WWII Bomb near Collegetown?
- Thread starter goldmom
- Start date
Yep. Tyndall AFB sent some people over yesterday after the bomb was discovered while excavating a tree. They dug a 14 ft. hole and blew it up.
I'm guessing that it is something that came off a plane from Dale Mabry Field, which was in the area of TCC (I believe).
So apparently there was a WWII Army training base located in that spot. Mabry Field and it had airfields.
Yep. Majority of the Base was what is now Messer Park area, including the current Leon County Jail. The location it was found was near the end of the airstrip from what I can tell of a FB post that shows a map comparison.
Back in the 60's there were still a few abandoned Quonset huts out Pensacola St. When the school became coed again in 1946 (70 years ago) the first men lived there as makeshift dorms.
In East Orlando there was a subdivision and school built on an old WWII bombing range. Pine castle I think it was called. The army spent millions searching for undetonated explosives where some were discovered. This was in the Lee Vista area. For a while home prices plummeted there. not sure if they recovered.
Interesting story in the Tally Democrat about this today: http://www.tallahassee.com/story/ne...y-what-madison-street-bombs-origins/94036954/
Thanks for linking that article. Very interesting history of the Dale Mabry airfield, especially the fact that the Tuskegee Airmen trained there.
Is there any sort of historic marker in place that would make note of that? I think there should be.
Is there any sort of historic marker in place that would make note of that? I think there should be.
This. And I doubt it was a 'live' bomb, they mostly used practice bombs as dropping them in the right spot was far more impt than having them go 'boom,' especially since there were MANY things that could go wrong with using live bombs when newbies are involved. And SOME of the pilot trainees couldn't even speak English, we trained a number of Chinese pilots here. Back in the 70's you could still see a lot of the old runways out where TCC is located. I also found a whole bunch of .50 caliber spent shells on Alligator Point beach which they used for strafing practice. If you get a chance, visit the WWII museum down in Carabelle, it's worth a trip.
Before TCC expanded, it was common to walk the back parking lot and find pieces of the old airfield. I had believed there was a plan to add a historic marker but the need to build buildings torpedoed that idea.
There was at one point a large industrial warehouse in that vicinity where mobile homes were assembled. This was the 60-s and 70-s. The concrete runway patches were all around that area.
The practice bombs we dropped on Avon Park were either concrete (500lb) or just small 25lb bomblets that had a white phosphorus charge to see where it hit.
