Nearly 70 years after the conclusion of World War II, civilization has changed greatly. Communism in Eastern Europe has risen and fallen. Empires have crumbled. The specter of terrorism has emerged as the new enemy of global peace. In the meantime, the cities of Germany have been rebuilt, the German nation has served as a staunch ally of NATO, and the enmity of the Nazi era has been relegated to an ugly chapter of the past.

Reminders of that period of total war, however, sometimes rise up like visitors from another age, warning signs from a horrific past that will, hopefully, never be repeated.

Recently, a prolonged period of drought in Western Europe caused a number of rivers and lakes to reach their lowest water levels in decades. Even the mighty Rhine, the European father of waters, had ebbed substantially. So much so that at Koblenz, a city in west-central Germany at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers whose name actually comes from the Latin word for “the meeting of the waters,” the bed of the great Rhine was exposed.

A large drum-like canister became visible, and shortly thereafter it was determined that the foreign object was an unexploded bomb dropped sometime between 1943 and 1945 by a bomber of the British Royal Air Force. No doubt, the discovery conjured up images of RAF Avro Lancasters flying in darkness high above the city, some bracketed by flak, chased by night fighters, and illuminated in the stabbing beams of searchlights, intent on delivering their cargoes of death.

Estimates are that as many as 250 bombs of the type discovered were dropped on Koblenz during the period. And these were no ordinary bombs. The high-explosive “Blockbuster” weighed an extraordinary 1,800 kilograms, or 4,000 pounds, and had been designed to destroy buildings and facilities in and near urban areas. Nearby, a second unexploded bomb, delivered by an aircraft of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, was found. Substantially smaller, this bomb weighed 125 kilograms, or 275 pounds, and was also capable of delivering a tremendous blast. A smoke grenade canister was also unearthed.

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