For Alicia Combs and her younger sister Laura, an adventure with a metal detector revealed a shocking surprise. While testing her Christmas present in a field on her family’s property, it was not long before, to her delight, she heard the alarm on the metal detector. At this point, the two sisters began to dig where the item was buried and they soon found two objects which were only inches from the surface. While they were convinced what they had found were parts of an old tractor blade, they soon realized that they had actually dug up two mortars rounds instead!
Unsurprisingly the girls were quite scared and relayed news of their find to their father, David Combs. Mr. Combs immediately called the Sherriff’s Department of Jackson County where he was then directed to the State Police in Oregon. The bomb squad came to the property and removed the mortars before taking them to the Jackson County Sports Park shooting range where they were destroyed with shaped chargers. Thankfully, the mortar rounds were found to be non-explosive practice rounds.
Mr. Combs was reported to have stated “We’ve always had the idea that there could be something out there, just because it’s so close to Camp White and other people have found things. But at least we’re not sitting on a cache of live ammunition”.
The property has been in the Combs family since 1976 when it was bought by Mr. Combs mother and used as a rental property. However, the family did live there from 1983 to 2005 and his children would often play in the field where the mortars were discovered. Other items that had been found previously by the Combs family include rifle shells and an old smoke grenade. He explained that Laura had been using the area near to where the mortars were found the previous Christmas after she had received a longbow as a gift.
It was revealed by Combs that the area had been flat once, but because of artillery practice at Camp White it had been torn up. The holes had been filled in with materials such as gravel and clay by contractors but there is still evidence of the artillery practice.
Brett Keller from the OSP Bomb Squad said “Out here, we get called out on a lot of munitions from Camp White. They’re dangerous, and the older they are the more unstable and dangerous they are”. He also explained that at Camp White, they would often use practice rounds but sometimes they used live rounds. However, he pointed out that the training ammunition can also be dangerous because of the fact that they are made to mimic the live ammunition and create smoke markers when they go off because of a black powder cap. These black caps are meant to go off on impact but if they don’t they could injure anyone who picks them up. He said “The smart thing to do is if you see an unexploded ordnance, mark it and get away from it and call us”.
