Combat Engineer

[Harlan (Deceased)]

This is a photo of a combat engineer with his carbine.
It was taken in the days following D-Day as the allied soldiers advanced inland.

He's holding a German non-metallic wooden 'Shu-mine', and you see from his expression what he thinks about it.

They just cleared a mine field of anti-personnel mines and Shu-mines by kneeling elbow-to-elbow probing with bayonets and steel rods.
(They marked the cleared area with rolls of white ribbon)



The 'Shu-mine' was the most common non-metallic mine the Germans used as they retreated.
They buried these at random in mine fields primarily to maim engineers as they attempted to clear metallic anti-personal mines with electronic mine detectors.
They were made of wood and plastic so mine detectors couldn't detect them.

The Shu-mines were small and didn't usually cause death, but caused horrific damage to feet, legs, and lower extremities.

I cannot imagine the courage it took to clear numerous mine fields probing with rods having live mines inches from their face.

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