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The Biggest WW2 Explosion on British Soil was Apparently Caused by the Brits

Stephanie Schoppert - January 1, 2017

In 1944 the RAF Fauld was a Royal Air Force underground munitions storage depot and it was located 10 miles north east of Rugeley, Staffordshire, England and 2 miles south west of Tutbury, Staffordshire. It was built in 1939 and it was controlled by the No. 21 Maintenance Unit RAF. Towards the end of the war the number of people working at the munitions depot had dwindled drastically. Warm bodies were needed to fight in the war and managing the underground munitions was becoming less and less of a priority. By November of 1944, there were a number of staff shortages and a vacant management position. In addition, the staff that was at the munitions depot partially comprised of 189 Italian POWs who were not only inexperienced but largely untrained in the jobs that they were supposed to be performing.

The RAF Fauld at the time consisted of 180,000 square feet of seemingly endless 20-foot-wide corridors with 12 foot high ceilings. The site was used to store high explosive bombs, weapons and millions of rounds of rifle ammunition. With the lack of men to properly manage the munitions depot there were numerous corners cut and the bombs were densely packed into all the corridors. There were weapons of nearly every kind used in the war stored somewhere within the long tunnels. The ‘clear air’ was kept at a cool 55 F and men worked around the clock to keep the RAF supplied with bombs for the war effort.

Much of that changed on November 27^th, 1944. At about 11 am a man was using a brass chisel to remove a detonator from a live bomb. For safety reasons, regulations required that only a wooden batten be used to remove detonators from live bombs. While no one can guarantee that this was the exact cause of the explosion, an eyewitness testified that he had seen a worker using a brass chisel. A 1974 investigation did determine that this was the most likely cause of the explosion. At 11:15 two massive explosions were witnessed and those outside at the time reported two massive columns of black smoke that formed a mushroom cloud. The cloud rose to several thousand feet and massive flames could be seen rising up at the bottom of the cloud.

Read on to find out what happened next and find out the lasting repercussions of this massive explosion.

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The blaze was partially attributed to an open dump of incendiary bombs which caught fire. Between 3,500 and 4,000 tons of ammunition exploded. Much of it included high explosive bombs and 500 million rounds of rifle ammunition but numerous other weapons exploded in the blast as well. The explosion was so large that it left a crater 100 feet deep and 750 feet wide and covers 12 acres. Property damage from the explosion itself was found in a ¾ mile radius from the crater.

The thick walls of the storerooms meant that most of the munitions stored at the RAF Fauld did not explode. Only a third of what was stored detonated, while the rest were protected from what could have been a devastating chain reaction. The thick walls also meant that most of the men working in the RAF Fauld were able to get out or get far enough away from the explosion to survive.

The same could not be said for a nearby farm. The Upper Castle Hayes Farm completely disappeared along with the 6 people known to live there and their cattle. Peter Ford’s lime and gypsum works and Purse cottages were also destroyed in the explosion. The destruction of the lime and gypsum works caused a secondary disaster when the reservoir dam burst. The resulting flood caused a fast moving mud slide similar to those caused by volcanic eruptions. The mud slide destroyed a nearby plaster factory, killing everyone inside. Other homes and businesses were destroyed either by falling debris or from the mudslide.

It was found that 70 people lost their lives in the explosion and resulting flood. Rescue efforts to save or find the bodies of the men who had been in the storeroom were impeded by unexploded bombs and pockets of gas. 18 bodies were never found. Despite the tragedy and the danger of unexploded bombs still below the crater, the RAF Fauld remained in operation until 1966. It was re-opened for a short period after France left NATO in 1966, in order to store U.S. ammunition that had previously been stored in France.

Today the crater is still visible and is off limits to the public. It has largely been overtaken by nature but there is still the fear that those who walk there may stumble upon unexploded munitions. The crater is now known as the Hanbury Crater and the explosion remains to this day as the largest explosion ever on British soil.

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