Standing Well Back
USA

Blowing up dead animals…. really

How many frozen cows do you need to blow up to make a hamburger…… news report 

From history , here’s that famous whale – stick another couple of sticks of dynamite on there… and some more….. and some more…. here….   brilliant commentary.

1760-1770

Explosion kills 3000 people, and another 4000

Around about 1751, Benjamin Franklin became the first person to initiate explosives with electricity.  Franklin, as usual, was well ahead of other scientists around the world.  While one aspect of this research leads us to modern electrical initiation of explosives and munitions another leads us towards the hazards of lightning when associated with stored munitions, and Franklin became expert at lightning conductors for munition stores.

For the past few years I’ve been mentally filing interesting accidental explosions from history and I’m now being encouraged to gather my notes together, and indeed relay some of the intriguing aspects to these stories. Shortly you’ll see a new page on this blog dedicated to such events.

Here’s a great example:

In August 1769 lightning struck the tower of the Church of San Nazaro on Brescia, Italy.  In the vaults of the church over 200,000 pounds of explosive was stored. The resulting explosion killed 3000 people and destroyed a large part of the city.

For many centuries gunpowder was stored in churches – there seems to have been a belief that the church bells prevented lightning. Unfortunately I guess the opposite is true – the tall steeples and towers on a church actually encourage lightning strikes.  During thunder storms teams of men rang the bells in church towers in efforts to prevent thunderstorms.  During the period 1753 to 1786 lightning killed 103 French bell ringers. A triumph of belief over evidence surely.

Interestingly Franklin was extremely active in advising European governments after the Brescia event on the principles of lightning protection for munitions stores. At one stage there was a dispute over the best shaped lightning rods , with Franklin a proponent of sharp pointed rods on top of buildings and an Englishman, Benjamin Wilson urging the use of ball shaped terminals below the roof line. The argument became political, and George III decided he didn’t want American advice…. And Franklin’s conductors were replaced on several British munitions stores.  One of them in Sumatra subsequently disappeared with a bang during a  thunderstorm.

As late as 1856 gunpowder stored in a church in Rhodes was hit by lightning and it exploded killing , allegedly, 4000 people.

Non EOD interesting stuff

Time for some amateur bomb damage assessment.

Further to the recent theme, this is pretty interesting – a link to before and after photos of the explosion at the Iranian facility last week

Click on the buttons at the top of the picture in the link to tranistion from before to after. Pretty intersting stuff – no sign of a single catastrophic explosion but lots of damage and destruction of whole buildings – but not others and I thinks some bulldozing of some of the buioldings after the event. Comments from the rest of you amateur  BDA guys out there welcome :- )

I’m not sure what to think – other than its damned interesting.

2010-2020

Plata o plomo

In a previous post I detailed the use of remarkably sophisticated submarines used by South American narco gangs to smuggle cocaine. Here below are some recent images of a different range of narco developed equipment – this time “tanks” or more accurately armoured personnel carriers. All of these from Mexico where things are are pretty bad. The war between the individual cartels sometimes makes the conflict between the cartels and the police and military seem like a side show. Government officials are being cowed by the concept of “plata o plomo” – silver or lead…… they are offered both and have to make the choice.  Some people suggest that 40,000 people have been killed or “disappeared” since 2006… that’s a pretty big number and easily exceeds Iraq and Afghanistan.

As is usual , this ain’t a first, and I recall other terrorist groups improvising such things in the past. and in response cartels are now obtaining anti-tank weapons.

 

 

By the way, 2011 is Mexico’s “Year of Tourism”.

1940-1950

Bloody few are violinists…

A divergent aside from the grim world of terrorism.  I came across a fascinating historical eccentric British military figure.  He went by the name of Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO. Very non-PC. I’m digging into his life story, and honestly you couldn’t make it up.   Here’s some examples of his exploits:

  • He enlisted in the Army as a trooper in the Boer War, and was invalided home
  • He fought in British Somaliland in 1914 against the Mad Mullah
  • He was wounded 11 times in battle. He was shot through the lung (in South Africa), in the eye, and ear and arm in British Somaliland, lost his left hand in 1915, biting off his fingers when a doctor declined to remove them, shot through the skull and ankle at the Somme through the hip at Passchendale through the leg at Cambrai and through the ear at Arras.
  • In 1914 De Wiart was taken back to Britain where he had what was left of his left eye removed. By this point it was early 1915 and World War 1 was in full swing and De Wiart was informed that he could only go if he wore a glass eye (they didn’t want the Germans to think they forced to use one eyed officers), De Wiart agreed and as he left the Medical Board he took out his eye and threw it away.
    He won the VC and commanded three battalions and a brigade on the Western front
  • He was part of the British military mission to Poland after the war and retired and settled there in the 1920’s, and illegally was gun running for the Poles with the aid of a stolen train (allegedly). He was involved in a number of escapades which included shooting marauding Russian cavalry with his pistol from the footplate of a train. He then fell off the train (but jumped back on).
  • On escaping from Poland in 1939 he crossed into Romania with this terrific quote. When he got to the border the first sentry on the other side stood up and de Wiart addressed him, first in English and then in French. He said there were only three sorts of Romanians: they’re either pimps, pederasts or violinists, and bloody few are violinists….. Fortunately the Romanian sentry, thinking this was mutual regard, saluted and they passed through.
  • He commanded a pretty disastrous Norwegian campaign at the start of the German invasion there.
  • He was appointed head of the British military mission to Yugoslavia as the Nazis were poised to invade, but en route his transport aircraft crashed over the Med and he became a POW after swimming to shore. Despite his age and disability he set about working on an escape tunnel for seven months and tried to escape 5 times.  Once de Wiart evaded capture for eight days disguised as an Italian peasant, no mean feat considering that he was in northern Italy, did not speak Italian, and was 61 years old, with an eye patch, one empty sleeve and multiple injuries. Ironically, de Wiart had been approved for repatriation due to his disablement but notification arrived after his escape. As the repatriation would have required that he promise not to take any further part in the war it is probable that he would have declined anyway.
  • By August 1943 he was back in England (long story!) and was then sent to China as Churchill’s personal representative. There’s a whole book worth of anecdotes there…
  • A champagne, claret and port man, he detested whisky, liked popular music hall tunes and had no ear for classical music.
  • He married a countess, had two daughters but omitted mention of any of them (and his VC) in his autobiography. His second wife was 25 years younger then him.

I think he might be the subject of my next book…. 🙂

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