Bomb squad detonates WWII grenade discovered by war veteran’s son

Talk about an explosive find!

A bomb squad was called into action in Oklahoma this week after the son of a WWII veteran found a live hand grenade in a box he inherited from his father.

Rick Young of Eastern Oklahoma County discovered the grenade along with other souvenirs from WWII — including a samurai sword and a rifle — in a box that had been stored in his garage for more than a decade.

“He told me he was the luckiest marine on Saipan, because during combat he had a hand grenade land right next to him, and it didn’t explode,” Young told KOCO-TV. “We just assumed it was a souvenir, that it was diffused and things like that, but turns out it wasn’t."

Young said that after doing some online research he concluded that the device — believed to be a Type 97 hand grenade, first used by the Imperial Japanese Army — was active and called the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office.

“All the different elements of the grenade were still together,” Young said. “It had the fuse in it. It had the TNT in it, and the pin was out.”

Bomb technicians using C4 safely detonated the grenade in a nearby field on Monday.

“Glad we were able to help get rid of this grenade,” the sheriff’s office wrote on its Twitter feed, “and over the years no one was injured.”

Young is glad, too.

“The best thing is don’t assume anything,” he said.