Fang Pullers

[falcon jun]

This is from the Time Magazine Capsule dated Sept. 30, 1940.

Fang Pullers

London had some new heroes last week: delayed bomb extraction teams. Londoners called them "fang pullers." The city buzzed with stories of these daring men who dug deep into the ground, lifted out still live explosives and carried them off to destroy them in open places. One sapper, sitting astride a bomb in its cavity, suddenly shouted, "Get me out of here." His helpers hauled him out with ropes in record time and were set to tun when he pointed them to the bottom of the hole and said: "There's a ruddy great rat down there."

[von Poop]

Looking for more I strolled onto a more complete version of the article:
Fang Pullers - TIME
I liked this on a large bomb threatening St. Pauls; Stirring stuff!

Day & night, for 96 tense hours, Lieut. Davies and his squad burrowed. No excitement of active combat, no military ends, no instinct to destroy the enemy urged them as they grubbed 27 feet into the wet, sandy soil. They were in constant expectation of a blinding, icy flash of death. As they dug, a gas main caught fire and began to broil the bomb. Twice on the way up the bomb slipped its tackles and fell to the bottom of the hole.

Having pottered around various Leicestershire cemeteries looking for the graves of some of these chaps, and having the backgrounds to their deaths explained by the person who needed the pictures, I'll never fail to be impressed/amazed at the stone-cold selfless bravery of anyone who climbs into a hole with a non-metaphorical 'ticking bomb'.

[jacobtowne]

More than merely impressive. Those men must have had ice water in their veins.

JT