I was a six year old in Grimsby and remember the night of the Butterfly bombs. My mother with my 2 sisters and brother hurried us to an air raid shelter near Bath Street. On the way my brother said look !and there was a German bomber (Dornier 217-researched) illuminated by its pathfinder flare. (Researched) to me it was a silver aeroplane. I then must have fallen to sleep because it was the next day and can recall going with my brother looking at the bombed buildings of Freeman St etc. I do recall being told not to pick up anything. Almost a month later the Germans attacked again but with standard bombs and my house in Bath Street was hit killing my mother and oldest sister plus about 90 other people.
The main reason for not publicising the effect of the Butterfly bombs was that any beachheads in the forthcoming invasion might have been saturated by those deadly bombs. Grimsby suffered approx 25 bombing raids during the war the last two 12/13th June 1943 and 13/14th July 1943. Over 200 hundred people in Grimsby died through bombing in WW2.

My grandfather was a victim of one, Grimsby 1943. Killed on his front porch....

My mother (now age 99) was born in Grimsby, and her father was injured by one of these. She remembers walking through an alley with her mother to visit him in the hospital. On their way home they found the alley closed off, because more of the bombs had been discovered. I always thought it was a miracle that my mother and grandmother had not been injured.

My mother worked part-time in Turners Ironmongers down Grimsby Road, Cleethorpes.  On the morning after the raid, she cycled to work and noted the damage and a few strange bombs lying around.  When she got to work she was told that one such bomb had gone through the roof of the shop and was sent home while the authorities were called to deal with it.

My mother told the story of the night of this raid We lived in Annersley Street,. After the all clear, one of the kids found a butterfly bomb and took it into the shelter to show everyone what he had found! Fortuately it was a dud and didn't go off.

Your description of the fuses is incorrect as far as the amount of fuses the SD2 came with. There are actually 4 . The 41 was airburst or impact, but the 67 was 30 minutes and called a long delay, the 70A was a long delay/anti handling  up to 20 hours, The 70B was the anti-handling. The 70A was the one kids brought home which detonated later killing more people in households. I own an original SD2 painted yellow with red stripes on the wings. It is inert with all markings and original paint in excellent condition.

I was born in 1984, but I remember my Mum telling me about those bombs. She was worried I would find one long forgotten in the waste land sort of areas that I used to go an explore. What were the chances really, but it shows the impact those bombs had.

Great vid i never knew that. My dad was born 1940 we lived in garden street in the 70s .

Several of these bombs fell in the Jewish cemetery in Ainslie Street. They were not cleared until the end of the war. The cemetery gates were just locked and left to nature. They were eventually cleared with the help of German POWs awaiting return to Germany.
As an aside I can remember the POWs wondering around Grimsby and Cleethorpes offering to do odd jobs for cash in hand.
They actually removed the Anderson shelter from  our back garden in Barcroft Street. Cleared it all away and back filled the hole to return the garden. I believe one pond ten shillings was the going rate at the time.

Really good video. I did not realise Gy & Clee were the 1st area to get this one. I remember being shown a defused one of these an a scouts visit to the police station in the 1980s to their museum. This was along with knuckle dusters, knives and all sorts of henus stuff.

What a fantastic video and what a great channel.

The russians used them in Afghanistan an other wars,

MY SCHOOL FRIEND HAD A BUTTERFLY BOMB FOR YEARS. UNTIL THE TV SERIES.  DANGER UXB.  SAID THEY WERE STILL LIVE .
THEN THE NEXTDOOR NEIGHBOUR REPORTED IT TO THE POLICE AND THE BOMB SQUAD BLEW IT UP .
UP UNTILL THEN WE USED TO PLAY CATCH WITH IT, AND CHUCK IT IN THE TREE, AND EVEN DROP IT .🙄