On July 4, 1940, a suspicious satchel -- it was ticking -- was found inside the British Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. Detectives Joe Lynch and Freddy Socha were called in to investigate. It was in the middle of the afternoon, and the satchel had been brought outside, to the back of the Polish Pavilion. Socha opened the bag. Lynch peered inside. The bomb went off, blowing them both to bits and leaving a crater 30 feet in circumference.
It took 24 years, until the second New York World's Fair, for a plaque to be dedicated to Lynch and Socha. It was set in the ground in front of the New York City Pavilion. This is on the opposite end of the Fairgrounds from where the bomb went off, but in 1964 that spot lay under the Van Wyck Expressway.
The nearby plaque states "This plaque is dedicated to the memory of Detectives Joseph J. Lynch and Ferdinand A. Socha, Bomb and Forgery Squad, who were killed in the line of duty while examining a time bomb taken from the British Pavilion of the World's Fair in Flushing Meadow Park at 4:45 P.M. on July 4, 1940."