wednesday evening. Nearby apartment buildings were evacuated and the blast could be heard by residents living miles from the detonation site. McIntyre says it even shattered some windows in the area.

“The Air Force sergeant, master sergeant that I spoke with from Tyndall told me that they put a small amount of explosives around it and the size of the explosion led them to believe that it was definitely a live bomb,” McIntyre said.

McIntyre isn’t taking any chances. He’s using ground penetrating radar to search the site for anymore relics before construction begins again. After all, this isn’t the first bomb uncovered in Tallahassee. More than two decades ago a couple found a similar object buried in their yard. Experts say given the location and again of the objects it is likely both items stem from practices at the Dale Mabry Army Air Field. But what is Mabry Field and where is it?World War II Airfield Rests Under TCC, Pensacola Street

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Regan McCarthy is the Assistant News Director for WFSU Public Media. Before coming to Tallahassee, Regan graduated with honors from Indiana University’s Ernie Pyle School of Journalism. She worked for several years for NPR member station WFIU in Bloomington, Ind., where she covered local and state government and produced feature and community stories.

Phone: (850) 645-6090 | rmccarthy@fsu.edu

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