Royal Navy bomb disposal team detonates WW2 hand grenade on Hampshire beach

Coastguards were alerted after the man stumbled upon the unexploded device half-buried at the high-water mark in Lymington.

After close inspection they called in the Royal Navy’s Portsmouth-based bomb disposal team, who set up an exclusion zone and detonated the grenade in a controlled explosion.

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The explosive was identified as a hand grenade that dates back to the Second World War, and was described as ‘live and unstable’.

Beachcombers have now been warned to take care when scouring the coastline.

A Lymington Coastguard spokesperson said: ‘It was quite unusual as it was not the stereotypical pineapple shape with the external pin, so it’s not so easy to identify as a grenade but fortunately this person did.

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‘Although this type of ordnance is quite rare in this area, we would warn beachcombers to be alert.’