World War II “Pineapple” Destroyed By Bomb Squad

Sonora, CA — Early Saturday evening an unidentified individual told the Tuolumne County Sheriff´s Office that he had a hand grenade wrapped in a towel in a box in the front seat of his pickup truck.

The Sheriff´s Office immediately contact the Calaveras County Sheriff Department´s Bomb Squad. The grendate had been discovered in a storage shed.

Captain Clay Hawkins arrived on the scene and determined that it was a “pineapple” grenade with a live blasting cap inside typical of the type used during World War II.

The grenade was X-rayed, secured and then moved to an open area near the Sonora Water Treatment plant at Hwy 108 and Stockton Rd. A charge was placed on the grenade and it was subsequently destroyed.

Hawkins commented that, “It´s not unusual to find these types of devices here in the Mother Lode. In fact over the past couple of years the number that we come in contact with (which is about one every three days) continues to increase. And for that I have absolutely no explanation.”

Written by Bill Johnson