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RAF Bomb Disposal

  • Paul Twitchell
  • Interview by: Jess Boydon

Transcript

RAF Bomb Disposal unfortunately has just been,

it's just been announced as just being disbanded

which is very sad for the trade, very sad for the air force.

However, the decision's been made

and the main proportion of Bomb Disposal

will be saturated up with the army

and some elements with the navy.

So, it's been around for a very long time,

so we've got a lot of history on 5131 Bomb Disposal Squadron

at RAF Wittering.

We specialize in air dropped weapons

whereas the army will specialize in land munitions

and the navy anything below the water level

but the commitments the RAF Bomb Disposal had

was not just conventional munitions as in rockets,

bombs, missiles, it was also IED responsibility that we had.

We're an area of operation,

so anything that's called in through the police

will get through in our area

for us to and, or for the guys

on the squadron to go and sort out.

The question about bomb disposal being dangerous

is asked all of the time

and what I say is that the training

is so good

and lengthy and continuous

that the way we look at it is if you think

you're going into a dangerous situation,

is there a way that we can make it safer first?

We're not going to go in there

to harm ourselves.

Well, unless it's a task

that would necessitate putting yourself

in danger to save another life

but that doesn't happen very often.

So, most of the time,

you risk assess a situation,

you make it as safe as you possibly can

and because that task is quite demanding

on your thought processes,

the danger eases.

The feeling of danger eases

because you know, you methodically make things safer

and with more and more tasks that you carry out,

some tasks have common things,

so you then gain experience,

so with training and experience

and a great team of lads around you, lads and lasses,

then it's not maybe as dangerous sometimes

as people may think.

  • Paul Twitchell

    © RAF Museum

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