Unexploded Projectiles Found At Rock Harbor

ORLEANS – Police cordoned off the public beach at Rock Harbor for more than an hour Tuesday after the discovery of unexploded ordnance.

Fire Chief Geof Deering said that one object was found on the beach and four others were on the tidal flats near the edge of the harbor entrance channel. An explosives ordnance disposal expert from the Massachusetts State Police identified the object on the beach as a World War II-era military projectile, though its exact nature was obscured by many years’ of marine growth. After examining the item, the state police technician carried it off the beach for removal and disposal elsewhere. It could not be determined whether the object was capable of exploding.

A bomb disposal team from the U.S. Navy was summoned from Naval Station Newport, R.I., to deal with the four remaining objects, which were submerged as of early Tuesday afternoon. Typically, because there is no way to know whether old ordnance is dangerous or inert, technicians bring such objects to a remote location to be destroyed in a controlled detonation. Late in the afternoon, Orleans officials sent an alert to residents that a controlled detonation would take place at the transfer station before 5:30 p.m., warning residents and visitors of the loud noise.

Periodically, unexploded rockets and other ordnance wash up on Cape and Islands beaches, where extensive military target practice took place in various locations. A short distance north of Rock Harbor is the wreck of the former Liberty Ship S.S. James Longstreet, which was moored about three-and-a-half miles east of Eastham's bay shore and used for aerial target practice for decades.