SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — Japanese workers at a construction site here unearthed several Japanese World War II ordnance shell casings and one intact shell Monday afternoon.
The intact shell, later determined not to be a detonation threat, was heavily corroded and measured about 22 inches long and 6 inches in diameter, base officials said Tuesday.
Sasebo Naval Base was a Japanese Imperial Navy installation before being surrendered to the United States at the end of the war.
While demolishing the foundation of an underground building near Juliet Basin, the contractor unearthed the casings and one object that “could not be readily determined as inert,” said Lt. Cmdr. Brett Blanton, Public Works officer-in-charge.
A new fitness support complex funded by the Japan Facilities Improvement Project is being built at the site. The contractor immediately stopped work, contacted officials with the naval base’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and security departments, plus representatives from the Sasebo Police Department and Japan Defense Facilities Administrative Bureau, Blanton explained.
“The ordnance was buried for over 50 years, so it was stable in its existing state; however, the concern was accidental detonation when moving the ordnance,” he said.
The base security personnel halted vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the immediate vicinity. The casings and shell were found behind McDonald’s Restaurant and the Galaxies Club. Both were closed temporarily as a precaution.
“Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Detachment Sasebo, and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force EOD determined the ordnance was not in immediate danger of detonation,” Blanton said. Sasebo police removed the shell from the base at approximately 9:30 p.m. for disposal by JGSDF’s EOD personnel, he said.
When unexploded ordnance is found on the base, Blanton said, “it is first examined to determine if it is inert. If the ordnance is on a JFIP construction site, Japanese authorities are responsible for disposal. If it is on CFAS (Sasebo Naval Base) property, we will request EOD Mobile Unit Five be tasked for disposal.”
The public works officer said unexploded ordnance is destroyed and all inert shell casings are “disposed of by the contractors in accordance with Japanese waste procedures.”
Finding potentially live ordnance “is rare because most areas have been thoroughly swept for ordnance” since the end of World War II, Blanton said. Nevertheless, he pointed out, this week’s find is the second suspected unexploded piece of ordnance discovered near the Juliet Basin in the past nine months.
“We routinely discover discarded shell casings when doing construction at CFAS,” he said.
