Police were called to Wurtulla Beach just before midnight after Sean Mackney's friend discovered an object at the base of a sand dune while walking his dog. Mackney picked up the object before realising what it was. "The sheer weight of it was massive," he said. Police guarded the site until Department of Defence personnel arrived.
A Defence spokesman confirmed the unexploded ordnance was identified as a 25-pound high explosive projectile from World War II. The 11-kilogram device was detonated by bomb squad personnel at about 4am.
Battery Hill resident Rhiannon McPherson said she was woken by "a massive bang". "I thought maybe a bad car accident or something," she said.
The region was home to a live firing site during World War II, and the Wurtulla area is listed on the Defence website as having substantial potential for unexploded ordnance. The 25-pounder was the primary artillery piece of Commonwealth Forces until the 1960s, with the high explosive variant containing up to 900 grams of amatol. The ADF's bomb disposal squad responds to about 500 unexploded ordnance incidents around Australia each year.