121 anti-tank grenades found during archery competition in Doorwerth

At an archery competition Saturday at the Castle Doorwerth in The Netherlands participants, while seeking their arrows, found four anti-tank grenades. The enabled EOD (Explosives Disposal Service) suspected there were more.

As many as 121 shells were found, about 10 meters behind the goals ....

You can't always hit the target with your arrows and they are quite pricey, so if they missed, you go and look for them. The arrows were found, close to four anti-tank grenades, so they decided to call the EOD. They arrived fairly quickly.

They immediately concluded: if there are four this close together, the're bound to be more. As many as 121 of these shells were neatly tucked together below ground and leaves. Probably dropped in a (wooden) container or burried by the Germans as they had no use for them. Nothing other traceable was found.

The grenades were dug up and taken away. They will be detonated later.

The grenades were fired from a PIAT, Projector, Infantry, Anti Tank. It was developed in World War II for the British Army and was a portable anti-tank weapon. In 1943 they were first used during the invasion of Sicily, Italy. The weapon was light enough to carry and during Market Garden, many were brought.

In containers, the grenades for these weapons were dropped during Operation Market Garden in the area of also Doorwerth (properly the 22th of September 1944). Unfortunately a lot went wrong during the Battle and the containers ended up in territories occupied by the Germans while in England it was thought that these would have been in British hands.

To bad .The Allies could have used them well in their battle.

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