FOUND: Original Drawings of a Nazi Chocolate Bomb and Other Booby-Trapped Devices
During World War II, the Nazis had some very creative ideas about how to sneakily attack British ships and British leaders. They designed bombs hidden in Thermos flasks, mess tins, motor oil cans, watches and, perhaps most famously, in a chocolate bar they hoped Winston Churchill would take a big bite of.
But the British intelligence service did a decent job of uncovering these plots. And Victor Rothschild, the head of MI5’s very small counter-sabotage unit, wanted to document what the British had found. So he hired an artist, Laurence Fish, to draw up 25 detailed mockups of Nazi booby-trap bombs, as a sort of “a manual for anyone who had to diffuse similar devices,” the BBC writes.
About a decade ago, the National Archives in the U.K. declassified records of the drawings. But no one knew where the originals were.
It turns out that they were carefully wrapped and stored in a drawer in the Rothschild family’s house—the full collection of explosive plum tins, intricate timers, and of course, exploding chocolate. The original drawings by Fish were just rediscovered there after more than 70 years.
Bonus finds: Ugly rat that fulfills all ugly rat nightmares; gross mystery creature
Every day, we highlight one newly lost or found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something unusual or amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com.
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