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Show HNFOCUSl WW II bomb heroes have modern counterparts For more than a month, the fictional World War II heroes in the British television import "Danger UXB" (unexpired (unex-pired bomb) have recovered, defused and detonated German Ger-man bombs. The weekly stories sto-ries are based on actual World War II records. The series, which began on PBS's "Masterpiece Theater" in January, costars Anthony Andrews and Judy Geeson. In England today, there are real-life British counterparts to those fictional heroes the 49th Explosive Ordnance Squadron of 33 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers, based near Rochester, Kent and they continue the job of recovering unexploded bombs that still threaten public safe-ty safe-ty four decades after the blitz. It's a job that will probably go on for the next 40 years. Between 1939 and 1945, nearly a quarter of a million bombs were dropped on the United Kingdom by the Luftwaffe's bomber force. Thousands failed to detonate and it's the squadron's job to find them. Not surprisingly, "Danger UXB," was mandatory viewing view-ing for the regiment. They in turn served as technical advisors advi-sors to the producer John Hawkesworth ("Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Duchess of Duke Street") and to star Anthony Andrews. I Over the past six years, the unit's 80 military and 100 civilian personnel have recovered reco-vered 74 bombs and 187 beach and land mines, explosive "souvenirs" of WW II. Unlike their wartime predecessors prede-cessors portrayed in the PBS series, the Royal Engineers are not virtual novices who learn how to do their risky jobs as they go along. "We have books and records of all German wartime bombs, and we know what we are doing," says Major Barry Birch, whose unit handles an average of seven bomb calls a month. "It is much safer now than it was during the war." The major reports that there has not been one fatal casualty since the 1960s a far cry from the World War II rate when bomb disposers, like those in "Danger UXB," had a life expectancy of six to 10 weeks. However, the work is still dangerous, and fraught with pressures and tension. The series sparked some tense repercussions of its own during its 13-week run in England. Newly informed Britishers began to look more carefully at their wartime relics rel-ics because of the series, which meant that the real-life unit of bomb disposers were running around the country responding to bomb-scares. Many of those were more than just "scares." One father was horrified when he realized that the souvenir sou-venir in his daughter's toy cupboard was a butterfly bomb that, he had learned from one episode of the series, cannot be defused. He immediately imme-diately buried it in his garden in Brighton, Sussex, where 400 homes had to be evacuated later when Major Birch finally final-ly detonated it. Following another episode, an 80-year-old man dropped off an unexploded bomb on his local police station counter. His action emptied the station in seconds and then the army was called in. "I know it sounds mad," says Major Birch, "but we do sit around hoping we are going to get a call. We enjoy our work and occasionally we like to have the chance to do what we are trained for." Anthony Andrews (left) and Maurice Roeves in a vene from "Danger UXB." |