Boy sitting on a sea mine
This picture from Life Magazine is actually from Kent in England, but it could just as well have been taken in Iceland. The boy is sitting on a sea mine laid out during World War II. Although Iceland, which has no military, was free from all fighting (except this single event) it was affected a lot by the war. In most ways it was a positive economic boom along with an influx of allied soldiers based in Iceland with both positive and negative effects.
Seamines such as the one they boy is sitting on however had a long term effect after the war. The ocean was litterally full of them in the years following the war causing great dangers to seamen at sea as well as curious children by the shore. A sea mine such as this one is likely to have caused the disappearance of my grandmother’s brother’s ship in the early fifties. However, even today mines occasionally wash up on our beaches or are caught in trawlers’ nets. They can be just as explosive as they were in WWII and possibly much less stable.
Today the Icelandic Coast Guard responds whenever one is found and disarms it or blows them up. However briefly after the war, iron was scarce and Icelandic farmers have always been very grateful for whatever washes up on their shores. Usually this was driftwood, a valuable resource on a treeless island, but they made good use of the seamines as well. They learned how to disarm and dismantle the bombs giving them a nice stash of explosives along with lots of good steel. In the isolated mountainous area around Skaftafell, the farmers often had to cross glaciers. So there they used the steel to make crampons. They also created some of Iceland’s oldest hydroelectrics, nearly entirely home-built from scraps salvaged from beached seamines and ships.
(Source: midnightmartinis, via hyrrokkin)
