Sometimes war is funny.

Sometimes war is funny.

I had a mate, Neville, a Major in the Royal engineers Bomb Disposal Squad. We got on well and spent much down time together in the Falklands, after Neville had flown around blowing stuff up, unexploded ordinance.

Neville had been conned. A position had become available to administrate the Bomb Disposable squads. Explosive Ordinance Disposal, EOD.

The Colonel told Neville as he was going to be dealing with reports he needed to understand the language and techniques so he should do the month long course, followed by other more specialised courses. “OK” said an unsuspecting Neville.

When he got back, one of the teams Majors transferred, so the Colonel told Neville “your qualified, you’ve done the training take charge of the team, so Neville who thought he was going to write reports was now going to be putting his life on the line heading a team. Thats the military for you, you have to laugh. 

At any one time there were two teams lead by a Major, one based in the UK to safely deal with discovered explosives in the UK, usually unexploded German ordinance from the Second World War, discovered by someone digging a big hole, for foundations or whatever.

The second team was based in Northern Ireland, Belfast, dealing with Terrorist threats. The teams rotated about every six months. 

A lot go German bombs failed because towards the end of the war the machining of the cogs and wheels in the timer were roughly machined and had edges. Sometimes the detonator got stuck on a badly machined piece of the timer. Neville told me of his mate who was deep in a hole in London sat upon a big bomb, as he tried to work on it there was a click, and the timer started, he couldn’t get out of the hole quick enough so out of sheer anger towards this lump that might very well be about to reduce him to atoms, he picked up a big hammer and angrily hit the bomb, it stopped!

Then he made it safe!

One day Neville told me he had been tasked with blowing up in place a huge pile of Argentinian artillery shells, shells made in Britain and sold to Argentina. 105mm shells. He said it’ll be a Big Bang, “if you can get permission do you fancy coming and having a look”? 

“OK” I said it’ll be a thing to see. So I sought permission and was allowed to accompany Neville.

We were to fly out to the position in a Wessex helicopter tasked to us. So… I duly met Nev and the chopper arrived and we boarded, it flew us out and because of the fear of surrounding minefields the chopper landed as close as it could to the huge pile of shells.

Neville went to work as I watched, he set a charge and a timer which he set at fifteen minutes and after starting the timer we retreated to the chopper.

We sat down, strapped in, put on the earphones and waited. We could see the pilot and co pilot start to press buttons and flick switches….. and…. NOTHING happened! The fucking helicopter wouldn’t start and the timer was counting down right next to us!

After a short time which flew past quickly the Pilot and his opponents ripped their helmets off, leapt out and shouted “fucking run”!

And run we did, ignoring now the threat of mines we legged it like olympic sprinters towards the only small hillock visible, reaching it we hit the deck and curled up waiting scared for this Big Bang, which we were still quite close to.

Then, fate or whatever you choose to describe the unforeseen, unexpected bit us on the arse again. Neville was laid looking at his stop watch, and the fifteen minutes came and passed, no bang! We stayed there nonplussed, wandering and in the end after about twenty-five minutes Neville said “ahh fuck it” and stood up and walked back to the pile of shells. I offered to go with him, but he was quite firm, “its pointless two of us going up”!

So he had to remove his charge and timer, and placed a new timer to the Semtex and detonator. But this time we waited, and after a wait the pilots got the chopper back in action, so this time we were sure we could fly to a safe distance before Neville activated his timer, we boarded and flew to about half a mile away and just hovered waiting.

This time BOOM!!!!! It was huge and well worth waiting to see. The explosion was heard miles away in Port Stanley. It certainly was a once in a lifetime event. 

Afterwards we met in the pub, Neville myself and the pilot and co-pilot. And we just laughed at the whole thing. It was pretty funny, although its hard for people not in that sort of environment to see the funny side of nearly getting blown up, and running through a minefield.

Sadly Neville lost an arm later too a stupid mistake. The Argentinians had left lots of booby traps on their own dead bodies, in the cystern of toilets, in Stanley and other positions. One of their tricks was to pull the pin on a hand grenade which just fitted inside some mugs which held down the spoon or trigger, if you picked up the mug the grenade dropped out out and went off set to instant operation.

Sadly a tired worn out Neville fell for this. A sad end to his career. I never saw him or heard from him again. 

As an aside anyone who saw any nobility in this war should know that the locals made much money afterwards. The weather was atrocious and the locals were paid five pounds per soldier they gave space to to sleep out of the weather. They packed lads into every nook and cranny, But it became known lots of the locals were lying about the numbers they helped and made a lot of money. They also put prices up for beer in the pubs. Within two weeks the lads started referring to the locals as “BUB’s”…. Bloody Ungrateful Bastards! A sad end.