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Grenade On Display At Gettysburg National Military Park Destroyed Out Of Caution

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Published Date

March 13, 2020
A very busy aerial picture of Normandy Beach, France in 1944 as dozens of Allied transport ships unload their cargoes of tanks, vehicles, and soldiers/Library of Congress

A very busy aerial picture of Normandy Beach, France in 1944 as dozens of Allied transport ships unload their cargoes of tanks, vehicles, and soldiers/Library of Congress

Unsure whether the World War II grenade on display at the Gettysburg National Military Park was live or not, park staff removed the weapon and had it destroyed recently.

The grenade had been on display since March 2018 in an exhibit at the park's museum entitled “Eisenhower’s Leadership from Camp Colt to D-Day.”

The grenade in question was a circa 1944 Mark II Fragmentation Grenade with a M10A3 Fuse. This was a common armament that would have been used by U.S. forces during the D-Day assaults on Omaha and Utah Beaches in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, but was not owned by Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to park staff.

Region 1 - North Atlantic-Appalachian Office of the National Park Service is currently compiling information about historic armaments maintained in park museum collections within Northeast United States units. During that survey, Eisenhower National Historical Site staff identified that the grenade in question could not be conclusively proven to be active or inactive and it was properly disposed of on February 28 by certified technicians at an undisclosed location.

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Comments

Submitted by Joshua Israel on March 13, 2020 - 11:43am.

Great work. If the grenade was fully de-fused that's one matter. A possible live grenade doesn't need to be in a museum. When I was stationed in Southern Iraq in 2009-10 EOD "Explosive Ordinance Disposal" would disarm and detonate munitions all the time. It gets loud. Great work. 


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