Boys take wartime shell to school

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

2009/1/30

HAEBARU, Okinawa Prefecture--A Ground Self-Defense Force bomb-disposal squad rushed to an elementary school to recover an unexploded U.S. artillery shell from World War II that two boys picked up on their way to school.

The two sixth-graders found the 30-centimeter-long, 90-millimeter shell in a pile of rubble at a construction company's storage yard around 8 a.m. on Jan. 21, town officials said.

They brought it to their Shonan Elementary School about 200 meters away and showed it to their homeroom teacher.

GSDF officials who took possession of the shell said that it was unlikely to explode unless given a strong shock because its fuse was missing.

Two persons were injured Jan. 14 when a wartime shell exploded at a construction site in Itoman, Okinawa Prefecture.(IHT/Asahi: January 30, 2009)