17-4-23 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

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[Ovidio]

Worst job in the world..........
My greatest appreciation for all those who had to go through that real ordeal.

[browningautorifle]

Worst job in the world

I didn't even like setting boobytraps let alone dealing with other people's stuff. It gave me the feeling of impending doom.

[CINDERS]

Try Softly Tread The Brave By Southall in WWII this for sheer guts and bravery snippets from the book ~
Working on a mine with 1 tonne of high explosive warhead out of sight (could not see the fuse) laying on the warhead going by feel in a barge packed with ammunition, the fuse started to run he had 17 seconds to get clear with a 400 yard blast radii he was not going to make it. In his mind he ran but he stayed there and beat the fuse by the barest of margins...which could not be measured!

Another lowered into a gasometer down to the mine standing in tar up to the knees working in pitch darkness as they were scared to use a torch may set it off and delousing it.
One was stuck in an earthen dam quite deep which entailed the mine disposal officer to burrow on his belly like a rabbit underground being dragged out by a rope tied to his ankle each pale full of mud from the dam wall where he calculated the fuse to be.
Then whilst he reached the mine the fuse was on the opposite side to him so he had to burrow over the mine reach out of sight whilst pressed against the 1 tonne of explosive deep underground he deloused the mine but it took 4 days to do it going into and out of that hole day in day out knowing there was no escape.

A magnetic/acoustic was discovered on the mud flats it had been there for quite a while they had a length of rope & chain they set up to see if the mine would go up which the officer dragged the chain over the mine which created noise sufficient to detonate it. Someone had cut the rope so it was to short this held the chain the officer said the mines probably dead as the chain mounted the mine with the officer well within the blast radius he said "see its de...." the blast knocked him flat and bent his knee joints 90 degrees the wrong way he was rather shaken and said "well that's that then"

They were all volunteers RNVR delousing the German aerial mines dropped on London there were numerous types and many of their brethren died trying to delouse them and the two main players Syme & Mould had their fair share of narrow squeaks.
Allot is mentioned of the men at the front but this took bravery and skill to a whole new level and it is truly a worthy book to read (I've read it 5 times) of sustained dedication to the job, some of those mines were booby trapped with the ZUS-40 the best they could get was the George Cross not the Victoria Cross as they were not facing the enemy.

I have my own thoughts and to do that job year in year out even after the war they carried on clearing mines some so lethal it scared even the Germans whom made them there was no official sanction given to them it was so dangerous but do it they did.

[Flying10uk]

Once a WW2 German anti tank or anti personnel mine had been discovered and the top of the mine exposed, how easy would it generally be to remove the fuse to make the mine safe if the mine had been in situ for some time? Would the mine often have to be blown up to be made safe, perhaps they were normally just marked with a flag or were the fuses not normally a problem to remove?

[Ovidio]

I didn't even like setting boobytraps let alone dealing with other people's stuff. It gave me the feeling of impending doom.

I never had to set them for real, only during training.
While I loved being a Mountain Trooper, an officer at that, I have always prayed never to have to do that for real.
The idea of fighting in any possible way, "honestly", has never troubled me, but setting mines.........
Hated the feeling!
I must admit I loved to study the way they worked, considering Italy has been a major producer for decades.
Ingenious little lousy traps.
But using them would have been a different thing.
That would have put my moral convictions in real strain.
After that, I would have followed orders ( I suppose).
How tough it must be to be into war for real...............

[browningautorifle]

Would the mine often have to be blown up to be made safe, perhaps they were normally just marked with a flag or were the fuses not normally a problem to remove?

A minefield is an obstacle that's intention is to channel the enemy into a specific killing ground and deny them approach...

Mines would be detected and marked for ease of passing by. If possible they would be disarmed but imagine the fine threads of a screw in mechanism being covered with fine dirt, how they now don't want to turn. There are anti lift devices used as well, and trip wires. Anti lift we called some of these...you could rig a mine to go off with about three different settings, pressure, pressure release and pull wire. It could be rigged to the whole rest of the mine field so when one goes off they all do. Imagine an acre of mines all going at once? You can command detonate as well. There was a minefield I had to traverse during duty almost daily at one point that had several different and many outdated mines. You could see them because the ground had settled. I'm not sure they could have been safely handled, the only way to deal with those is to set a simple charge beside them and blow in place. The problem with the anti pers that jump up is they throw shrapnel so far, it turns it into quite a difficult affair. By my time the flail tanks were gone, they were the best thing I could imagine. The current Leopards have a mine plow or a dozer blade to attach to the front for mines. The Engineers have many neat rigs for mine disposal, I wasn't Engineers though... Easiest way to dispose is to blow them in place...

[Daan Kemp]

Pretty useless to mine an area to deny access or channel and then blow them all, allowing immediate easy movement to the enemy.

[browningautorifle]

and then blow them all

Not if the minefield is a mile deep and the enemy has it completely covered. You could be almost across it and then they blow it to destroy the follow up vehicles like supply and medical. It's their choice. They would be in withdrawal by then anyway. It's just another tactic, denial of approach. Then as you struggle with that, you get a counterattack.

[Flying10uk]

Ok thanks Jim. I did see in a museum somewhere, if memory serves me correctly, a WW2 German A.P. mine made almost entirely from glass. I would imagine that they would have been a problem to detect.