6 oz of shrapnel in his leg for 68 years

[Big Bertie]

The Telegraph has published an astonishing picture of a pile of shrapnel recovered following the cremation of a WW2 veteran. It certainly gave me pause for thought as I was having my breakfast.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9618342/Weighty-memento-war-veterans-secret-revealed-after-his-death.html

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Here, click this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9618342/Weighty-memento-war-veterans-secret-revealed-after-his-death.html -dixon cannon

 

[Shangas]

...ouch...

 

[dhermann1]

I've known Viet Nam vets who had little visible speckles all over one side of their body from shrapnel. Pretty amazing the variety of debris in that pile, including screws as well as wire. God bless him. I'm sure he'd be just as amazed as everyone else to see all that junk.

 

[Treetopflyer]

Amazing, simply amazing.

 

[Dudleydoright]

Most of what you saw in the photos was coffin parts ........ Phillips screws are post WW2. The wire bits are part of the coffin too. Do you really think that a man with that much in his KNEE could even move ? I imagine the family said something to the cremators about how was there a bullet in his leg and they gave the family everything that was sieved out from the ashes for them to pick through. If that were all the shrapnel in his leg from one bomb, can you imagine how close he would have to be and the power of the blast to push that lot into his leg ............ do you really think that WW2 surgeons wouldn't be able to pull that lot out of a leg ? They left things in when they were in locations too risky to go into (near the heart maybe) but would never have done such a scrappy job on what would have been a horrific wound. Probably with that much shrapnel in it would have been an amputation.

C'mon guys, use some common sense