An imposing vestige resurfaced this Saturday in Noyon.
At the beginning of the afternoon, around 1 p.m., a shell was discovered on the bank of La Verse, a river located near the Noyon Intermarché and its gas station.
Given the danger and the proximity between the explosive and the gasoline, the commercial area was completely evacuated while waiting for the deminers.
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In the middle of the afternoon, the specialists were able to intervene.
“It was a French shell dating from the First World War,” indicates the Compiègne gendarmerie.
The rains of recent days have swollen the watercourse, which has eroded the earthen bank, so the shell has been exposed.
“The civil security of Laon (Aisne) took charge of the shell to defuse it,” specifies the gendarmerie.
The shells are then stored and regularly destroyed.
Noyon, martyr town of the Great War
The security perimeter was lifted shortly before 3 p.m.
The town of Noyon was heavily hit during the First World War (1914-1918).
The town, occupied by the German army in the spring of 1918, suffered a deluge of shells fired by the French army.
The goal: to stop the German army in its progression towards Compiègne.
“Noyon was crumbling under French shells, completely destroying the city center,” Jean-Yves Bonnard, local historian of the Great War, told our columns in 2020.
A bombing on April 1, 1918, Easter Monday, also reduced the cathedral to ashes.
Since then, Noyon has been rebuilt.
But, from time to time, her dark past reminds her.