Perth, Western Australia September 10, 2005 Home News Impressions This Week Letters Classifieds Search Submit Real Estate Trades & Services AboutUs Contact Us About Us Legal Production Rate Card Readership Survey Subscribe	Full alert as World War 1 grenade lobs on court An army explosive specialist with the grenade that was taken to Garden Island to be destroyed. The army was called to a quiet Cottesloe street after a rusting World War I hand-grenade was found on a vacant lot by builders on Tuesday morning. Curtin Avenue traffic slowed almost to a standstill as onlookers watched the police block the leafy Athelstan Road, warning anyone not to go within 100m of the explosive, which was on the corner lot to Charles Street. Chris Robinson, of Robinson's Court Care, together with father and son building team Ian and Jason Collins, found the grenade while inspecting the site to build a tennis court for the neighbouring property. Mr Robinson said: "The son, Jason, nearly kicked it because we didn't think anything of it at the time, but I thought I should ring police just in case." He said they had been working on peg marks for the court when he noticed what he thought was a pine cone. Six months ago he dug up a cart wheel at another Cottesloe property, but the grenade remains his most interesting find in years of building tennis courts. Mr Robinson said: "We'll be running a metal detector over the site before we start digging up the ground." Defence Department spokesman Vic Jeffrey said army explosive specialists believed the grenade had been a souvenir which was abandoned at the site. It was no longer live, despite still having a makeshift pin. The grenade was taken in a specialist box to be blown up at the army base in Garden Island later that day. Mr Jeffery said if the grenade had been in danger of exploding, it would have been charged and blown up on the site. Chris Robinson took a photo of the "pineapple" grenade with his mobile phone. He said: "The greatest mystery is who would have a World War I grenade lying around and how did it get there?" The grenade was a fragmentation bomb, a British Mills No. 23 Mark II grenade, first developed by William Mills in 1916. The body of the grenade was made of cast steel and segmented like a pineapple to shower metal shards on explosion. It was one of the most popular grenades used by the Allies because it used a pin to set off a five-second fuse. Previously, grenades had a tendency to explode if accidentally jolted. About 70 million Mills bombs were "bowled" by grenadiers as one of the chief weapons, alongside rifles, in trench warfare - although it was not rare for detonators to be forgotten, much to the dismay of troops at the front. One resident said it was a worry something like that had been left lying around when many North Cottesloe Primary children took short-cuts through the block on their way home from school. She said a Federation red-brick house had been bulldozed six months ago on the lot. BACK TO TOP < PREVIOUS - HOME - NEXT> Copyright © 1999 - 2006 Post Newspapers Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.