Removing An Unwanted War Veteran The 3,000lb bomb on an Army lorry in readiness for removal after being "defused" and hauled to the surface. 1,000 people had to leave their homes and all traffic in the vicinity was diverted while men of the Royal Engineers "defused" and hauled to the surface a huge bomb, dropped during a German air raid seven years ago, and which failing to explode, had buried itself in the garden of a house in Limehouse, in the east end of London. January 23, 1949.