The navy unit, based at Plymouth's Devonport, first went to the aid of the trawler, helping it to disentangle the torpedo, which was described as a brass-cased unit, about 1.2m long and 50cm wide.
The torpedo was dropped from the trawler in a position 800m south of Plymouth Breakwater, and surrounded by an exclusion zone.
The munitions disposal team first rehoisted the weapon aboard their vessel to examine it. After establishing that it was a German submarine torpedo of WW1 vintage, they detached the warhead and lowered it back to the seabed for detonation.
Divers attached two charges, and the subsequent plume of water indicated that the explosion had been caused both by the charges and by the warhead, proof that the torpedo had remained a threat after nearly a century in the sea. |
