Skegness Magazine

MINE ASHORE AT CHAPEL
189-mile dash for bomb disposal squad
THE tide of Wednesday washed ashore a mine at Trunch Lane End, Chapel St. Leopards.
P. c. Bostock informed Insp. Lewis who ‘phoned the authorities. A bomb disposal squad from the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham started out on their 189 miles run to the Lincolnshire coast.
Meanwhile the mine which had been deposited in a hollow in the sand only six feet from the sea wall refloated with the next tide.
It was eventually located some 8o yards away. towards Chapel.
At dusk the squad arrived and removed the fuses from the deadly object.

SHELL OPENED
They then opened the shell and emptied the explosive on the beach. Then with a fuse they set light to it.
The sky was illuminated with the red glow and six yards away lay the now harmless weapon of war.
Commanding the squad was Lt. J. W. Heatley, R.N., who told the photographer that it was an old mine. The date on the fuses was 1940.
Its approximate weight was between 800 and 900 lbs. It had apparently been rolling about on the sea bed for some time which accounted for its clean-looking appearance.
” Fortunately,” he said. ” the triggering device had become dislodged and could not operate—otherwise there would have been quite a hole in the sea wall.

PHOTOGRAPHER HURT
The naval men then rolled the shell up the sea wall and over the railings.
The mine now stands in Trunch Lane, for all to see. The weight unladen is about 3 cwts., so we don’t think it will be carried away by souvenir hunters !
While taking pictures of the mine, photographer Mr. M. Miles, of Mablethorpe, was caught off balance by the wind and thrown down the steps of the sea wall. He rolled down the wall and crashed into a wooden groyne, sustaining an injured knee.

October 1957

A few years ago, (around 2005), we photographed a WW2 Naval Mine in Chapel St Leonards (the mine was NOT on Trunch Lane when we photographed it, and appears below for comparison), as part of our World War II Relics Trail study. Since we did this we have discovered that a WW2 naval mine stood on Tower Esplanade, Skegness some decades ago and we’d like to know if these three ’sightings’ of mines are actually one of the same – being the one in the above story. Of course it wouldn’t have been painted the bright red with a white stripe when it was used during the war!