Braver Men Walk Away, Gurney, Peter

[Lionelgee]

Originally Posted by Richard Farrant

Hi Lionel.
A good book to read on bomb disposal is "Designed to Kill" by Major Arthur Hogben, ex-Royal Engineers and it covers from WW1 to the Falklands. It was published in 1987, ISBN 0-85059-865-6. Very detailed and good number of photos in it.

My interest in this subject came from the occasional repair work on the trepanning machines used by the Royal Engineers for cutting out the fuses. These particular machines were hydraulic and operated remotely. We had some old bomb casings to use for testing.

Hello Richard,

Thank you for the detailed information about the book. There was a similar episode on the BBC TV show Danger UXB that had a drill and suction set up that would remove all the explosive from the bomb. Once the explosive was removed then the bomb disposal crew would work on the fuse. If the fuse did get tripped it restricted the damage. These fuses may have been designed with anti-tampering devices. The trepanning machines sound like a similar idea.

Kind regards
Lionel