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 Post subject: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:43 am 
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BDG
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Marine, I was thinking about the subsea angle when I pulled out my collection of this great series. Hope you have seen it! Good stuff!

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:28 pm 
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PappyCain wrote:
Marine, I was thinking about the subsea angle when I pulled out my collection of this great series. Hope you have seen it! Good stuff!

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Pappy.
Yes,i have seen that series,it was all about defusing unexploded bombs,brilliant programme,brave chaps they were,i think that was quite awhile ago on the TV,if my memory serves me right,what memory i have left :)

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:35 pm 
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BDG
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The series was first broadcast between 8 January and 2 April 1979 on Monday nights at 21:00. My boxed set is on VHS tapes haha. I watch it once every year and still enjoy it.

1."Dead Man's Shoes" - Ash joins his new company and learns its mission. He is quickly given command of a section whose previous officer was blown to bits. Under the tutelage of his sergeant, he defuses his first bomb.
2."Unsung Heroes" - Ash is reprimanded, first by Captain Francis for a newspaper story about the section, then by Major Luckhurst for his reckless behaviour defusing a low-priority bomb. Ash becomes acquainted with a new officer, Ken Machin, who is billeted with him, and meets his wife.
3."Just Like a Woman" - Charged with showing Machin what to do, Ash gives in to Machin's pleadings and allows him to finish disarming what seems to be a straightforward bomb alone while Ash goes to deal with a more urgent situation. While he is gone, it explodes, killing Machin. He later learns that the dead man had only just got engaged to his "wife" and that she is pregnant.
4."Cast Iron Killer" - Ash's guilt over Machin's death is eased when it is learned that the Germans have begun boobytrapping the bomb fuses so they cannot be safely removed. A skeptical Ash delivers a disarmed bomb to Dr. Gillespie, an inventor who has come up with a novel solution: drilling a hole in the side and piping in steam to melt the explosive out. Ash meets Gillespie's married daughter Susan. During its first trial, the new method works, but Sapper Copping is killed.
5."The Silver Lining" - The section digs for a bomb in a risqué nightclub. When Susan comes up to London, Ash takes her out for a night of dining and dancing. This episode takes place in September 1940.
6."The Quiet Weekend" - Ash and Susan's relationship turns serious, and they spend a weekend together at a hotel. However, Ash is called back to work, cutting short their tryst. Susan grows impatient waiting for him and returns home to find an unexpected visitor - her husband, Stephen.
7."Digging Out" - While the section works on a bomb at an abandoned factory, Corporal Salt wanders off and finds a young woman trapped beside a second bomb with a time fuse. Without Ash's knowledge or permission, Salt and several other men take a great risk and manhandle the bomb into the nearby river just before it explodes. Later, unable to get a leave, Salt goes AWOL to try to persuade his wife to leave Manchester with their children, but a German bomb kills her and injures him. When Salt recovers, he is demoted to sapper. Major Luckhurst informs Captain Francis that he will shortly take command of the company, as Luckhurst has been promoted.
8."Bad Company" - Francis's heavy-handed measures to instill more discipline cause widespread resentment. He is particularly harsh with Ash for a more personal reason; Ash's affair with a married woman reminds him of his own wife's infidelity. When Francis is seen secretly burning papers commending Ash, Susan gets her father to use his influence, and Francis is posted to a construction unit in Scotland. Ash's men misbehave. One pawns his "best boots" to pay off a debt without knowing how he will redeem them, while another gets involved in a bar-room fight, bringing him to the attention of the military police.
9."Seventeen Seconds to Glory" - Ash helps a Royal Navy officer defuse a mine that gives a man just seventeen seconds to get clear once the clock mechanism starts. Susan's husband, working on code-breaking at Bletchley Park, has a nervous breakdown. She is advised to look after him, prompting her to break off her relationship with Ash without explaining the reason, just after he has proposed and she has accepted.
10."Butterfly Winter" - The Germans attempt to sow confusion and fear in the British countryside by dropping large numbers of food can-sized butterfly bombs from bombers. Some have impact fuses, while others are time-delayed or set off by movement. The bombs have a way of finding themselves into all manner of places, and their sheer numbers make it impossible for Ash to deal with them on his own; his entire unit down to the lowest rank must now be directly involved in securing and blowing up these bombs. Salt is killed as a result.
11."Dead Letter" - 14 months have passed since Ash and Susan broke up, but they have an awkward reunion when her father, Dr Gillespie, asks for Ash to be assigned to help him figure out how to defuse the new German Y fuse. The new design uses a mercury tilt switch to detect movement of the bomb after it lands; thus, the fuse cannot be touched. Ash is the first to try out Gillespie's solution: freezing it to neutralise its battery. Ash has a liaison with a woman who has lost the man she loves.
12."The Pier" - Susan and Ash get engaged once again following her husband's suicide. Ash's unit is relocated to Brighton. He is assigned a seaside pleasure pier that had been mined heavily in anticipation of the German invasion that never came in 1940. Ivor Rogers, now in overall command, tells Ash to delegate the work, but when a promising new officer under his command is killed by an unmarked mine, Ash goes back to work. While attempting to defuse one device, it explodes and badly injures him.
13."With Love, From Adolf" - When Norma finds out she is pregnant, she finally agrees to marry Mulley. Ash has a difficult recovery, both physically and mentally, and his relationship with Susan is strained nearly to the breaking point. He worries about being useless and discarded. When he sees Ivor about going back to work, he is sent to deal with a routine older-model bomb. Dismantling the fuse, however, Ash finds a note inside that says "With Love, from Adolf". Ivor, it seems, was testing him.

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:26 pm 
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BDG
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My research in my industry related EOD / UXO papers indicate more than 30,000 UXO bombs in the UK today ... but here is a read:

"Up to one in ten bombs dropped by the German Luftwaffe failed to detonate leaving a deadly legacy which still lies under the nation's streets and fields.

The new map will be used by builders to tell them the risks from unexploded bombs where they are working. Members of the public will also be able to access the map, which identifies 21,000 locations where there could be unexploded bombs.

Experts have studied aerial photographs taken by the RAF after the war and maps created by insurance companies to assess the extent of the bombing damage.

They have been able to pinpoint sites across the UK where unexploded munitions are most likely to be concealed. The cities with the highest number of sites are London, Plymouth, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham.

David Mole, from the Landmark Information Group, which has compiled the charts, said: "Bombs were dropped in sequence and the photographs and maps show where buildings have been demolished. From that we can work out the patterns and where there is most likely to be unexploded ordnance.

"In between the areas that were cleared by bombs are pockets that were untouched. Looking at them now, 60 years later, with detailed images of the pattern of destruction around them, you know there is a very good chance there is a bomb in the vicinity."

The online maps are available for all major cities and areas of the countryside where bombings took place.

Unexploded German bombs are still unearthed across Britain, with relative frequency, in gardens, fields, allotments and building sites, where their sudden discovery can cause lengthy and expensive disruptions.

Last month, work on the Olympic site, in east London, had to be halted, after the discovery of a 1,000kg unexploded device. A survey has found that the site could contain as many as 200 devices.

If a bomb is suspected in an area, specialist firms are able to use electromagnetic equipment to scan for buried metal that may be ordnance. They can also sink probes into the ground to search for deeply buried devices.

At the Weld Arms, a thatched pub in East Lulworth, Dorset, a 50kg bomb was unearthed last year while a new patio was being laid in the beer garden.

Krista Pall, who works at the pub, said: "It was a pretty big surprise. We don't know if there are any more around but if we find another, at least we won't be quite so surprised.

Many of the bombs dropped over Britain by the Luftwaffe were faulty and failed to explode when dropped.

Historians believe many were sabotaged by workers in occupied Europe who were forced to produce them for the Germans.

Some devices were timed to go off some time after hitting the ground, in order to maximise their disruptive and destructive effects.

However, the clockwork mechanisms jammed in several cases.

Their impact created shallow craters and they were then covered up by earth disturbed by nearby explosions or later construction work. The bombs can become inert over time, but when disturbed, the timing mechanism can restart.

Terry Charman, senior historian at the Imperial War Museum, in London, said: "It was often sheer carelessness in their manufacture that meant they didn't explode. In some cases, there was perhaps sabotage as well.

"There is still great interest when these things turn up, because for so many people it is still a living memory. Bombings were far more widespread than just in London."

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:41 pm 
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I remember one being discovered at Apps Court Farm near Walton -on-Thames about 97-98. The army was called in to dispose of it and the first I knew , I thought it was an earthquake ( I was about 5 miles away).

It made a very much bigger bang than anyone expected, killed a family of swans on the Thames and broke windows for a mile radius ! The army were very sheepish about that one.

John Betjeman would have preferred it at Slough :D

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:41 pm 
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BDG
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Things are a bit slow here these days so I will post s'more stuff:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/169787.stm

S'
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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 7:03 am 
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BDG
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So Marine ... how does this sound, (we removed a 2,500 pound German mine) subsea off your old home town!
hehe ... actually 'mitigated' it and I have the pic of the explosion ...

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Wed Feb 22, 2012 12:20 pm 
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PappyCain wrote:
So Marine ... how does this sound, (we removed a 2,500 pound German mine) subsea off your old home town!
hehe ... actually 'mitigated' it and I have the pic of the explosion ...


Pappy.

Bloody hell :!: .and here's me thinking they had found them all,must have been one hell of a bang,i bet there is a few others lurking around as well,has no-one told the jerries the war is over,and that they came second :)

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:13 pm 
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BDG
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Yikes - this is a fun read:

http://www.blissbooks.co.uk/documents/296681.pdf

Good stuff.

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 8:05 am 
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BDG
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I read too that:

"There are three main theories about what happened to Miller's plane, including the suggestion that he might have been hit by Royal Air Force bombs after an abortive raid on Siegen, Germany. One hundred and thirty-eight Lancaster bombers, short on fuel, jettisoned approximately 100,000 incendiaries in a designated area before landing." The report was they dumped them in the channel and North Sea ... I also know for a fact that US military and supply ships coming home did the same before reaching port. Subsea survey technology for sub-bottom profiling is driving many discoveries as well as the well documented discoveries on land and in rivers.

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 Post subject: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 3:26 pm 
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BDG
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Danger UXB

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 6:50 pm 
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BDG
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Phantom-o-t-Ruhr wrote:
I remember one being discovered at Apps Court Farm near Walton -on-Thames about 97-98. The army was called in to dispose of it and the first I knew , I thought it was an earthquake ( I was about 5 miles away). :D


Reminds me of the time, many years ago, when I worked shifts in a factory and in the Summer when I was on the 22.00-06.00 shift, I would go home, have breakfast, then drive to the coast (South Shields), have a swim, then sleep in the little sand dunes at the back of the beach. On one occasion, I was merrily knocking out the zeds when suddenly the ground shook violently, waking me and I jumped up to hear a loud boom and see a huge column of water spouting from the sea about 100 yards off shore. It frightened the life out of me, much to the amusement of a policeman standing a few yards away, who explained a trawler had dredged up a German bomb (probably jettisoned after a raid on Newcastle) and it had just been exploded.

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Sat Mar 24, 2012 1:33 am 
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BDG
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Wow, Pappy, that pic needs a story!


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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Sun Apr 08, 2012 5:43 pm 
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... oment.html

Yet another one, this time a mine( Daily Mail but some of it might be true !)

Sends a shiver up my spine because I used to regularly sail the Thames Estuary and east coast waters. I never realized that each time I dropped anchor, I was potentially about to join the choir in the sky. The only danger I knew of, was the SS Richard Montgomery which I passed every time I left and entered the Medway.

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The biggest UXB in UK :wink:

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 Post subject: Re: Danger UXB
PostPosted: Thu May 24, 2012 7:05 pm 
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BDG
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...............

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Last edited by PappyCain on Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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