Danger UXB - Show Us Your German Aerial Bombs, Bomb Disposal, And Related Items...

[Grossfuss]

Results of RAF EOD!

I returned to Chidham (the crash site) late afternoon and the surrounding area had been cordoned off a few hundred yards away.

I had been hoping they'd have steamed them empty, but after an hour or more there was a fairly mild explosion which was to merely crack the casings.

We contacted RAF Wittering and subsequently the remains were released.

[WWIIBuff]

This thread has stalled for a while, so I thought it would be a good idea to start showing some of the British Bomb Disposal items in my collection.

I find the "cat and mouse" game that was played between the German Luftwaffe and the British Home Forces with aerial bombs to be quite fascinating. In the beginning of the war there was no such thing as a Bomb Disposal Unit. Most people assumed that when a bomb hit the ground it exploded, but in reality, there were many thousands of bombs that did not.

Bomb Disposal methods were invented and developed as the war progressed. Unfortunately, almost every time the British developed a way to disarm a bomb, the Germans would invent a new way to prevent that from happening. The Luftwaffe even developed mechanisms that were designed to prevent the bomb from being disarmed, and to kill Bomb Disposal personnel.

If you have not seen the 1979 British television series "Danger UXB", I highly recommend it.

Believe it or not, early bomb disposal equipment consisted of tools like a hammer, chisel, and drill. Although the Luftwaffe used Electrical Fuzes instead of mechanical, as a precaution, the British tools needed to be non-magnetic just in case. For example, the hammer was made of bronze, not steel or iron, in fact, even the shovels used to dig down to the bomb were made of bronze.

[WWIIBuff]

You would also not want to generate sparks around a bomb, so the chisel used was typically made from Beryllium Copper, a strong, non-magnetic, non-sparking material (that we now know is very toxic and carcinogenic).

[WWIIBuff]

The first piece of equipment that was specifically invented for Bomb Disposal was the Crabtree. This small device was attached to the top of the German bomb fuze with the purpose of depressing the two charging plungers. Doing so would short-circuit the fuze and allow the electricity to drain, thereby rendering the fuze harmless.

This worked in the beginning, but then the Germans figured out what was happening, and changed the design of the fuzes so that depressing both plungers would ignite it instead. This Crabtree example in my collection is a museum quality replica. I only know of one collector who has a real one, and perhaps the Imperial War Museum. An original Crabtree is on my list of "ultra rare" items needed for my collection.

[WWIIBuff]

After the Germans had made a change to the design and function of their early fuzes, the British had to come up with an alternative way to discharge the electricity. The "Steven's Stopper" was a device designed to do just that. (the picture below with the description of the device, and sketches, was borrowed from the internet.)

[Grossfuss]

SD2 as an art form

Hello again,

As a boy my first book on Bomb Disposal was "A Cold-blooded Business" by S/Ldr A.E. Haarer relating his experiences. One image has lasted all these years. On page 138 he describes how their headquarters building was decorated to celebrate their 1000th incident. They had an Aldis lamp shining on the staircase newel post upon which they had placed a turf of grass whereupon lay "a wicked-looking butterfly bomb".

This is my tribute to that image with my latest incarnation of an SD2 (a very long story starting with an email offering me an SD2 from Russia which turned out, sadly, to be a total repaint).

Regards,

Grossfuss

[WWIIBuff]

Very Nice display!

[Jeff V]

I love that display Grossfuss!

[Grossfuss]

SD2 as an art form

Thanks for your compliments.

I've been looking at those apple crates in a local garden centre for some time and having brought one home then wondered if the sign would fit.

I need not have worried - it could have been made for the job. I cut one lath of wood off the front all round to reduce the depth and added the small strip to the bottom.

After a couple of websites offered me a minimum of two metres artificial grass another supplier not too many miles away gave me an offcut for free.

So an idea about 60 years in the mind finally came to fruition.

Regards,

Grossfuss

[WWIIBuff]

Well worth the wait. Congratulations!

[WWIIBuff]

Well the forum has slowed a bit, and it's been a year since I posted on this thread, so I'll show another British Bomb Disposal item from my collection that was used to disarm German bombs.

This is a "BD Discharger" or "Liquid Discharger". Since the Germans had changed the design of their fuzes to cause an explosion when British Bomb Disposal personnel depressed the plungers on top of the fuze to release the electric charge, another method had to be found. The BD Discharger was used to force by gravity a fluid mixture of alcohol, benzene, and salt into the bomb fuze body. This fluid mixture would cause the electricity stored in the fuze capacitors to discharge harmlessly and thus neutralize the fuze.

These pictures are actually of an extra BD Discharger I had, but sold a couple years ago. It was not as nice or as complete as the one still in my collection, but I don't have pictures of the nicer one.

[WWIIBuff]

Here are a few photos showing the BD Discharger in use by British Bomb Disposal personnel of the Royal Engineers on a bomb that buried itself 30 feet under a home in London. These are stills taken from a period Bomb Disposal training film I have.