Evening star., 1943-08-24
| Land Mines Cause
Most Of Casualties
lin African War Zone
Special pispa tch TO The s.sr.

Ill Hu1SQ1l VQl EUuC
Special Dispatch TO The STAR.
WITH AMERICAN 5th ARMY
NORTH AFRICA.-American troops
here are getting intensive land mine
drills because, says 1t. Col. Aaron
w. Wyatt, mines have killed more
Americans in this theater than
small arms fire or artillery.
Col. Wyatt, former consulting en-
gineer for New York engineering
and architectural company and now
commanding officer of an engineer
training center, says this is largely
mine war. He believes, with other
officers, that the retreat to Berlin
will be mined retreat" Therefore
the use of mines and the theory OF
that type Of warfare is being strong
ly stressed in the 5th Army's vast
training program.
To date, some 1,400 student SOL
diers have gone through the center
which teaches how to combat enemy
mines, how mines may be most eff
fectively employed against the
enemy and how to use demolitions.
Col Wyatt estimates each soldier
returning to his outfit teaches at
least 80 others.
American troops going into Sicily
had 5th Army mine instruction and
the lessons they learned paid big
dividends.
Learn Use of Explosives.
Students who take the nine-day
course learn the use of explosives
first. Then they study minutelv all
Axis and Allied mines. learn their
characteristics and details, how to
! neutralize them. now to disarm
them. how they can be BOBBY
trapped. On graduation night the
students clear live mine field
under real machine gun fire. There
are plenty of BOBBY traps and DEM
olition charges Before the student
is graduated he must be able to lee
ture on the handling of any type of
mine.
"We are destroying the old bug
aboo about mines" Col. Wyatt de-
clared. 1--WE have to combat two
things-ignorance and carelessness.
These are the two prime causes of
death in the mine fields. 1t is ex-
tremely simple to clear mine field
If the men have been we'll instructed.
In the daytime you can visually de-
tect 95 per cent of the mines, no
matter how painstaking the enemy
has been IN trying to camouflage
them. At nigh you can locate
mines fairly easily with mine de-
tectors or by the prodding method. -
Because of the difficulty in get
ting sufficient detectors and the fact
that the detectors give off a hum
that can be heard half a mile on
still night, greater use is being
made OF the prodding method. In
this drill, soldiers probe the ground
at six-inch intervals. If the probe
strikes an obstruction, a mine has
probably been located. Col. Wyatt
Is now working out regular close
order rhythm drill to speed up
mine-p probing methods.
Caution Is Keynote.
The greatest necessity in mine
removal, according to Col. Wyatt.
is "a healthy caution" Fear of
mines, he adds, is only the result
Of ignorance. Students are asked
for suggestions and one soldier pro-
duced an excellent one that is be-
ing employed. BY dangling a string
IN, 0f
him, the student found he could
locate dangerous BOBBY trap trip
wires in the dark 1t was a simple
method and it works.
When we 90 onto the continent" !"
continued the colonel, I'VE can be
certain that all lines of communica-
ton, all defiles and all possible
ground where tanks can move will
be mined. There won't be the vast
belts Of the Libyan desert, but there
will be literally millions of mines
between the coasts and Berlin. At
this center we are preparing Ameri-
cans and French for the day when
they will run into these mines. Be-
cause OF instruction they will clear
them out quickly and with a mini
mum loss of life"
The 5th Army Engineer Train
ing Center has staff of 16 instruc-
tors, most of whom have worked
with mines and demolitions under
combat conditions. The head in
structor is Maj. Cecil N. Stephenson
of Norfolk, England, one of the
front-rank mine experts in Africa.
The American head instructor is
Capt. A. N. Howell. jr., of Maryville,
Tenn, who spent seven months with
the combat engineers on the Tunis-
ian front.
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