Navy searching for Cold War ‘practice’ bombs submerged 60 years ago in NC river
A section of the Intracoastal Waterway in eastern North Carolina will be off limits for weeks as the U.S. Navy searches for “practice” bombs that have been submerged in river mud since the Cold War.
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The area is ominously known as Troublesome Point, and it was used as a dive-bombing target in the 1950s and 60s, according to a U.S. Navy news release.
Military researchers suspect “miniature practice bombs” may remain undetonated in the North Landing River, between Troublesome Point and Gibbs Point, officials said.
“Navy contractors will use divers to investigate objects identified on the river bottom and determine whether any miniature practice bombs remain in the area,” Currituck County Government officials wrote in a Sept. 8 social media post.
“The public may see dive boats, divers, a floating work platform, safety patrol boats, and clearly marked work zones. Controlled detonations may also occur if suspicious materials are found.”
Diving will start Sept. 21 and could last three weeks, the Navy said. Divers will locate, identify and recover the bombs, then “safely” destroyed them, officials said. The resulting detonations will result in explosions, flashes of light and clouds of smoke visible from a distance, the Navy said.
“While work is occurring, this portion of the North Landing River will be temporarily closed as a safety precaution to protect boaters and anyone located near the work zone,” the Navy said.
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The Navy’s Military Munitions Response Program is assigned to remove unexploded munitions from target ranges that are no longer used.
Troublesome Point, about 25 miles south of Virginia Beach, “served as a practice dive-bombing range” for nearby Naval Air Station Oceana from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s, officials said. The area was sparsely populated and difficult to access at the time.
“Miniature smoke-producing practice bombs were reportedly used. They were not designed to detonate and create fragmentation,” the Navy says.
Previous surveys of Troublesome Point in 2009 and 2010 “showed no pattern of metallic objects” associated with a bombing site, the Navy said. However, it has been determined the Navy was looking in the wrong place.
“Research uncovered two news articles from the 1940s reporting the target was in the area between Gibbs Point and Troublesome Point,” the Navy said.
“The Expanded Site Inspection began in 2024 and included geophysical surveys of 797 water acres. These surveys identified metallic objects and wooden poles protruding from the water – features consistent with a former practice bombing target – in a cove between Troublesome Point and Gibbs Point.”
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Troublesome Point is about a 190-mile drive northeast from downtown Raleigh.
