GRAFENWOEHR, Germany -- A suspicious item discovered here Oct. 18 near the railhead just outside U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria's Tower Barracks triggered a rapid response by Army officials and a German ordnance disposal team prompting the community's safe evacuation and the bomb's eventual disposal.
A construction worker contracted by the garrison's Environmental Division unearthed what appeared to be a World War II-era bomb late afternoon. German police, or Polizei, were quickly notified setting into motion a German-American effort to clear the area and neutralize the bomb.
"Partnership and communication was key," said USAG Bavaria's top cop and director of the Directorate of Emergency Services, Lt. Col Mike "Heavy" Burden. "The years of integrated training coupled with our longstanding partnership with German law enforcement officials amounted to a speedy and safe response, evacuation and disposal."
U.S. and German first responders, fire fighters, law enforcement officials and ordnance disposal teams were on location shortly after being notified. An investigation and a combined effort ensued.
First, law enforcement officials cordoned a 250-meter radius around the bomb, which extended both on- and off-post and inside a German residential area. The area around the site was closed and buildings evacuated -- including those belonging to the garrison's Directorate of Public Works.
Next, people living and working within the radius were evacuated to Grafenwoehr's city auditorium. Both German and American families were evacuated and fed by the Bavarian Red Cross, or BRK. USAG Bavaria's Logistics Readiness Center provided a garrison shuttle bus evacuating German and American families away from the scene.
Meanwhile, Garrison Commander Col. Lance Varney stood up the Emergency Operations Center -- the nerve center drawing in the garrison's leaders, liaisons and communications experts. The community was notified via Facebook, AFN radio and through AtHoc -- the Army's emergency messaging system.
Varney and Grafenwoehr's Second Mayor, Anita Stauber, arrived on scene and assisted with evacuation procedures.
The city of Grafenwoehr closed portions of the main street running outside the perimeter of Tower Barracks where the bomb was poetically located: at a spot just off-post affecting an equal amount of Germans and Americans, but also generating an equal German-American response.
"The military police intensively assisted us with road blocking and evacuation measures," said Eschenbach Deputy Police Chief Armin Bock. Eschenbach is the neighboring city that provides police protection to Grafenwoehr and the surrounding area, including USAG Bavaria's Tower Barracks.
"It is not a given for us that U.S. Army military police provide 38 people for such a mission," Bock said. "It showed once again that the structures we both have in place lead to success. For this we are thankful."
A German ordnance disposal contractor known as Kampfmittelräumdienst (KRD) Tauber -- tasked by the state of Bavaria to manage unexploded ordnance -- defused, excavated and disposed the bomb. Residents earlier evacuated were shuttled back to their homes.
This incident marked the fourth bomb the German ordnance team had responded to that day, said Michael Weis and Tobias Oelsner of KRD.
The ordnance specialists identified the unexploded ordnance as an American 75 kg airborne bomb from World War II, according to an Eschenbach Polizei press release.
Grafenwoehr was the target of Allied air raids April 5 and 8, 1945 during World War II, according to Grafenwoehr Training Area historian Gerald Morgenstern.
The last time garrison officials here discovered a World War II bomb in the footprint was in March 2015. This incident, which was picked up by both NBC News and The Washington Post, involved a much larger bomb discovered during construction at the site of a new elementary school near the main gate and adjacent to the garrison headquarters building.
"Community safety has and always will be our number one priority," said Varney. "We are very closely integrated with our host nation authorities and their emergency management systems. Today stands as testimony to that partnership."
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