Hold on to Peace - Image courtesy Ira Mitchell-Kirk

Hold on to Peace - Image courtesy Ira Mitchell-Kirk

Wednesday 10 March 2010

In the news today

More explosive devices from WWII have been located, this time in central Rome. There will be major disruption to services on Sunday as the area is closed off for the removal of the device. The area is Scalo Tiburtino, so I wonder if it is from the bombing of the railway lines 65 years ago.

It is not so many weeks ago that a collection of mortars was located during excavations near the abbey on Monte Cassino.

In far away New Zealand it is hard to imagine what this area was like when it was occupied and the frontline was stalemated in this region for 5 months. This region took more than its share of pummelling.

On a beautiful sunny day it is hard to picture, even here, until you go tramping and find a mortar wedged between the rocks, or placed carefully in a very visible cleared spot, awaiting disposal. Less frightening are the remains of the ration tins near a fortified look-out post that suggest that soldiers were camped in that spot for a while, but even near some of these friends with metal detectors find live mortars and small bombs.

The headlines like that of today, "Ordigno della seconda guerra mondiale scoperto allo Scalo Tiburtino" (Explosive from the second world war uncovered at Scalo Tiburtino), remind us that even 65 years on we can't assume that we are safe from the perils of that campaign.

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