THE ARMY BOMB disposal team has made safe six World War II era machine guns dug out of a bog in Co. Donegal.

A large quantity of ammunition was also found at the site on the Inisowen Peninsula, the site of the crash of an RAF Spitfire. The BBC reports that the plane crashed in 1941. The pilot successfully bailed out from the Spitfire and he and his parachute landed in a peat bog, with the plane crashing half a mile away.

The BBC tells the fascinating story of the pilot, a 23-year-old American called Bud Wolfe, who went on to serve in Korea and Vietnam before his death in 1994.

The whole operation in Donegal today was filmed and documented by a BBC crew who are making an account of what they say is “one of the most bizarre moments of the war”. Wolfe had crashed over the border and thus was interned at the Curragh Camp with Allies and Germans, before walking straight out of the camp two weeks later and returning to his RAF base.

The machine guns, ammunition, the engine and other parts of the Spitfire were brought to the surface today. The Army Bomb Disposal Team spent over seven hours making the ammunition safe. The guns will now be removed to a secure location to be decommissioned and cleaned. They’ll then be handed over to the Derry Museum.