Why Ban Land Mines?
I feel I can speak with some authority, having been engaged in the
disposal of unexploded bombs and the clearing of mines on the beaches around
England for over three years from 1944 to 1948.
King George VI invited me, with many others, to help with the Second World
War, as a soldier. Starting in September 1944, I underwent a short training
period and then was posted to The Royal Engineers training base at Fulwood
Barracks, Ripon, Yorkshire. After more training, we were selected for different
branches of the Corps. They claimed that I had volunteered for Bomb
Disposal. I was asked in front of 200 men if I had any objections. They
issued me with a red, yellow and blue bomb insignia to sew on my sleeve and
I was picked up with some other recruits in a personnel carrier with red
mudguards (fenders if you are in the Americas).
Around the South and East coasts of England in the first years of the war
thousands of anti-tank/anti-personnel mines were laid. They were known as "B
type C" mines, capable of destroying a tank yet delicate enough to be exploded
by anyone weighing more than sixty pounds. High seas and strong winds had
moved, buried, and even turned them over. Some were as deep as six feet under the
sand. Some had exploded and, in sympathy, others had exploded too.
"Sympathetic detonation" made it hard to locate them.
"Hundreds of troops are dying on the beaches", wrote one newspaper in 1946.
They were not exaggerating. I witnessed 6 mistakes. They were not accidents!
Eleven people died as a result. An accident happens when nobody does anything
wrong. In each case someone made a mistake. Our choice was to leave the mine
marked with a cone to be detonated later or to attempt to disarm it. The wrong
decision could be a fatal mistake. Possibly the metal detector was not tested
before searching and didn't signal the presence of the mine and they just walked
onto it. We had strict routines to follow.
German prisoners of war stayed in England after the war ended and were
used by the Royal Engineers to clear the beaches of anti-invasion devices such
as barbed wire and concrete blocks, etc. One, a very likeable German Soldier,
drove a bren gun carrier and used it to pull wire barricades down after the mines had
been cleared and it should have been safe to do so. Sadly the engineers who laid
the mines to a set plan, decided to put an extra mine under the wire. This
mistake was made by an over zealous engineer who thought he would be catching an
invader.
It exploded, killing the friendly POW. We buried him with full
military honors in the cemetery at Hursley near Winchester. Perhaps the only
enemy personnel to be killed by these useless mines that were never needed
and would not have delayed an invader for more than a few minutes.
My reason for writing this is to point out that the cost in tragedy of
mine laying and clearing is much higher than the effect of delay that might
be expected in the case of an invasion. Hundreds of allied military
personnel, civilian men, women, children, and family pets are dead, killed on
minefields in England. The last case I heard of, was a horse and rider, on a
cliff side path, long after the war had ended.
Land mines respect neither age, sex, rank or even which side you are on.
Geoffrey Jennings
Ex Corporal, Royal Engineers, Bomb Disposal
Squadrons 22, 16 and 10.
Canadian Land Mine Foundation
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