Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

March 12

Bomb squad detonates Korean War souvenir

By Doug Harlow

FARMINGTON — The State Police bomb squad on Thursday detonated a live military explosive that had been kept as a war souvenir in the basement of a home on Town Farm Road.
The home was being cleaned out by a family member of the late Nathalie R. “Nat” Jones, a former University of Maine at Farmington professor who died March 5 at age 93.
The bomb squad, along with Farmington police and investigators from the state Fire Marshal’s Office, were called to the house just after 4:15 p.m.
Sgt. Kenneth Grimes of the state Fire Marshal’s Office said the explosive was most likely part of a cluster bomb taken home by a returning soldier in the early 1950s following the Korean conflict.
“We located a military sub-munition, which was a small explosive device used from a cluster bomb,” Grimes said. “The device still had explosives in it; we’re not sure if the detonating mechanism was still live or not, but the explosives were still in the device. It’s designed to inflict casualties within a few meters.”